[Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread En Pine
I have two suggestions about templates. I don’t know if Steven’s the right person to ask about these particular ideas so I’m sending this email to him and CCing it to Foundation-l. First, has anyone thought about automatically adding a welcome message to the user’s talk page when they first

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread David Gerard
On 22 March 2012 08:37, En Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: First, has anyone thought about automatically adding a welcome message to the user’s talk page when they first register, not only for EN but also for Commons, Simple, and other projects? Is there any evidence anyone reads the

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Ray Saintonge
On 03/22/12 1:37 AM, En Pine wrote: First, has anyone thought about automatically adding a welcome message to the user’s talk page when they first register, not only for EN but also for Commons, Simple, and other projects? Currently we require a human to do this, which means that lots of

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread En Pine
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:41:18 + From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates Message-ID: CAJ0tu1G_oGoEqB84B6BzO1Okd6k4LPoC8R6NB4H+TWX-=ps...@mail.gmail.com

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread David Gerard
On 22 March 2012 10:47, En Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Your tone comes across as harsh. I believe this is actually an objection to the content of my post rather than its formatting. Do you have any positive suggestions about how to improve editor retention? This is evidence you

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread David Gerard
On 22 March 2012 10:56, En Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Why would you not want to provide people guidance before they've made their first edit, and why not provide them some encouragement to edit in a welcome message? Because in practice, new editors don't read them - they think the

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Cynthia Ashley-Nelson
I've read the responses over the past 24 hours and have followed the suggestions made by Pine. I appreciate her proactive manner with addressing issues and lack that she sees. While some may not agree with the automatic welcome template idea, at least she's actively working toward and presenting

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Nathan
Let's separate the two elements of a welcome message - one is an actual welcome, a personal exchange that should be provided by a human being. The other is the provision of useful information, links to policies and guidelines and the sort of how-to information that anyone should have easy access

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Cynthia Ashley-Nelson
Very good ideas Nathan. FWIW, I've only been reading this list for about a year and a half or so. I present a lot of welcome messages, but always check the user's editing history first, to ascertain which one would be appropriate. Then, if they are continuing to edit a month later, I try to

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Steven Walling
These are both great questions Pine. On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 1:37 AM, En Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: First, has anyone thought about automatically adding a welcome message to the user’s talk page when they first register, not only for EN but also for Commons, Simple, and other

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Bod Notbod
On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:02, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: It's been discussed on-wiki before and firmly rejected (too lazy to dig it out). In the spirit of co-operation, I shall dig for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Use_a_bot_to_welcome_new_users Bod

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread WereSpielChequers
Gerard) -- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:53:47 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] User talk

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Nathan
) -- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:53:47 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates Message-ID: 4f6af6ab.30

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Will Takatoshi
WereSpielChequers wrote: ... our steadily increasing proportion of spammers Where are you seeing that?  I've been monitoring COIBot report contribution numbers and it seems about constant over the years to me. and the large increase in our proportion of vandals since 2005 The proportion

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Cynthia Ashley-Nelson
In Twinkle, we can add a custom Welcome message. Is it possible to create a customized Welcome template that allows the user to insert a personalized message to the Twinkle interface? Or even make changes to the existing templates that allows users to insert a personal message prior to placing on

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Steven Walling
On Mar 22, 2012 8:46 PM, Cynthia Ashley-Nelson cindam...@gmail.com wrote: In Twinkle, we can add a custom Welcome message. Is it possible to create a customized Welcome template that allows the user to insert a personalized message to the Twinkle interface? Or even make changes to the existing

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Michael Snow
On 3/22/2012 9:00 PM, Steven Walling wrote: On Mar 22, 2012 8:46 PM, Cynthia Ashley-Nelsoncindam...@gmail.com wrote: In Twinkle, we can add a custom Welcome message. Is it possible to create a customized Welcome template that allows the user to insert a personalized message to the Twinkle

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Steven Walling
On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.comwrote: Wow, handwritten? I didn't know MediaWiki was going to skip straight past WYSIWYG to OCR. Is it time to start weeding out editors with bad penmanship? Wikipedians: they cut you no slack whatsoever for imprecise

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Cynthia Ashley-Nelson
I'm gonna hafta (sic) work on my handwriting. It's atrocious. ;) Have to good night! On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:54 PM, Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:45 PM, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote: Wow, handwritten? I didn't know MediaWiki was going

Re: [Foundation-l] User talk templates

2012-03-22 Thread Keegan Peterzell
Automated welcome message are tricky on the English Wikipedia, because it's a tricky place to figure out why someone is editing, and how to communicate with them. A large number of contributors with new accounts either do not have a native level of English, are editing just because they can, are