Wikipedia talk:Welcoming committee/Archive 4

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Welcoming template for Notable Wikipedians

I'm starting to notice how Wikipedia's templates in regards to users which are subjects to their articles seem to be harsh, at the least (i.e. {{uw-autobiography}}, which sounds like the user is doing something wrong because they came to Wikipedia). I've already ran across three notable people who I was able to identify as possible subjects of the respected articles they edit. And even if they register a username as their own name, they end up on WP:RFC/N because of WP:U. Can someone make a welcome template which explains to them in a friendly way what's expected of a notable wikipedian? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiLeon (talk • contribs) 23:36, 24 March 2007

This is needed; for example, Dan Bricklin has joined us, and is already well informed about COI issues and is steering clear of those issues. So what information should notable people need to know about? BLP protections; COI; any thing else? John Vandenberg 05:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I would say both those as well as WP:AB. But first we need a message that makes them feel welcome that they are on Wikipedia. --w^{L<speak·check>} 10:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent idea. (If you can`t find my user page, it`s because I`m in the process of writing it and haven`t saved anything yet.) And Nothing But (talk) 06:02, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Seeking help

I am creating a page to store some templates that I can access while watching RC's. Wanting to keep various welcome message templates where I can access them quickly I copied and pasted them to my page. Of course, now the welcome messages are displaying on the page instead of the templates. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance Tiderolls 11:48, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

The Help desk may be the best place for this question but I will try to answer. Use "nowiki" tags like: {{subst:welcome-anon}} (edit this section to see the code I have used).--Commander Keane (talk) 02:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

That works...thanks Tiderolls 03:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Please test my NICE interface modification

I've been working on a tool with some of my lab-mates. It makes a minor modification to the Wikipedia:UNDO interface. The tool is intended to make communication between editors better during reverting. We are trying to do a proper study of it to see if it actually helps or not. If you would be willing to give it a try, you can find more information here.

If you have questions, suggestions or comments, please feel free to contact me. --EpochFail ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Welc-anon parameters mis-numbered?

Please see the discussion regardiing {{Welc-anon}} at Template_talk:Welc-anon#Parameters mis-numbered?. Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 21:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Article wizard 2.0

Hi, I've added references to the new Article Wizard 2.0 to a number of welcome templates, including {{Firstarticle}} and {{Welcome}}. I hope this is OK in principle, and if you don't like the way I did it, please let me know and suggest an alternative. Rd232 ^talk 11:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow I love it! I added a little pointer on one page because I wasn't too sure how to proceed, but I didn't change the following pages, perhaps there is a better way. You could also drop a note for the helpers at Wikipedia talk:Help desk, it could be their tool of choice.--Commander Keane (talk) 11:36, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Not sure about the pointer being necessary, but I'm not the target audience, so I'm not going to argue. I've left a message at Wikipedia talk:Help desk - thanks for the tip. Rd232 ^talk 13:07, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Tagging page for help project

First, I must say great work on a noble cause, folks! - New editors are the lifeblood of WP... :)

You may notice occasional

appear on some of your related pages, this is an attempt to provide another avenue to cooperate and coordinate the help pages in general, and maybe provide inter project links between its specific areas (such as the welcoming committee). Hopefully we can make each another's tasks easier :) L∴V 01:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Developing a personalized welcome message generator

Hi there. I am a computer science PhD student at University of Minnesota, and am considering developing a program that can automatically generate personalized welcome messages that recommend specific WikiProjects for new editors to join, specific articles for them to edit, and specific senior editors that may match their interest and be willing to adopt them. Building such a program requires a fair amount of knowledge in information retrieval and social computing, but is certainly possible. In fact, using similar techniques, a former graduate from my lab has successfully built and deployed SuggestBot, a bot capable of recommending articles for Wikipedians to edit.

Because developing a personalized welcome message generator is pretty demanding, I would like to hear what people think about this idea before investing tons of time into it. In particular I am wondering whether I should build my generator into a tool, ask people to sign up and then post welcome messages themselves, or if I can just create a bot that posts the message on new editors' talk pages automatically. I am currently more inclined to the bot approach, because the algorithm itself won't require human intervention, so making it a tool just adds additional complexity. On the other hand, I have found prior discussions here and here rejecting welcome bots. Nevertheless, as far as I can tell, those rejected bots can only post pre-defined messages, which is pretty different from what I am proposing here. What do people think?

