User:Jr8825/XLinkBot welcome

Copied from User talk:XLinkBot

Message left to editors
When XLinkBot undoes edits it leaves the following message on the talk page of the editor it has reverted:

"Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page 'X' has been reverted. Your edit here to 'X' was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline. The external link(s) you added or changed ('X') is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. If the external link you inserted or changed was to a blog, forum, free web hosting service, fansite, or similar site (see 'Links to avoid', #11), then please check the information on the external site thoroughly. Note that such sites should probably not be linked to if they contain information that is in violation of the creator's copyright (see Linking to copyrighted works), or they are not written by a recognised, reliable source. Linking to sites that you are involved with is also strongly discouraged (see conflict of interest). If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks, XLinkBot"

This is a very cold and unwelcoming way to inform an editor about a mistake which - in my experience - tends to have been done in good faith. This is especially damaging as many of the editors who make this mistake are very new to Wikipedia and this is likely to put them off editing in the future. The multiple wikilinks can be daunting for those unfamiliar with Wikipedia and the use of the negative 'although' implies that the editor was definitely not contributing constructively.

I suggest that this message is changed to sound much more positive. Something along the lines of:

Hello! I'm an automated computer program called XLinkBot and I'd like to thank you for your contribution(s) to Wikipedia - we really appreciate your help. Unfortunately I had to recently undo one of your edits because it added an external link ('X') that could be a breach of Wikipedia's guidelines on external links and is on my list of links to remove. If this was not the case and you think I made a mistake please feel free to undo my revert. If it turns out the external link was unsuitable for Wikipedia but you made other changes to the article you'd like to keep, you make these changes again without re-adding the link.

Here are a few tips to help avoid similar problems in the future:
 * Try to avoid linking to sites that is are in violation of the creator's copyright
 * It's generally not a good idea to link to a site that you are personally involved in as you could have a conflict of interest
 * If you are linking to blogs, forums, free web hosting services and fansites you should take special care in checking that their content is suitable for Wikipedia
 * It's always best to link to sites that are written by a recognised, reliable source

If you are new to Wikipedia you might find the teahouse, a place for new editors to ask questions, useful. If want to find out more about about me visit my my FAQ page. Thanks, XLinkBot Jr8825 •  Talk  10:58, 12 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the ideas and suggestions. I'll have a better look this afternoon.  Note that the message is not a 'single' message, but composed from several parts.  They are all accessible from the settings (User:XLinkBot/Settings).
 * I do prefer that the 'what' and 'why' are included in the message - some people add 5 links, and XLinkBot is only reverting because of 1 of them. Also, noting down the link does enables the real spam to be found more efficiently.  We might also want to think about the 'breach of guideline' you suggest.  As I said, will come back to this later today.  Thanks!!  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 12:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Just quick - the message is created from (firstrevertremark OR uw-spam# warning) + (revertexplanation or referenceexplanation) + (ownremark-text) + (endtext) + (isiptext if IP). For the 'ownremark-text' multiple may fit:
 * firstrevertremark=Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page $pagename has been reverted.

If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! If this is a shared IP address, and you didn't make the edit, please ignore this notice.
 * revertexplanation=Your edit [$diffurl here] to $pagename was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline. The external link(s) you added or changed ($link) is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia.
 * referenceexplanation=Your edit [$diffurl here] to $pagename was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links in references which are discouraged per our reliable sources guideline. The reference(s) you added or changed ($link) is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia.
 * endtext=
 * isiptext=
 * The 'points' are caused by:
 * ownremark=image|media|petition|blog|payforview|email|wiki|fallingrain|telephone1|telephone2|copyright
 * emailtext=Wikipedia pages should not contain personal information such as email addresses. For more information, please read Wikipedia:Biography of Living People, specifically the section about personal information.
 * telephone1text=Wikipedia pages should not contain personal information such as telephone numbers. For more information, please read Wikipedia:Biography of Living People, specifically the section about personal information.
 * telephone2text=It appears that you inserted a telephone number to $pagename. Wikipedia pages should not contain personal information.  For more information, please read Wikipedia:Biography of Living People, specifically the section about personal information.
 * imagetext=If the external link you inserted or changed was to a media file (e.g. an image file) on an external server, then note that linking to such files may be subject to Wikipedia's copyright policy and therefore probably should not be linked to. Please consider using our upload facility to upload a suitable media file.
 * mediatext=If the external link you inserted or changed was to a media file (e.g. a sound or video file) on an external server, then note that linking to such files may be subject to Wikipedia's copyright policy, as well as other parts of our external links guideline. If the information you linked to is indeed in violation of copyright, then such information should not be linked to.  Please consider using our upload facility to upload a suitable media file, or consider linking to the original.
 * petitiontext=If the external link you inserted or changed was to a petition site then please note that wikipedia is not a soapbox, and that such links generally should not be included.
 * wikitext=If the external link you inserted or changed was to an external Wiki, then please note that these links should generally not be included (see 'links to avoid' #12).
 * blogtext=If the external link you inserted or changed was to a blog, forum, free web hosting service, fansite, or similar site (see 'Links to avoid', #11), then please check the information on the external site thoroughly. Note that such sites should probably not be linked to if they contain information that is in violation of the creator's copyright (see Linking to copyrighted works), or they are not written by a recognised, reliable source. Linking to sites that you are involved with is also strongly discouraged (see conflict of interest).
 * payforviewtext=If the external link you inserted or changed was to a site that provides payment for people visiting the that page, then note that Wikipedia is not an advertising service. Linking to sites that you are involved with is also strongly discouraged (see conflict of interest).
 * fallingraintext=If you were adding a link or reference to fallingrain.com, then you should be aware that this site is considered on wikipedia to be an unreliable source. More information can be found MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist here (permanent).  Please consider to use/find another source for the information.
 * copyrighttext=The site you were adding contains information which is in violation of copyright. Please check if the information on the page is not in violation of copyright before considering to re-add the link.
 * Later I have the code as well, so I can probably give more detailed info (have to review, haven't touched this for ages). --Dirk Beetstra T  C 12:39, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The whole message doesn't necessarily need to be changed, in my opinion only the first section needs to be significantly reworded to assume good faith. I see now how the system of adapting the message to the circumstances works (pretty clever!) If I have time I can put together a draft of suggested changes (maybe just slight rewording for each section of the message and cutting down the number of links). Thanks for your help with this, it's really appreciated! Jr8825  •  Talk  14:16, 12 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks! These things are editable by any admin (the settings are fully protected), and can be reverted if they give problems - I have no problem with anyone tinkering them to optimize them.  XLinkBot reads the settings page before every revert that it does, so all changes to that page are effective on the next edit (barring it failing to read the page due to glitches in MediaWiki).  Please do check the next revert and the message it leaves after changing the messages to see if there are no curiosities (XLinkBot does add some &lt;br /> and some 'newlines' between some of the lines, which are not in the settings, but that will be obvious after the revert if the message does not come out as intended.
 * Please, do make sure that the $link (as a readable and working link, for tracking reasons and so the person knows what link actually was the 'problem'!) and $regex (can be in a comment) are somewhere in the messages - the link is for tracking, the rule is sometimes handy to figure out why the bot reverted (there are some which are exotic and, though very uncommon, miscatches are possible as well). --Dirk Beetstra T  C 15:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)