Wikipedia talk:Welcoming committee

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Hi guys, I need help with User:Alantheodoresherman. I'm not a member of this committee and have no interest in helping newbies but Alan is having a rough time coming into Wikipedia. He is kinda lost and the software and our documentation is not helping him much (everything is pretty confusing for newcomers). Can someone please give him a hand so that I can focus on other things? Please join us on the discussion in his talk page. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 18:10, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also need help with User:Maineshepp. I approved her article about Lore Alford Rogers through WP:AFC but she doesn't know how to proceed regarding the cleanup tags that I put under the "Recognition and awards" section. This is the email that I got from her:

I am unsure how to proceed on "Recognition and Awards." It suggests need for an introductory section or "wikify" the section. What do I need? —User:Maineshepp

Could someone please help her so that I can focus on other things?

—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 18:56, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is ongoing discussion about the implementation of Today's article for improvement on the Main Page. It would be good if we could get input from editors at this project over at the discussion. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 17:03, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello!

There is a proposal at the Village Pump regarding User:ClueBot_NG and WP:Welcoming Committee working together for mutual benefit. Your input would be appreciated.

Thanks --LukeSurl ^{t c} 14:54, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion may also be of interest to the welcoming committee. Bazonka (talk) 21:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Am glad to be here. Nice for accepting me OJOKOCEE (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Welcoming committee. I've proposed for a Welcoming Barnstar to be made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards#Welcoming Barnstar Proposal and I thought it would be of interest to you. Please share your thoughts on this at the linked page. Thank you, --XapApp · talk · contribs 12:21, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have altered the {{welcome}} template to include a short paragraph for users who have non-Latin alphabet usernames, advising them that it would helpful for them to have a latin translation in their signature markup, as per WP:SIG.

You can find it here

Examples (manually edited version of {{welcome}}, I have only just created the template in my userspace) -

• User talk:عبدالله خالد حسين
• User talk:სულხან ქვიშხელი
• User talk:Москаленко Ирина

I would welcome any discussion and comments.

Cheers,

Feedthepope (talk) 21:41, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What does it mean when the tag marked "contributions" is red. Does it mean that they have not made an edit yet? If it does, you definitely cannot accuse said user of vandalism. What does it mean?--Gg53000 (talk) 13:28, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it means it's a newly created account and has not made any edits yet. -- œ^™ 21:21, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, I'm going to make a userbox for the members of the welcoming committee. That way we'll be able to show others that we are apart of an organization on Wikipedia, while also getting the welcoming committee more known to users.Schoolskater (talk) 14:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are some userboxes already created and listed on Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/members. If you have a new one, add it there. --Mysdaao ^talk 11:47, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hullo. Just wonder what the best approach is for welcoming a new user that seems to perhaps be advertising? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Photograph_album&diff=613211811&oldid=582957173 Thanks! Sam Wilson 02:59, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

{{subst:Welcomespam}} --Mysdaao ^talk 02:44, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! (Someone beat me to it in this case, but I'll know for next time.) Sam Wilson 03:10, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that in the category Category:WikiProject-specific welcome templates the welcoming messages link to the full Manual of Style rather than a condensed version. I was considering mass-replacing the links to the more basic version, but was looking for any more thoughts on this.

The idea is that newcomers might find themselves overwhelmed, and only need an overview; whereas hard-core Wikipedians can be expected to research this a little more on their own.

Main thread is Template talk:Welcome#Is the Simplified Manual of Style still preferred?. Just looking for any further opinions, if any are to be had. meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 20:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Closed meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 04:26, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New users may get welcomed by a human, but it is now about equally likely that a bot may invite them to play the WP:Adventure game; sometimes they get both. Both messages offer some induction to Wikipedia in their different ways. A small study indicates that human welcomers are not very good at distinguishing "good" from "bad" editors, but that the selection of who gets the Adventure invite doesn't discriminate at all. It could do little harm, then, for the two messages to be combined: "Welcome! Here are links to wodges of text you can read, or if you prefer here's a link to an interactive game-style activity". Then new editors could decide for themselves which approach would suit them better at the start. The combined template could be sent equally by a human welcomer or by the Adventure bot: best though if the bot could be programmed to only post the template where the talk page was blank, to avoid duplicated welcomes and also avoid inviting already warned vandals. How about it? If people here are in favour I'll put the idea across to the Adventure people: Noyster (talk), 16:43, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, taking to Village Pump: Noyster (talk), 10:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Welcomelaws has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. G. C. Hood (talk) 16:15, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am posting a feedback from an IP user on my talk page here. It is as follows:

