Wikipedia:Wiki Guides/Minimize talk page templates

In order to increase participation, Wikipedia should minimize the use of talk page templates when dealing with new users.

This is part of a series of RfCs that came about early during the Wiki guides project. The objective is to generate new active contributors to help fulfill the Wikimedia Foundation's goal of increased participation. A recent update from the Wikimedia Foundation is helpful in understanding the need for new users. - Hydroxonium (talk) 11:55, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Summary
When dealing with new users, we should discourage excessive templating and encourage more personal messages.

View from User:TomStar81
Thank you for calling El Paso Electric. To report a power outage, press 1. To ask a question about your bill, press 2. Ahora Esponol, prima numero 3. To locate a payment center, press 4. For customer service, press 5.
 * beep beep boop, beep boop boop beep*

Does that sound familiar to anyone? It does to me. I hate dealing with companies that do not give a rats &%@ about customer service, which is reflected in the fact that they can not spare the time or energy to actually have a real live person answer the phone, but instead insist that you navigate through their automated call center so they waste your time with questions you do not really care about and hoops that you would rather not jump through. It sucks out loud, and IMO nothing says "please find someone else to pester" like this kind of system. Its been my philosophy that a real person is always the best solution to any problem, and I have tried to live by that philosophy as best I can.

Now if you guys are like me, you'll appreciate that Wikipedia has become more and more like the above example: "Hi, we do not care enough to actually leave you a message with helpful information, so here is a template explaining the basics and if this explains nothing to you then your out of luck." Whatever happened to actually answering questions and explaining things personally? Have we gotten so busy with our wikilives we can not say "Oh, this is what you did wrong, next time zig rather than zag and your should not encounter any further trouble. Sincerely, (X)". Therefore rather than template to living daylights out of those who are newly arrived here, how about we get a little more personal with the messages. Templating the regulars is frowned upon, so why do we do it the noobs? The honest answer is that we like to pretend its helping when it clearly isn't, so its time we take axe to the templates and cut out the stuff that would be better left to actual human interaction. We should be treating the noobs as we ourselves would like to be treated, and in doing that it becomes obvious that if we do not like getting templates for all manner of missteps then they likely will not like it either. At a minimum, if we are going to hold on to the templates, we need to create a group or project or task force or something where anyone regardless of time spent here can go to inquire of the template and the circumstances of its placement on a talk page and get an honest, human answer. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:59, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) TomStar81 (Talk) 08:59, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) The idea is in the right ballpark. Mono (talk) 00:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 3) I very much agree with this, it should certainly be a huge no-no to template anyone more than once. Maybe the template code can check for the presence of other templates on the page (through a hidden category, say) and refuse to work if the person has already gotten templates.  One very annoying thing about templates also is the little "info" or "warning" icon, which says "this is a recording like something you hear over a PA system at the mall".  It's no surprise people ignore them.  At minimum, the icons should be removed. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 09:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Fetchcomms
The issue seems to be the unemotional text of the templates rather than the actual act of templating. I'm not going to take an extra two minutes to write a personal warning for an annoying vandal if the warning is going to sound the same as the one I write for the next vandal. What am I going to change, other than the username to which I am addressing it and the relevant vandalizing edit?

Sometimes boilerplates are fine. Sometimes, they're not. If they're not, I think the issue is that users need recognize when a personal note is better. Like, good-faith reverts. But otherwise, I don't see how this proposal makes sense, could be enforced, etc. Common sense, people. Let's use it.


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) / ƒETCH  COMMS  /  22:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) --Cyber cobra  (talk) 23:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 3) RadManCF  &#x2622; open frequency 01:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 4)  -- Lear's Fool 10:35, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 5) Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  19:40, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 6)  Pol430  talk to me 20:17, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 7)  Alpha Quadrant    talk    22:23, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 8) Kubigula (talk) 03:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 9) Absolutely, see also my view below which matches this well.  -- Jayron  32  13:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 10) Use judgement, and if you can't use that, then use a template because it will be less offensive.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:30, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 11) It's a shame we have to speculate about what this RfC proposal means, but I suppose this response addresses the issue. A template is usually best precisely because it is uniform and uses inoffensive language that the community has polished. I sometimes write comments when I hope the editor might respond, but it's absurd to suggest that such a practice be wide spread. What evidence is there that helpful editors are being unduly templated? Johnuniq (talk) 10:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 12) Sadly, with so many vandals there has to be some easy way to deal with them. But I think the proposal has the right focus. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 13) --Guerillero &#124; My Talk   01:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 14) Sometimes templates are the right tool for the job, sometimes not. Let's not underestimate the value of text that's been polished by consensus rather than what we feel like saying in the heat of the moment. MartinPoulter (talk) 21:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 15) As per SilkTork and Martin, among others. Kudpung (talk) 12:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, a little common sense goes a long way when dealing with new editors. Sumsum2010 · T · C  16:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Nicely put. In some cases, templates do the job well; in other cases the benefit of a personalised message is worth the extra effort. Judgement is needed. bobrayner (talk) 15:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 03:01, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 3)   Sandstein   19:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 4)  Armbrust  WrestleMania XXVII  Undertaker 19–0  20:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 5)  Guoguo12  --Talk--  15:48, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 6) I started using templates because my natural personal style is so plain-spoken that even when I was trying to be nothing more than kind and helpful I was accused of being bitey. A lot of the so-called personal notes that I see are far worse than the templates in that they explain far less than the templates do. Forbidding the use of templates is just asking for both a lot of biting complaints and a lot of inadequately informed newcomers. Regards,  T RANSPORTER M AN  ( TALK ) 19:04, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 7) Stifle (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 8) ― A. di M.​plé ​dréachtaí 10:16, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 9) &oelig; &trade; 16:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 10) Ost (talk) 15:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 11) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 12) Absent exceptional circumstances, templates suffice to get the message across. Rivertorch (talk) 04:22, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 13)  Ray  Talk 00:42, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 14) I agree. Orlady (talk) 20:14, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Yoenit
(These are my combined comments on the draft RFC, my apologies if it may be a tad disjointed) To quote Don't template the regulars: "These templates serve to explain the various policies to new editors. When novice editors breach policies, it is quite possible (if we assume good faith, which we must) that they are unaware of them, and educating them is helpful.'" Thats it, right there. The lvl 1 and single notice advisories/warnings are not a sign of disrespect, they are neutral messages which explain the problem and provide a link to the relevant policy. A true newbie will not even realize he is being templated when he receives one of them on his talkpage. Without these templates the warning messages new editors would wildly vary depending on the warning editor (from excellent friendly messages with a relevant link to "fuck off with your bullshit"). lvl 2 is a decent follow up if the user appears not to notice. 3-4 are less friendly and should be used exclusively on real vandals. The point I am trying to make is that the templates are fine, the problem is with how they are applied, especially: The first should imo be solved by becoming stricter in allowing twinkle (and similar tools) use. Let people request Twinkle (or at least the anti-vandalism part of it) similar to how rollback and AWB are handled. The second is probably something that should be integrated in the anti-vandalism tools: Say if user has already had an CSD notice in the last week than only a small message is added below the old notice instead of repeating the whole template in a new section. Some clever use of color and bolding should ensure the editor notices the message.Yoenit (talk) 23:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * excessive warnings are used for minor vandalism/good faith edits.
 * Too much templates are added to a single talkpage, usually in rapid succession (especially CSD/AFD/Image deletion notices).