This idea is still at an early stage and I would appreciate suggestions from people who are more experienced in welcoming. I would also like to know if I should post this idea to other places for more feedback, given that this welcoming committee talk page doesn't seem to be very active.

People who are skeptical about my identity or credential are welcomed to check my user page. I am open to all sorts of comments and will try my best to follow the Wikipedia way. Wondrousrecall (talk) 22:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I can tell you that getting the bot approved will take a very strong community consensus in favor given the history of consensus against welcome-bots. Anomie⚔ 01:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I am aware that "welcome bot" is on the frequently denied bots list, so I decided to be cautious and first ask for input here. However, as you can see, I am not trying to post welcome templates as commonly proposed, so if you review my application and cite prior consensus, I'd say that consensus is just for a different thing. Frankly speaking, I feel welcome template in itself makes the welcome message cold and impersonal, especially since in most welcome messages I've seen, people just paste in the template of 20+ guideline links, a signature, and no more. It doesn't feel personal at all. And even this spammy template posting seems to become inactive now --- I have created my current account for several good hours now, and my talk page is still a red-link. Wondrousrecall (talk) 02:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it may be fair to distinguish the rejected bots from Wondrousrecall’s proposal. I see the present proposal as directed to “newish” editors, as opposed to brand-new editors. I haven’t read the rejection reasons for denying welcome bots, but I presume the concern is that a brand-new person ought to be welcomed in a truly personal way, and a bot has the potential of a clumsy introduction to the place and isn’t the right way to start.

In contrast, while Wondrousrecall uses the term “new editors”, that simply means that editors with a few years experience have learned their way around, and aren’t as likely to find the advice illuminating. The best targets are newer editors, but possibly not the very newest editors. If the algorithm looks at edit history to draw inferences about the editors interests, the first couple edits may be valuable information, but could also be misleading.

If Wondrousrecall were to impose some lower limit, say, two months and 300 edits, and promise that the bot would only target editors over that hurdle, it might appease the bot police, while simultaneously reducing the false positives.SPhilbrickT 15:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Sphilbrick. I would like to clarify that when I say new editors, I do mean newbies with only a few (~10 or less) edits, like me. :) Those are the people who really need a personalized welcome message that can point them to a mentor, a project, or some specific tasks within a project. 300 edits is just too high a bar. There are 1.8 million editors with at least one edit in the latest full dump I have, and only about 35,000 of them have more than 300 edits. Welcoming only top 2% editors just doesn't sound very useful.

And what's the best personalized welcome message we can give to newbies anyway? As a human being, if I see a newbie made only 3 edits, one on University of Minnesota, one on Grand Portage National Monument and one on Duluth,_Minnesota, I probably would suggest him/her to check WikiProject Minnesota. As you can see, it's not simply about number of edits, it's about the confidence that I think my recommendation would be a good one. I can tune my bot so that it only makes personalized welcome messages when it is confident as well. We are not risking anything here, because for such a newbie, there is so little information anyway that a human being welcomer won't be able to do a much better job either.

And the sad fact is, many welcome messages that human beings post now contain template only. You can see the one I just get at User talk:Wondrousrecall as an example. Personally I would rather receive a bot posted message that is personal to my interest, even though the suggestion may not be perfect, but not receiving a cold template with a signature. Wondrousrecall (talk) 18:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

