Template talk:Welcome

Request to add invitation to contact

I was wondering if an optional parameter can be added that produces a brief sentence to invite the welcomed user to contact the signer, for example, "You can also contact me in my talk page if you have questions. Happy editing!". Thinker78 (talk) 23:46, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Thinker78, you can do that with {{Welcome|customend=You can also contact me in my talk page if you have questions. Happy editing!}}. But I wouldn't recommend it. Newcomers are often overwhelmed by all the different forums on Wikipedia, and while we might perceive telling them about all the places they can ask questions as helpful, they're more likely to perceive it as overwhelming and to be unsure where they should go. Giving them a single best place (right now the Teahouse, but likely soon the mentor model being developed) works better. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:01, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I do know about the custom message, but because some editors like myself would feel inviting newcomers to contact us, it would be good if the message can be added automatically. The issue with the Teahouse or the help desk is that they feel more distant than getting in touch with someone directly. And I don't know the statistics, but personally I was never overwhelmed by forums in Wikipedia. In fact I wanted more contact with people.Thinker78 (talk) 14:41, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the WMF Growth Team found that new editors like to be able to communicate with a single editor directly; that's why the mentorship feature which will likely replace the Teahouse here will involve an individual mentor for each new editor.

Relying on our own experiences is likely to lead to survivorship bias—the editors who were overwhelmed enough to quit aren't around to tell us about it. But even among established editors, I've heard quite a few talk about how early on they felt overwhelmed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:30, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Thinker78:, don't forget that you have another alternative: after saving the subst'ed template, edit again and add whatever you want. I do this not infrequently, to customize the message. You can, too. Mathglot (talk) 10:43, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot, yeah, customization is super important. Editing twice has the minor drawback of giving the recipient two "you have new messages" notifications, which can be a little confusing. More significantly, it can't currently be done through Twinkle, which only allows |art= to be set. I've requested that the personalized message parameters be added, and I hope the ticket gets taken up eventually. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

When I edit twice, I don't re-sig, so no duplicate notification to the user. Mathglot (talk) 16:59, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Anyone watching?

As I understand it, logged in users now have the automatic signing thing by default, so should we do something about "Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:04, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång, as I understand it, users have the reply tool turned on by default, but not yet the new section feature, so when starting a talk page section, they still need to know to sign. Hopefully the talk pages project will also activate that by default soon, at which point I agree we'll want to remove the line here (and elsewhere, e.g. {{Talk header}}). Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb Thanks, that's more than I know. How about adding "Comments in existing talkpage-discussions are signed automatically." for now? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:56, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's worthwhile to put effort into workshopping and implementing such a temporary adjustment (I'm hoping it's only a matter of weeks), but if others feel more strongly, I'd be fine with a tweak like that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:58, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb, FYI:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Hear_ye,_hear_ye Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:58, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Yep! I'll plan to remove that line once the tool goes live tomorrow. (I don't think we need to add any text about comments being signed automatically; the point of automatic signing is that you don't have to think about it.) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 14:41, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Should we state something like "Your comments on discussion-pages will generally be signed automatically, but if you use the plain source editor, you need to sign your comments by..." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:12, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

No. Many newcomers will be confused by the attempted distinction between the source editor vs. visual editor alone. The interface guides newcomers to use VE, and if they choose source anyways they're forewarned that there will be trickier elements, so it's not something we need to warn them about here. It's worth remembering that our whole goal with a welcome is to boil things down to the bare minimum essentials needed to get started productively; every element we remove helps emphasize the others more. Now that most newcomers won't need to worry about signing, including language about it anyways would just distract and create confusion; it's no longer the first thing we need to tell people after they register. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 14:01, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

So, just remove Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. then? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Yep. Nice and simple. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 14:52, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

My signature is not being inserted automatically in this talk page, so take into account this with the change to the template. Thinker78 (talk) 20:38, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

@Thinker78 if you're encountering an error, you should report it at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. You also won't encounter automatic signing if you deliberately choose to edit in source mode, something the UI steers newcomers away from doing. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:07, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

There are probably more areas that needs updating, but Category:Welcome templates probably has more templates that could use an update. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:06, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Automatic edit summary

Currently when this template is substituted, no edit summary is created, just a date–timestamp of the edit. How does one program the template to create an edit summary when the template is deployed? Something generic like, Greeted user with Template:Welcome. — CJDOS, Sheridan, OR (talk) 04:59, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Have you considered using Wikipedia:Twinkle? It is a nifty tool. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:02, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

CoI and V

I propose to add a new paragraph, after the one beginning "Alternatively...":

If you add or update article content, please state your source. Avoid conflicts of interest.

since these are two issues which frequently see new editors reverted or berated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Andy, don't know how this will go over here, as folks voted for a very sparse model with buttons. There is still {{Welcome-retro}} (and {{Welcome-anon-retro}}) which are more or less the old version of this one, and which might welcome your additions there if not here. Btw: this page doesn't usually move fast; min-threads to 4 would keep some around for over two years; you can always have the ToC present regardless of thread number with __TOC__ if you want. Mathglot (talk) 00:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The idea of this template is to encourage editors to check out the tutorial, which teaches concepts like verification, rather than summarizing those concepts within the welcome message itself. I worry that if we included that it might start a slippery slope that'd lead ultimately to bloat. It's also relevant that the mw:Edit check feature may present a better approach for tackling uncited content additions. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 04:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)