Template talk:Talk page stalker

Modify wording
Per this discussion and to reduce confusion, can we change "(talk page stalker)" to "(talk page stalker says...)"? -- Neil N  talk to me  14:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * !support. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * comment: Still not clear enough. Needs to be much clearer. Gronky (talk) 12:03, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

((e/c)) traditional tps-template-wording is sometimes misunderstood
Here is one example from January 2014. I've also seen an exactly similar example, back in December 2013 (beginning editor at an AE case thinks an admin is taunting them). There are more cases like this, out there in the wild, no-question-about-it-certainly. See statistical analysis below.

The problematic scenario goes something like this.


 * 1)  behold, a beginning editor X, or at least, an editor X who spends their time in mainspace and communicates via edit-summaries
 * 2)  there is some kind of problem or trouble or something, so X decides to make a user-talkpage post to some experienced wikipedian Y
 * 3)  helpfully, noticing (via their watchlist) the question which X sent to Y, another experienced wikipedian Z jumps in to give an answer
 * 4)      " User:X, your question is answered at WP:OMG, please read and understand all 8600 words before you dast edit again!"
 * 5)  Or something along those lines.  Which to all experienced wikipedians, is obviously fine-and-dandy... right?  Wrong.
 * 6)  Grammatically, the result is "stalker X, your question etc etc"
 * 7)  In other words, the perception is that 'stalker' is an insulting adjective being applied to X
 * 8)  As opposed to, a humourous adjective, being self-referentially applied to Z, by their own hand.  (Or keyboard... or... you know what I mean.)

Per WP:BITE, suggest that we lengthen the wording of the tps-template-family.

I've just used plaintext here, but that's because I am lazy, not because I think the links and fontsizes need adjusting. :-)   I'm only suggesting we tweak the *wording* to make the self-referentiality crystal clear.  Calling somebody a 'stalker' is a pretty serious insult in the real-o-verse, and if the situation is already tense, misunderstanding becomes more likely.  Why let it happen again, if we can fix the trouble just by adding a few extra bytes?  This is supposed to be a helpful & explanatory template, to keep folks from getting confused, but once in every 8,316 user-talkpage conversations (exact figure I labouriously read EVERY USER-TALKPAGE on wikipedia to calculate this figure) somebody is WP:BITE'd, needlessly methinks.  Hope this helps.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Great idea. What kind of credentials are needed to add these? --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 19:54, 4 July 2014 (UTC)


 * According to the notice at WP:STALK, the harassment policy forbids the use of this language on the site, but it seems to be okay to use "hound" instead. I suggest this be taken into consideration. Generally I think it's unnecessary to identify oneself as watching a particular talk page, and as you've demonstrated this template is inherently problematic I think it should probably just not be used at all. Ivanvector (talk) 21:07, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see stalker changed to watcher to reduce confusion. --Neil N  talk to me 21:36, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe a more neutral name like "talk page watcher" could be used instead. — SMUconlaw (talk) 21:40, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with talk page watcher because for me, that is what is happening. I am watching a page and wish to interject with a comment. But I am not really fond of any of the following verbs. I am not really 'replying' with my first post. Could we say talk page watcher comment ? This is, at least for me, a fair representation of why I wish to intervene.  Fylbecatulous talk 22:04, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
 * "Stalker" is a word with deep roots in the internet - as a humorous way to describe a person who reads but does not post. I myself have no problem with it and have used it for years. But I can see how it could be misunderstood by someone who DOESN'T have deep roots in the internet. So maybe we should go all politically-correct and change it to "watcher" to avoid misunderstandings. In any case additional verbiage like ""talk page watcher comment," or even better "comment from talk page watcher," might alleviate the confusion described by the OP. --MelanieN (talk) 00:07, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * P.S. But if we just go and change it based on input from a few people here, then when someone types they will see a bunch of completely unexpected and unintended verbiage, and all hell will break loose. And of course that will result in yet another round of outrage against the WMF, complaining that they impose this kind of thing without any input from the community - when in fact this is a community proposal. Any idea how we can get more input here, or prepare/warn the community for this possible change? --MelanieN (talk) 00:13, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Answering my own question: suppose we make a NEW template,, so that the "stalker" vs. "watcher" language is optional? --MelanieN (talk) 00:14, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned, there's a policy against using the "stalker" language like this. Maybe create a new template for talk page watcher (or whatever) and have and the like redirect to the new templates. Ivanvector (talk) 01:43, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I've just had to use the template for the first time in months and, well, the change in phrasing is dreadful. Bin "stalker" if you must but "NOTE: this is not my talk page" is just confusing. The "talk page watcher" suggestions from are much better. - Sitush (talk) 13:13, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Please make this much clearer
Hi,

I had a very frustrating conversation yesterday on a bot's talk page. The person kept replying but saying he could do nothing to fix the problem. Finally, hours later he said the reason he could do nothing is because it's not his bot, and he pointed to the tps template beside his first comment as if I should have known it wasn't his bot.