The reason people use templates is that if they didn't exist, it would be far too time-consuming to welcome people at all. Personalisation drops out of that, though to what extent different templates are perceived as "cold" is hard to say. Anyway, in principle a bot that really did what you say would be superior in practice from the new user's point of view to current template usage. The problem is (and this is one major reason why welcome bots have been opposed) is that an automated process which turns user talk red links blue makes it harder for humans to spot new users in Watchlists, Recent Changes etc. Edits by such new users obviously merit more attention. You could get around this objection perhaps by asking for a software change to identify new users in a different, more explicit way - but the list of requested software changes grows longer by the day (for all I know, this is already on the list). Anyway without such a change, objections to running a welcome bot, however sophisticated the bot in principle or even in practice, are probably not going to be overcome. Sorry, but that's the reality. One way to deal with that, for now, would of course be to limit messages to new users who already have a message (so the link is already blue). That might be a lot less appealing, but for new users the first message may not be a welcome message at all, and if it is you could detect that and customise appropriately, based as you say on analysing their edits and coming up with suggestions on Places of Interest. Anyway, on this issue you should certainly post at Wikipedia:Bot requests as well. Rd232 ^talk 08:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Rd232. The reason you give is an interesting one that I wouldn't have thought of. On my part it is actually easier to build a tool that can show newbies explicitly in edit history, and probably show even more, such as whether any of their last 5 edits have been reverted. I'll probably think more about that then for now... Wondrousrecall (talk) 01:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, you might want to watch Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 31#Welcome Bot - advanced version, as this pre-empts some of what you suggest (though feel free to hijack my proposal and add your own ideas). ϢereSpielChequers 18:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Characteristics of new Wikipedians

Hi, I'm a researcher at the University of Minnesota, collaborating with Wondrousrecall and Fortetuba. In a project aimed towards new editors in Wikipedia, we've found that it would be useful if we knew more about what the Wikipedia community regards as a successful newbie.

Could you help us out a little? What do you see are the characteristics of a successful newcomer? We're thinking "Not doing vandalism" is one of them, given that it's mentioned in the welcoming etiquette, but that's about as far as we get. Are there specific policies or guidelines that they learn and refer to? Do they perform certain types of work? How often do they return, or do they not necessarily return? Etc...

Appreciate any input we can get, and questions are of course welcome. Thanks in advance! Regards, Nettrom (talk) 19:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, a successful new user is one who is respectful of her fellow editors and willing to learn about our policies and guidelines. If these two basic qualities are met, one can usually edit happily and productively alongside other editors for as long as one wishes. Starting out, everyone makes mistakes and innocently "breaks" our policies in ignorance, which is why the willingness to learn is important, as well as being polite and noncombative when experienced editors point out their mistakes to them. That's my view anyway. Good luck with your research! -kotra (talk) 21:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for taking the time to comment! What you write sounds reasonable to me. Being a computer science researcher I find that some of this might be difficult to get at with systems (e.g. respect), while other parts could be easier. I'll keep these things on my list as we go forwards. Thanks again! Nettrom (talk) 15:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with kotra that policies and guidelines around content aren't as important for newcomers to follow as policies and guidelines around behavior, mainly Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Etiquette, and Wikipedia:Assume good faith. Even experienced editors take a long time to be completely familiar with all of the policies and guidelines, and they still will make mistakes. As long as new editors are civil and are trying to be helpful, they'll be successful. I don't consider where users work in Wikipedia an indicator of success because there's always work to be done in many areas. Ideally, I'd like new users to return regularly to keep editing indefinitely, but I know that's unrealistic, and real life issues will get in the way of that. --Mysdaao ^talk 16:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input! Good point about the policies regarding behaviour, and thanks for listing them, it might be possible to look for them when we analyse data. I believe we'd like them to return too, we'll see if we can do something about that. :) And again, thanks for your comments! Nettrom (talk) 17:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I have been active for less than one year. Up until 2009, my (very infrequent) contributions to Wikipedia, made primarily while logged out, were perhaps 80% minor typo/formatting fixes and 20% unproductive edits and absurdist vandalism. (For this reason, I strongly oppose the habit some administrators have of permabanning new accounts which have made mostly productive edits, but three or four recent acts of vandalism... I've seen some absolutely egregious cases of this happening before, such as when a new user is bitten and overreacts disruptively. Even when there's a legitimate complaint, some admins would rather permaban than talk things out.) Around February of this year, I got involved in monitoring and fixing up articles pertaining to my former university. I made many errors and spent a lot of time poring over documentation and policies, but I did not get bitten because of the relatively inactive nature of those pages. (What I'm trying to say is that if I were trying to contribute in high-traffic areas, I fully expect that my earlier attempts at contributions would have been resoundingly rolled back and rejected, and that I would have gotten a bucket full of single-issue notices, warning templates, and cryptic links to WP:PAGENAMEGOESHERE policies.) So I consider myself lucky that I got to start out as a small fish in a small pond, as it were- I could learn and grow as a Wikimedian in a nonthreatening environment. As I've continued to expand the scope of articles and projects I participate in, I do occasionally get belittled by someone who has a greater depth of knowledge about policies (as in, my ideas and opinions have been discounted because I was unfamiliar with a nuance of policy) but this has thankfully been rare. As far as innate qualities go, I consider myself to be a successful new Wikimedian because I'm not afraid to read pages and pages and pages of policy and WP:MOS entries, I'm not afraid to ask for help (I just used a helpme template a day or two ago for an obscure redirect-related question), and I'm not afraid to admit when I make a mistake. But as far as ecology is concerned, I think I was able to successfully establish myself precisely because no one pounced on my early mistakes, and so I was able to think things through, learn the ropes at my own pace, and not feel as though my process of learning made me a mere annoyance to established editors. —Notyourbroom (talk) 23:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences! Lots of great things here that I've noted and will take with me. I find the idea of a fairly safe but visible place to start working as interesting, sounds like something we can probably test. Cool, thanks again! Nettrom (talk) 23:07, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I noticed your thing on WT:AAU. Well, I don't do any of that, but I noticed it there anyway and had time to kill felt like contributing. Anyway. Perhaps it can also be applied to any user, new and old, but I personally consider a good user to be simply respectful, and open minded to ideas. Once those two fundamental things are down, you can pretty much do anything. Being able to take advice from both the written policies and from other editors, would really help some people into becoming a good editor. You can't really expect everyone to sit down and read everything, though, so an alternative quality is also a strong common sense. Most of the basic policies and guidelines are really just that. I myself, didn't really pay much attention, and I still don't, to a point. When I'm in a discussion, I'm often able to just find a policy that matches my opinion quite nicely. I'm not really sure if my ways would be common to all newcomers, though... but I think that it's something that can even be applied as a way of life, of sorts.

