User:GreenMeansGo/WP:Death by template



Templates are a useful way to quickly provide new users with valuable information and let them know they've misunderstood something or made a mistake. However, it's usually quite easy to spot automated or semi-automated responses, and when overused, these may make new users feel like they're being spammed with overwhelming amounts of information, from a not-so-friendly, not-so-community.

Rather than defaulting immediately to, many times it's better to attempt an actual conversation.

Not biting is not enough
Everyone knows it's important not to bite the new comers on Wikipedia, although some of us only know it because we were told. Most users presumably do not bite new friends and family members, and do so without needing to be told. Like your friends and family, not biting, while it may be expected, is not sufficient to maintain healthy relationships and build a functioning community. Occasionally this actually requires sustained positive interaction, and Wikipedia is no different.

Users may leave if others here are mean toward them, but others may also choose not to stay because they do not feel engaged by the community, or overwhelmed by the learning curve with no help from anyone who seems to act like an actual person.

Things to consider
There are a lot of things experienced users (the kind that make and use well-meaning templates) take for granted that new users are probably clueless about.

Links and what's being linked to
Since the user has taken the time to register an account, and attempted to edit Wikipedia, it's likely that they've spent a good deal of time reading it. For that user, until now, nearly every blue word they've ever seen on Wikipedia has been a link to another Wikipedia article. For the first time, with little explanation or warning, sock puppet now links to WP:SOCKPUPPET instead of Sock puppet, and not only do they have no interest in puppets whatsoever, it's apparently now very important that they start.

Policies, guidelines, essays, manuals, directories, supplements...
Despite our best efforts at avoiding instruction creep, there's a lot to read on Wikipedia about Wikipedia. While some of us love sitting down next to the fire with a cold scotch to read a few dozen pages of policy, we shouldn't expect that of new users, point them blindly in the direction of policy and expect them to do the same. Most users create an account because they want to edit articles, not because they want to earn an associates degree in Wikipedia.

You are not a robot
Chances are that users who decide to edit Wikipedia have, at some point, spent time on the rest of the Internet, a place filled with all sorts of bots, some quite good and others quite nasty. Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between a robot, a person, and occasionally a dog. The best way to do this is by gauging whether or not someone is acting like one.

Our username policy forbids users from impersonating a bot, but in name only. So if you, enthusiastic editor that you are, find yourself communicating in a pattern that is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from ClueBot NG, leaving only boiler plates behind you, don't be surprised if new users can't tell the difference. Don't be surprised if that person doesn't reach out for you with a genuine question, because robots are bad at those, as are people who act like them.

You have those users too
As an experienced editor who considers themselves important on a well known website, you too still have areas you are weak in. You may have had the occasional nightmare about your involuntary WP:RFA, where someone realizes you don't understand template deletions, what a cross namespace redirect is, or how copyright law varies from the United Kingdom to the United States. You certainly come across the occasional sticky situation you don't know the solution to, or even where to find it. For these instances you probably have others on whom you rely, because you've been here for quite some time, and have been fortunate enough to come across many competent, helpful, friendly editors.

New editors have no one.

They haven't even figured out that these people exist yet. You, however, could be that first someone, and it's not even that hard. They're not going to ask you to troubleshoot Pywikibot or figure out how they accidentally deleted the main page. They probably just don't understand how to format references.

Leaving personalized messages

 * Use names instead of usernames: If a person's user name is User:SarahinWisconsin or User:Kevin_Adams, refer to them as Sarah or Kevin, because that's obviously their name, probably something a bot wouldn't be able to pick up on, and normally something a human would do.
 * Address the editor's actual situation: This often means doing a touch of research. If someone refers to an article, it's usually an article they worked on in the past few minutes, and takes about three clicks to find. In other words, don't respond asking for links unless you've already looked and you can't find what they're talking about. Similarly, if someone asks about the sources in their draft, don't give them a generic statement about reliability, when you can point to specific sources they are actually using and explain why they're not considered reliable.

Explain what you are linking to and why
Instead of linking to WP:ALPHABETSOUP, take a couple of sentences and explain what this piece of jargon means, why it's important, and why you are linking to it. Many experienced users, especially those who are already convinced they know what a policy or guideline says, fail to take the time to actually read the page until the difference is pointed out to them, and often only after a page of debate to the contrary. Expect that most new users will not read the page at all, even if they realize what it is, and will instead default to your condensed version of what it says and why they need to know it. Additionally, when you do link to a policy or guideline page, do it in a way that is as clear as possible. For example:

Don't sweat the small stuff
Did they just ping you by pasting your SuperWackySignature!!!ROFL😊😄😞 ? Obviously they're a perfect idiot who can't be trusted with a keyboard. Obviously they're at least starting to figure out how pings work. Just fix it when you reply so it's not distracting. There is no other major website that uses a ping system like we do, and you'd probably be lying if you said you've never seen an experienced editor screw up their own pings and then immediately screw up their attempt to fix it.

Have they completely screwed up their indenting so that you've got a talk page conversation that looks like this? It'll be fine. It's still a perfectly intelligible conversation, and they don't need to have immaculate formatting in order for you to be able to effectively answer their question. In case you haven't noticed, Facebook does this kind of thing for you, as does almost every other site on the internet. So, it shouldn't be surprising that it takes a little bit of getting used to.

Don't fall into the trap of information overload
They're apparently frustrated enough that they've given up trying to figure it out on their own, and reached out to somebody for help. If you immediately respond with:

All you've done is give them a lot of information they didn't really want at the moment, information that likely doesn't make any real difference either way, and you've spent some portion of your and their attention span doing something other than answering their question. You've also probably just come off looking mostly like a jerk, and mostly just publicly emphasizing as much as possible how much they actually don't understand.

Just because you say the word "please" doesn't mean you're actually being polite
Yeah... that... that's pretty much it.

There really is no deadline... no... really...
You dear editor, stalwart defender of the project that you are, just found a new user who's made themselves five whole articles in a row, somehow slipped them past what surely must be the dimwits at WP:NPP, and you're pretty sure every single one of them are on non-notable subjects. So true to your convictions, you grab some piping hot espresso, fire up old reliable, and start throwing down the AfDs like no tomorrow. You'll wrap things up nice and neat before bedtime, leave no loose end untied, and leave the whole project better off than you found it. Well, at least most of it.

The one person who's not better off is the one who just got five AfD notifications all at once (polite and unintimidating as they are widely known to be), probably isn't all that comfortable trying to defend even one article from deletion, and now they've got a week to figure out how to do it five times over or they're going to lose their last month's worth of work. You, at this point of course are probably crashing from your caffeine high, don't have the time or patience to explain how they might go about trying to do this exactly (after all, you've gotten so much accomplished today already, what with the AfDs and all) and let's be honest, don't really have all that much incentive to anyway. How are you ever supposed to make it to admin ... bureaucrat ... a job at the Wikimedia Foundation one day if you don't get that AfD average above 80%?

The new user of course is likely to respond exactly like most people would now that it's been effectively communicated to them that they are a piece of crap, and that their work is utter garbage. They close their laptop, resolve that you and Wikipedia can both go straight to hell together, and disappear into the ether, never to be seen again. Great job.

What you could have done instead, is realize that, while there are certain things on Wikipedia that really must be done and must be done now (like removing copyright violations and WP:BLP violations), most everything else is perfectly okay so long as it gets done eventually. You may have even started a to-do list and handled things piecemeal so that the author and the system isn't overwhelmed. You may have even attempted a conversation. Then again, that's the kind of thing someone who cares about the community might do, and it's a dog-eat-dog encyclopedia out there.