Hi! Thank you for your welcome message :)

I was wondering if you'd be able to forward a suggestion (concerning the welcome template you posted on my talk page via Twinkle) - Specifically the "please sign your comments..." bit. At the first glance it sounded like I'd forgotten to sign something. I think the following would make more sense and sound more friendly: "You can discuss any article by going to its talk page. If you post on a talk page, please make sure you sign your comments! You can do this by...". Now, since I'm not new to mediawiki, this might end up making things worse for new users, I don't know :P. Do with the feedback as you will! Cheers again :) --134.225.160.10 (talk) 23:14, 2 October 2014 (UTC) Rijin ^Talk 06:22, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion this would be a useful change to make to the templates. The proposed wording would be more constructive and more informative for the new user. And we need to encourage use of talk pages, which at present seem to be going out of fashion: Noyster (talk), 16:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the Welcoming Committee might be interested in the proposed addition of The Wikipedia Adventure to the Welcome template. Feel free to comment at the discussion I linked to above. --Biblioworm 22:18, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

- for anyone who is new to the Welcoming Committee that welcome templates are for new users who have already made constructive edits. New users themselves who simply hover over new registrations to paste welcome templates aren't really being helpful. Be sure to check first what the user's edits were. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:27, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This user could do with welcoming as they are making random low quality edits and need pointing in the right direction. Britmax (talk) 19:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This user has been blocked.

  Bfpage |leave a message  02:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings! On November 21, the Tip-Of-The-Day is about welcoming new contributiors. This November 21 tip is now added at the TOTD Schedule Queue and is also posted at the Tips library. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 16:02, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello to the welcoming committee! How does one go about getting a template added to the Wikiproject list on Twinkle? I'd like to add a "Wikiproject Anatomy" (WP:ANAT) template, {{WPANATOMY-welcome}}. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A page link is now provided with the Welcome notification sent to all new users at the moment they open an account. I'm suggesting in this VPP thread that we could benefit from more information and discussion about the way we're using this link, and proposing the Welcoming committee as a suitable venue. Anyone wish to chip in there?: Noyster (talk), 18:22, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

People here might want to look at the new Template:Student, which is meant to be a welcoming template for suspected students who are editing medicine-related articles. Ways to improve it are being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Advice to students. (not watching this page) WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:34, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion taking place at Template talk:Welcome-COI#Requested move 12 September 2016 which may interest editors here. -- Gestrid (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello!

I have found out that whenever a user makes his or her first contribution to any Wikimedia project in any language, a notification pops up saying "you just made your first edit; thank you, and welcome!" It does this regardless of the nature of the edit, and makes me question whether such functionality is appropriate especially in the case of VOAs. Any thoughts?

Greetings, ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2017 (UTC) ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer that such automated notices weren't issued. Everybody probably realizes they're automated, so they're unlikely to make new legitimate users actually feel welcomed, but the flip side of that is that even the least intelligent vandals likely don't feel welcomed by them, either. So I'd say that in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. Snazzy software function, meh. Much less to my liking is the not infrequent occurrence of a registered user welcoming a VOA. I've left a polite message or two about that, over the years. (Confession time: when I was a newbie, I mistook the welcome message left by a real human being on my talk page as being bot-generated.) Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 21:21, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not only are they issued for users who make their first edit (and everytime in every language), they are also issued just for logging in. For some reason I logged in to the Hindi section of wikipedia and someone found it appropriate to put a welcome message in my talk page there. I can not read Hindi. Not even their script. I have no idea what they are saying about me. I'm sure none of the administrators of hi.wikipedia.org are active here and I have no idea who they are (not being able to read that wikipedia) but please can someone make sure that these kinds of automated welcome messages are stopped? They serve no purpose. I've been an active contributor of Wikipedia for years, I don't need that. It is condescending. Mdeen (talk) 13:30, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I added a section on welcoming etiquette towards bots per the suggestions of Tigraan (talk · contribs) and Primefac (talk · contribs).-🐦Do☭torWho42 (⭐) 08:28, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am building a new version of the welcome template as the ones others use are either too text-heavy or confusing to me, and while I have adapted it and borrowed / adjusted coding, I am hoping somebody here can help me move it onto a new welcome template page and then test it (neither of which I really know how to do as I am code-limited). Can anybody help? FULBERT (talk) 16:29, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, just let me know what needs doing. Primefac (talk) 16:34, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Primefac! I created a new version of the welcome template that I am calling Visual Welcome for now, and as I have added and removed aspects of coding from a variety of other templates, I think it needs to be ported to a template page and then I need help determining how to test it as a template. Can you help with this? --- FULBERT (talk) 15:00, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the first step would be to move it to something like {{welcomevisual}} (since most of the other welcome templates seem to have this naming convention). Next, I would move the "conversation" at the top into the <noinclude>...</noinclude> tags at the bottom of the page, create a /template subpage, and then start testing! Primefac (talk) 16:24, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help on this Primefac. I moved this to a new template page and not sure what I am doing wrong, but the coding does not seem to work. I am trying to adapt the work from the Welcome_to_Wikipedia template but am not sure what I am doing wrong. Can you help me or suggest somebody who may be able to? Many thanks. FULBERT (talk) 13:45, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