I might also consider a third fundament, where one is able to understand the ideas of neutrality. This would really be applied more strongly when doing much larger and detailed things, such as writing entire sections or articles. I don't really consider certain types of work to be a sign of a good newcomer, except for diving into the bureaucratic stuff, which is definitely a veteran's job. Same goes for the amount of activity; people have lives, and whatnot.

- Zero1328 _Talk? 03:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pitching in! As far as I can read, parts of your comments echo what Kotra also mentioned. I agree with you that neutrality can be considered as an additional fundament. With my modest experience editing Wikipedia, I've noticed that it's hard to get neutrality right (to the extent that it's possible), but is fun to work on getting there.

You mentioned that that you're often able to find policies that match your opinion. If you don't mind me asking, do you see a lot of discussions ending up as a clash of policies? So far on my ventures in Wikipedia I don't think I've seen any considerable discussions where people were throwing policies at each other, but I guess they do exist.

Thanks again for your comments! Nettrom (talk) 16:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nettrom. If you are interested in disputes where there are policy based disagreements, I would suggest checking out the Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), Wikipedia talk:Sock puppetry or Wikipedia talk:SPEEDY. ϢereSpielChequers 16:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Not my main area, but still curious about it, thanks for the links! Nettrom (talk) 17:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure about cases where people just throw conflicting policies around, and I'm not really sure if there are any. Like I said, I don't usually give a strong attention towards them. When I'm trying to discuss something, I try to use my own reasoning and words, but in some cases I try to cite a policy. Having a third opinion, or evidence of a general consensus of methods, sometimes helps with what I'm trying to say, especially with someone new, or a one-on-one discussion. Regardless of that, I'm also aware of how nothing's set in stone, which is reflected in WP:IAR. - Zero1328 _Talk? 21:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't read your first comment closely enough, noticed now that you did point out that they weren't the focus of your attention, sorry 'bout that. Good point about WP:IAR. Thanks again! Nettrom (talk) 17:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Hah, I just stumbled across WP:COMMON and WP:NOCOMMON. Pretty much describes the alternative qualities I described, in contrast to following too many policies. - Zero1328 _Talk? 01:59, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Is there an organized way of welcoming new members?

From my own observations it seems that those who are welcomed here with open arms, go on and become good contributors, and vice verse. When I first joined Wikipedia, more than 2 years ago, I was bitten by three different individuals before being finally welcomed by a fourth. This left me feeling ambivalent about participating here (I have only become more active recently, when some of the damage was undone by an unknown wiki-fairy).