Clearly, to him, "(talk page stalker)" is an obvious code word for "This is not my talk page". For me, it's not, and the result is really annoying.

In the interest of making Wikipedia a fun project to work on, can we make this template much clearer please?

I suggest: (Note: This is not my Talk page)

. Gronky (talk) 12:11, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've reverted your change. The only change with support is the "watcher" one. Plus, all the variants and the documentation have to change. --Neil N  talk to me 13:59, 10 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok, so how does one establish support? Leaving a comment here doesn't seem to reach anyone.  So I decided to be bold.  Can we try my text for a few weeks?
 * (That said, I'm not sure how to judge success. Since my change aims to avoid general wikipedians - wikipedians who don't know this template's history - from ending up in frustrating miscommunication scenarios, the people who benefit from my change won't know be aware that they should be grateful.  They'll just see a message that makes sense, and they won't think of coming here and saying how great the template's text is.)
 * I guess I'm just hoping that users of this template will agree that being clearer is only fair.
 * I volunteer to change the docs and the variants, so that shouldn't hold things up. Gronky (talk) 22:15, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Change default?
Seeing a misunderstanding here maybe the default should be "I'm a talk page stalker". This template is new to me, I would have clicked myself.. comp.arch (talk) 14:33, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * "talk page stalker" doesn't mean anything to most casual contributors. We should look at what message people expect to convey with this template, and then make a text that conveys that message.  We shouldn't expect every casual contributor to click on a link and go look at some other page in order to understand what "talk page stalker" (or "talk page watcher") means.
 * If people are using this template to inform people that "I don't represent the owner of this talk page, I'm just adding my 2c", then the template should say something to that effect. Shorter would be better, but being short is not essential (i.e. short-but-unclear is not useful).  Being clear is essential.  And putting the useful text as an optional argument is probably useless because I'm guessing people won't use it. Gronky (talk) 21:50, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

New watcher template created
I've created a new template, Template:Talk page watcher. Please comment and help spread awareness. --Neil N  talk to me</i> 15:25, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, that was shot down rather quickly. Not sure adding more switches here is the best solution but at least there's an option now. --<b style="color:navy">Neil N </b> <i style="color:blue">talk to me</i> 16:26, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I have removed the speedy deletion tag from the new template, with rationale on the talk page. As I've mentioned before I would prefer if we would not use "stalker" at all, but I see now that the "watcher" functionality has been built into this template. I would prefer to be able to use it without having to specify a flag, but I don't know if that would be possible with a redirect. Any ideas? Ivanvector (talk) 22:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I too share your preference that used be gradually phased out and then marked as obsolete. Creation of  was supposed to be a step in that direction. --<b style="color:navy">Neil N </b> <i style="color:blue">talk to me</i> 22:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

To this end, I've started a discussion at the Village Pump. Please see Village pump (policy)/Archive 118. Ivanvector (talk) 21:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 March 2019
Please remove the line  - protection templates are automatically handled by the documentation page. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:36, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 06:53, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 October 2021
Please replace  tag in the template with   and the corresponding close tags. Small tag does not work in mobile Wikipedia and displays as normal sized text. Replacing it with CSS will have the desired effect in mobile, while there is no change in desktop. I have demonstrated the change in Template:Talk page stalker/sandbox. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 15:12, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅.  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;- ed.  put'r there 15:37, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 2 March 2024
Since TPSes have historically been associated with a specific WikiAnimal avatar, I think it should be an option for this template. Add:

at the bottom. Remsense 诉  17:41, 2 March 2024 (UTC)


 * TPS = WikiJaguar, actually. (There's also WP:WikiTiger.) As for the second one, (talk page 🐆) seems confusing; it looks like it's just a talk page link. <small style="color:#667;background:#fff;border:2px solid;border-radius:.4em;padding:0 .3em">SilverLocust 💬 00:28, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I was overtired, goodness gracious. Remsense  诉  00:30, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅. <small style="color:#667;background:#fff;border:2px solid;border-radius:.4em;padding:0 .3em">SilverLocust 💬 00:59, 3 March 2024 (UTC)