​Looks fine to me. What's "broken"? Primefac (talk) 13:54, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That is the original template I was basing mine on; try it with the {{subst:WelcomeVisual}} itself and it does not work as smoothly Primefac ---- FULBERT (talk) 14:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The diff I linked to is {{subst:WelcomeVisual}}. Primefac (talk) 14:50, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The part that has me stumped in the template is that the end of it is not contained; when placed on the top of a Talk: page, it does not end so any later comments maintain part of the same formatting instead of beginning in newly formatted sections, Primefac. Thanks. --- FULBERT (talk) 19:38, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You were missing a /div. Primefac (talk) 00:44, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be working now, Primefac. Many thanks for your help!! --- FULBERT (talk) 13:33, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I noticed on the User Creation Log that some accounts were created, but others were 'created automatically'. What is the difference between being 'created' and 'created automatically'? AllyGebies talk 23:53, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the discussion at Template talk:Welcome#Edit request: minor change, where a change to divide the list of links in Template:Welcome into multiple columns is being discussed. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:32, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Largely due to seeing the number of newcomers at AfC writing new drafts, but looking unaware of the nature of Wikipedia, I think autowelcoming new en.wikipedia.og registrants is important. The basic {{welcome}} template is good, giving newcomers a small number of recommended reading links, although an even shorter template linking just WP:5P might be better. I think it is important to do this BEFORE they have committed to writing their first draft, which means that existing welcoming services, manual welcoming and Hostbot, do not suffice. It was a perennial proposal, but I think it has been six years since the last serious proposal. Please comment at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Autowelcome_new_registrants. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:14, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There has been some recent discussion on the AfC talk page here and here about opportunities to welcome new editors who choose to write a new article as their first Wikipedia contribution. Is there anyone here interested in intercepting and welcoming these new editors before they receive their first review? ~Kvng (talk) 01:17, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Your feedback and assistance would be helpful. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 22:02, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This may have been brought up before, in which case please just point me to the relevant prior discussion, but it seems very clear to me that Template:Welcome and similar templates could use some streamlining so that new users aren't paralyzed by choice. For instance, for a new user with a question, the welcome template currently lists four (!) different places to go: the Teahouse, WP:Questions, the welcomer's talk page, and their own talk page. There's a lot of psychology research that shows that this sort of thing is bad, since new users don't know which of these places would be most appropriate for their question, so many just don't ask it anywhere. I think we'd be much better off just identifying the best option and removing the others. Similarly, there's a lot of overlap between WP:Introduction, WP:Getting Started, WP:Contributing to Wikipedia, and even the WP:Wikipedia Adventure. It's not fully clear before I click on them what some of the differences between them are and how they relate to each other even to me as an experienced user, let alone to a new user. I'd prefer ideally to see just one link to a "learn more"-style page, made prominent to establish a clear visual hierarchy, with links to ancillary pages (e.g. the Manual of Style) below or to the side. This would also have the benefit of allowing us to focus our work to make sure the unified intro page is the best it can be, rather than trying to maintain several pages that largely duplicate each other. I hope I'm not stepping on too many toes here (it's understandable if editors have some attachment to the resources they helped create/develop), but it's really at a point where this needs to be addressed. Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 18:05, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