Not knowing any better I assumed that such occurrences were a thing of the past, but I just came across another new wannabe wikipedian who joined recently and has not been properly welcomed, I think (?) So, I wonder, is there a way to identify newcomers and make sure they get welcomed before someone bites them? Is there a standard recommended welcome mat? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Just wondering if anyone is reading this? Ottawahitech (talk) 13:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There's the new user log. Otherwise you just welcome new users as you see them. Malinaccier P. (talk) 15:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much for mentioning the new user log. I haven’t seen any reference to it before (note to self: something to investigate). These are my observations after surfing this list:

• the vast majority of newly registered wikipedians do not get welcomed AND do not contribute any content (is it the chicken or the egg?)
• the only wikipedians who have been welcomed recently are those who have "broken" some rule – so the welcome is not a real welcome but a prelude to a quick deletion (or whatever the term may be – sorry I am not up on wiki-jargon yet)
• In other words there are many wikipedians happy to wield the whip, but few, if any, who are content to just say hello
• I checked this one particuar new wikipedian (14:12, 8 December 2008 Cypress music (talk | contribs) account created automatically ‎)
  • This person got a welcome by a BOT
  • He got the welcome after he contributed good content months after he joined
  • He made a few contributions between April of 2009 and July of 2009 and then stopped Ottawahitech (talk) 13:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The only way to automatically welcome new users would be to use a bot, and that is repeatedly rejected, for the reasons at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Use a bot to welcome new users. Any automatic way would welcome accounts that never make an edit as well as vandals, which is not the purpose of the welcomes. It just requires volunteers to determine who is constructively contributing, welcome them, and then assist the newcomers afterwards. --Mysdaao ^talk 17:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Plenty of Wikis do welcome all users, and I think the Bot will come in here eventually - the most recent proposal had a failsafe to avoid welcoming vandals or people who haven't yet edited, and a delay so that manual welcomers could still get in first; So the reason why its at Peren now seems to be mainly inertia. As for welcoming new users, I find myself doing it far more now that I've installed Wikipedia:Friendly as this means its only three clicks. But overall we are doing badly - a recent Study indicates that we still have a problem with the way we treat newbies. ϢereSpielChequers 17:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all! Just going through all this information takes so much time, wonder if I will ever have the time to actually contribute here. It's so fascinating though... so much to do - so little time :-) Ottawahitech (talk) 09:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Is there a Welcome patrol?

Just found this, so I am wondering if there is a Welcomwe patrol and if not why not? Ottawahitech (talk) 02:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Welcomless

Hi, I've found a welcomless user. They're talk page is here. I'm moderately new so don't want them to ask me questions I can't answer. Thank you in advance. Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 18:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I have welcomed the user. Thank you for pointing this out to us. If you want to welcome new users without offering to answer their questions, you may want to try {{W-link}} or {{Welcom}}. --Mysdaao ^talk 18:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, once again. It seems you are destined to keep helping me! Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 19:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! And I will help you again in the future should you need it! --Mysdaao ^talk 19:36, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Since I just incidentally found this page, I needed to file this complaint now. I wonder how a welcome committee could ever be able to welcome every newcomer on the project... just as I was not welcome. I would have very much appreciated to be welcome by a bot, just to save me all the pain I was going through the first hundred edits, finding out about wiki markup language, style guide, templates, wp:x"$X3 abbreviations, toolbars and -boxes, and so on and so on. I do not buy the argument given at WP:Perennial_proposals#Use_a_bot_to_welcome_new_users that an automated welcome by a bot would deter newbies at all. Thanks, Nageh (talk) 17:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Nageh, the last time we discussed a welcomeBot at Bot requests was in October 2009. The discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive_31#Welcome Bot - advanced version, normally I'd suggest not reraising a perennial proposal until firstly there has been a 6 month gap since it was last discussed, and secondly you have found responses to the main objections. On this occasion I think the main holdups were that no bot writer volunteered to write it and that it was suggested that the media wiki interface could be improved to make one of the welcome screens stick around longer. I think the latter could be a runner as there has been a lot of money spent recently to improve usability features. But if nothing happens by April feel free to revive the idea, if nothing happens by the Summer I may refile it myself, but I don't plan on being online much in the Spring. ϢereSpielChequers 17:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I will follow the next discussion on this topic. Nageh (talk) 18:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed change

