User talk:Andrewa/gentle editor

Why this page
A new idea. Hoist it and see whether anyone salutes. Andrewa (talk) 04:12, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

It was inspired largely by two related comments. This is one of them, note aspirational but largely unenforced policy. The other, which I'll find in time, commented that many administrators ignore NPA. I have not seen many admins do this, but I've certainly seen it occasionally, and it has passed without comment.

I'm not sure which of these I found the more horrifying. I don't myself believe that Wikipedia can survive if NPA is increasingly regarded as aspirational rather than obligatory, and I see a real risk of that. See User:Andrewa/Rules, rules, rules.

Even before that, and at the risk of raising a personal hobbyhorse, NYRM2017 was rife with personal attacks. But that wasn't the main problem as I see it. The problem is, I twice raised these at wp:ANI. The response to the first was consensus that it was a personal attack, but no action was taken, AFAIK no admin even looked at it, and the section was then auto-archived without closure. The second was auto-archived without comment from anyone, let alone action or closure. Andrewa (talk) 20:21, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

The name
I originally thought gentleman editor but that's PI and probably rightly so. This is growing on me. Other suggestions welcome... no harm forking it if there's a better name. Andrewa (talk) 04:12, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Userbox template
Feel free to use Template:Gentle editor, but be warned: Please don't subst it in view of this. Andrewa (talk) 04:36, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The wikilink to my user subpage may be changed to one to the project namespace if this catches on.
 * The may well be a Category:Gentle editor (singular I think) created to which users of this userbox will be automatically added.

Discussion of the template
See here and subsequently. Andrewa (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Use of the template
Thread moved from the user page:
 * Hi Andrewa! It's Jenhawk777--you posted  on my behavioral issue at the pump, and so I came and saw this Template and definitely want to post it on my user page as well.  I hope it catches on!  Thank you!.Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:40, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Done! I am now officially supporting this cause! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:46, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks, . But the way you've done it hasn't added you to the category... I think you've just copied the userbox rather than using the template. Andrewa (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Ooops! Tell me what I should do. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The proposed category
I'm sure it's possible to write the userbox template so that only user pages, not subpages or talk pages or the template itself or any other thing, are added to the category.

But it may not be worth the trouble. No damage if they do appear. Maybe best to keep it simple. Andrewa (talk) 14:22, 10 March 2018 (UTC)


 * And Category:Gentle editor now exists. Andrewa (talk) 09:24, 20 March 2018 (UTC)