​I agree. An example of an effective welcome template is {{Welcome screen}}, because there are around 10 links in the table, organized into sections and accompanied with brief, helpful descriptions. Also, the design of the template is clean and inviting. On the other hand, {{WelcomeMenu}}, which contains about 60 links, is not as effective. It would take hours to read through these linked pages, and some of them are out-of-depth for new editors. We should encourage the use of clear and simple templates like {{Welcome screen}} and discourage the use of overly complex templates like {{WelcomeMenu}}. — Newslinger talk 21:35, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think the proliferation of welcome templates is itself a bit of a problem; I'd prefer we try to merge them into a single one that represents best practices. But yeah, I agree that there are much better options than Template:Welcome, even though it tends to be (I think) the most used. Sdkb (talk) 22:46, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One of the great things about welcome messages is that you can test them, take a group of newbies, give half of them a standard template and half a modified version, 6 months later come back and see which group has more Wikipedians. I have been working on a training focussed version of the Welcome. May I suggest you create a version that includes your ideas and see if it works better in practice than the existing ones? I'd agree though that the talk instructions need revising to give an idea of which to use and when, for example you may get messages from others on your talk page and you can start conversations with others on their talkpages. As for the proliferation of versions, many are designed for particular types of newby. I doubt that a single generic design could be as good as getting the right design for the newby concerned. ϢereSpielChequers 14:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Great idea! Anything that can lower the entry barrier would be great! Also when presented with so much info to assimilate at once, not only there is choice paralysis, but also there is a lower assimilation of the material to be learnt. I think this could also be an opportunity to prioritize and show what is most important to learn (eg, verifiability in a concise way such as WP:INBRIEF or WP:SIMPLE - ah I can see the latter is already in {{Welcome screen}}, great)! --Signimu (talk) 03:49, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@WereSpielChequers: I certainly like the idea of A-B testing. Is there anywhere where we've compiled results and looked for patterns? Do we know which of the current designs is performing best? (I imagine it'd be possible to create a program that'd look at a large sample of users and determine the percentage of confirmed or extended-confirmed users by welcome template. The tricky thing would be controlling for the factors that lead to different users getting different welcomes.)

Regarding the proliferation, how many different types of newbie are there, really? And what sorts of differences might make a new user a better fit for, say, Template:Welcome screen vs. Template:Welcome menu? I can't really think of much. There are certainly a few specialized templates that are useful (e.g. Template:Welcome student), but many others could be merged and fields like IP vs. registered just turned into a parser function. This would help keep them centralized and up to date (many appear to have been essentially untouched for years). A lot of templates seem to be just the result of a user trying to redo the generic welcome template.

At a broader level, I tend to find that WP is very aggressive about merging/deleting overproliferated content in mainspace, but much less so in WP space. This is a huge problem for the welcoming committee, since one of the top reactions of newer users as they wade into editing is that Wikipedia is a labyrinth. I think we ought to do a lot of merging/streamlining, and we may as well start here. Sdkb (talk) 06:03, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sdkb, I don't know of anyone currently compiling such test results, there was some testing a few years ago which indicated that welcomed newbies were more likely to stay around. The big divides among goodfaith newbies include: Are they creating new articles or amending existing ones? Are they using the V/E editor or the classic editor? My training welcome is clearly designed for the classic editor one and I haven't yet finished adapting a version for v/e. Are they an IP or have they registered? It would be nice if we could also easily differentiate between established editors from other languages/projects and newbies to Wikimedia. Then there are the problem issues such as sourcing, promotional language etc. There are also specialist welcomes created for particular events. I'd agree that we have a problem for newbies in Wikipedia being a labyrinth, but if that is your concern this isn't the place to start as newbies only get a maximum of one welcome. The problem of using parser functions is that you then restrict maintaining or adapting versions of that template to people who understand parser functions. While the problems of merging/amending templates include making it rather more difficult to monitor their effectiveness. I suspect the last big change to existing welcome templates came with the addition of the TeaHouse which has become a sort of "village pump for newbies". ϢereSpielChequers 07:09, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Template:welcome-anon-t mentions a parameter "nothanks", to be set to y when it is desirable to skip the "thanks" part of the standard welcome. However, I believe that parameter doesn't actually do anything - look at this diff which shows the lack of difference when the parameter is left in/left out. Would someone from this committee be interested in fixing this? At any rate, I guess I should mention this at the template's talk page too. Airbornemihir (talk) 07:11, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]