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I propose the standard template to change from {{W-graphical}} to {{W-tips}}. Please discuss:

Support

1. Support Samwb123^{Please read} 23:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
2. Support Has a lot of good information that new users need but isn't in other welcome templates (except in links given). I also like the clear button to make it easy to ask for help. --Mysdaao ^talk 16:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

1. I like the fruit, but I'm not sure about either don't be a Dick or Ignore all rules as lead items. Also the whole thing is a wall of text. personally I prefer using much shorter welcomes like {{welcomecookie}} and then personalising them if appropriate. ϢereSpielChequers 17:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

When I look at it again, I think you're right that it shouldn't have "Don't be a dick" and "Ignore all rules" near the top. Having "Don't be a dick" at the top in a different color makes it look like an accusation that might bite new users, and "Ignore all rules" can be misunderstood by new users. Some cleanup could be done to make sure it's as welcoming as possible. --Mysdaao ^talk 00:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right, too. I changed it to be a little more friendly. Samwb123^{Please read} 01:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done, more friendly and less bitey. Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 22:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments

1. User:Samwb123/Helpme and User:Samwb123/Helpintro should be moved to subpages under Template:W-tips. --Mysdaao ^talk 16:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Samwb123^{Please read} 22:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Template:Welcom

For your consideration, {{Welcom}} was nominated for deletion. If interested, please have a look at the reasoning in the discussion first, and then voice your opinion there. Amalthea 16:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Proposed change 2

I propose changing the standard welcome template from {{subst:W-graphical}} to {{subst:W-FAQ}}. {{W-FAQ}} is based on {{W-tips}}, but in my opinion, is better.

1. Support as nominator. Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 00:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
2. Oppose we have lots of different welcome templates, there is no one standard one. Different editors will use different templates according to their personal choice and sometimes even the behaviour of the editor they welcome; That diversity is to be welcomed as it makes all templates appear more personal. While I don't use either the graphical one or the fruit one I'm happy for both to remain in use by others. However I would be somewhat narked if I suddenly found that one of my favourites had been transformed. I would suggest you consider incremental improvements in existing templates, or design totally new ones, rather than try to standardise all on one style. ϢereSpielChequers 09:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
3. Oppose It's very long and is likely to intimidate new users and cause them to think contributing to Wikipedia is too complex. We already have a FAQ, so there's no reason to duplicate information when a link to existing information will be just fine. It's good as an option for those that want to use it, but I don't think it should be a standard recommendation to those who want to welcome new users. And Samwb123 was referring to the fact that {{W-graphical}} was listed as the "standard template" right on Wikipedia:Welcoming committee (he has since removed it). --Mysdaao ^talk 20:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. OK. How 'bout I create another page with the FAQ on the template, and link to that page? This proposed change is irrelevant though because I already said that there are three "standard" welcome templates... Samwb123^{T (R)-C-E} 22:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

And that has already been changed to show just two by removing {{W-FAQ}}. I agree with that editor that it shouldn't be listed on Wikipedia:Welcoming committee as a "standard" template, even if there are other standard ones in the same sentence.

I'm not going to revert your suggested change to {{W-FAQ}} if you make it, but why create a FAQ at all when Wikipedia already has one? Many other welcome templates link to it. Is there something about the existing FAQ that you feel is insufficient or incomplete? --Mysdaao ^talk 13:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

request for assistance

I often am accused of biting the newbies and do not want to do so now, as in this example, but I am so sorely tempted. Would someone on the committee take some time and use your skills in gracefullness to welcome this new editor - and advise him (or her) gently and constructively? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 17:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Experimental research study targeting newly registered users

I have made a bot approval request for SuggestBot, planning to use it in a research experiment where we'll be targeting a number of newly registered users. The reception of the project has so far been good, and the Bot Approval Group has approved a 50-user trial, which I plan to start as soon as possible. This means that you might encounter a SuggestBot posting on a new user's talk page, as we'll be doing a few once a day over the next week or so. Should you have concerns about this, feel free to let me know either here or on the bot request discussion. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 18:21, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the notice.

Will Suggestbot also be adding a welcome template to those users who haven't already got one?

Will you be posting the results of your research here?

Regards, œ^™ 13:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

We decided not to go with a welcome template because that would result in a study that we were concerned would not be approved by the Wikipedia community, for instance because we'd have to double our sample size and post welcome messages to some randomly chosen users. Instead we will control for the effects of a welcome in our analysis afterwards.

Most of the research papers our research group publishes is available through our list of publications. We are aiming to have the results of this study published at a peer-reviewed article at a conference and should then again make it available through our website. I'll probably also have a publications section added to SuggestBot's user page by then, as there's already been two papers published. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Looking forward to reading the results. -- œ^™ 14:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Just stopping by again to notify everyone that our bot approval request for our research experiment has been approved. We will start the experiment as soon as we can, and we will posting suggestions to about eight to ten users a day for the next eight weeks, so similar to when we did our 50-user trial you might bump into SuggestBot every now and then. If you see something that you think isn't right, please do let us know either on SuggestBot's talk page or my talk page, and feel free to ask if you have any questions. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 18:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Online Ambassadors program now accepting applications

I want to invite people active with welcoming and helping new users to apply for the Wikipedia Online Ambassadors program. It's a program for helping new users through their early edits, and will focus on students who are assigned to edit Wikipedia in their courses; it's part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative right now (see Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy and the Signpost article about it), and will hopefully be the basis for a longer-term effort at improving the way we nurture newbies. --Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 15:31, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Welcoming new editors by pointing them towards well-matched Adopters

Wikipedia's Adopt-a-User program is currently a successful approach for matching up new Wikipedia editors ("adoptees") with more experienced editors ("adopters") who can serve as mentors. Some of you might be familiar with SuggestBot; it allows Wikipedia editors (who sign up) to get automated recommendations as to what articles they may be interested in editing. The same technology could be used for matching experienced editors with new editors that share similar interests. In other words, instead of matching editors to articles, it could match editors to editors. I'm considering the idea of developing a variant of SuggestBot for Adopt-a-User. (I'm a researcher on sabbatical at the University of Minnesota, working with the SuggestBot folks.) The piece of this that intersects with the Welcoming Committee is that this might be a way to help make a welcome to a new editor more personal. When welcoming a new user, the welcomer could choose to mention the Adopt-a-User program and point the new editor towards a bot which would generate a short list of potential adopters from those who have already put themselves on the list of available adopters. Alternatively, the welcomer could directly utilize the bot to generate that list before contacting the new editor, and post that list of potential adopters directly as part of the new editors welcome. I'm treading carefully here because I understand the resistance to using bots to welcome new editors; rather, I'm proposing having human welcomers utilize a tool to make their personal welcome more personal. I've already asked for opinions for this on the Adopt-A-User talk page, as well as the Village Pump, and of course, I'd have to go through the bot approval process before implementing this, but I wanted to see first if there was support in this community. Would you support this concept? SeparateWays (talk) 19:24, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Sounds interesting! I'd support. (I'm probably the only one who watches this page though) -- œ^™ 08:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I watch this page also ;) Actually 178 do. Sounds like a good idea.--Commander Keane (talk) 08:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Ok let me rephrase then, we're two of the few that actually pay attention to, care about, and have the courtesy to respond to comments on this page. ;) -- œ^™ 17:04, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Great -- thanks to both of you (OlEnglish and Commander Keane) for the response. SeparateWays (talk) 17:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Welcommittee

I suggest renaming the Welcoming Committee to Welcommittee, à la Wikinews. —Waterfox (talk) 14:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, that's not a bad idea, and it sounds catchy. However I don't think it's necessary to change a long-established name at this point. It'd be interesting to hear what others think though.. -- œ^™ 00:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Hah. I like it. --Danger (talk) 02:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

How about "Mini-Welc" after 1984? Rich Farmbrough, 18:40, 28th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

Welcome templates for foreign language speakers

I think I remember a set of welcome templates for users who speak foreign languages, but I can't find it now. Can anyone help me with this? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

They are in Category:Poor English welcome messages. --Mysdaao ^talk 12:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Category:Poor English welcome messages

The Category:Poor English welcome messages has been taken to WP:Categories for Discussion for renaming. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:01, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

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