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Yoenit (talk) 23:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) --Guerillero &#124;  My Talk   01:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Cybercobra
Like Fetchcomms said, sometimes boilerplate can be good, if well-written; if we talk to newbies about certain issues a lot anyway, we might as well ensure that we have high-quality brief explanations of those issues which we can hand directly to newbies; and this is what the templates should ideally be. I do think a thorough review of the friendliness, understandability, level of jargon, etc. used in the templates' phrasing might be a good idea, perhaps utilizing the help of outside experts in communications, sociology, etc. (or just outsiders generally) arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation. And of course, adding at least a sentence of personalized explanation in the case of good-faith contributions should be encouraged; Twinkle's "warn" feature includes a free-form text box for a reason.


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) --Cyber cobra  (talk) 23:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 3) There is no reason not to use standard messages, but the standard messages are remarkably poorly done, covering too many options and not being easily modified on at the time of application to contain specifics. Perhaps a first step might be to remove the borders? They look like a rubber-stamp, the essence of bureaucracy.)    DGG ( talk ) 19:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Mono
Make them helpful. I usually write messages to people so they sound like templates. Guaranteed to be politically correct and polite.


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Mono (talk) 23:37, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Kaldari
I think this is a good idea but unlikely to have much real effect if implemented. Once the templates have been created it's hard to keep people from using them, especially high-volume patrollers. Perhaps in addition to discouraging the over-use of templates on newbie talk pages, we could also make a concerted effort to improve the wording of non-vandalism related templates, so that they sound more friendly and less threatening. I admit that I use Twinkle myself, and sometimes I'm surprised at how bitey the templates sound, so I have to go back and reword them to not come across as a jerk. On the flip side, since people are going to use templates anyway, we should also make it easy to post positive templates (not just negative ones). Towards this end, I've created a proposal to promote the WikiLove user script into a gadget on en.wiki. Feel free to add comments there. Kaldari (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Kaldari (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

View from Beeblebrox
I agree that the over use of templates is a bad thing. If one sees a new users page that is piled high with templates it is always a good idea to interject and talk to them like a human being and not a form letter. But talk templates do serve a very valuable purpose. As has been pointed out there is little point in bothering to construct an original statement every time you see simple vandalism, edit warring, etc. On top of that is the fact that many of our new page patrollers and vandal fighters are children and teens. Need I even explain why giving them a template to use instead of leaving them to their own devices is a good idea? I've seen some NPPers do this and it is not a pretty sight. It is also worth noting that if you look at the recent threads and archives at Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace there is constant tweaking and overhauling of these templates, and and others undertook a major overhaul of the whole area late last year.


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Beeblebrox (talk) 02:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) Especially because some users are incapable of understanding what helpful means when writing a message. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  05:00, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 3) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 4) In addition, templates are required for certain automated vandal tools to work. -- King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 05:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 5) עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:26, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 6)  Pol430  talk to me 20:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 7)  Alpha Quadrant    talk    22:23, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 8) Kubigula (talk) 03:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 9)  Jayron  32  13:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 10) Yes - use judgement, and if you can't use that, then use a template because it will be less offensive.  SilkTork  *YES! 17:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 11) I agree. However I am slightly offended by your idea that we are incapable of writing good messages to new users --Guerillero &#124; My Talk   01:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 12) "...many of our new page patrollers and vandal fighters are children and teens" - I'm glad to see Beeb reiterating  what  I've been saying  for a long  time. I work heavily  on  the NPP improvement  area and I've seen some pretty  awful comments made by  our younger editors in  GF to  mature contributors who  might  not appreciate teen-talk and pre-teen-talk. Of course, there are some younger editors who  display perfect  etiquette, and they  won't  be offended, or feel  personally  addressed by  any comments  in  this discussion. Kudpung (talk) 12:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 13) bobrayner (talk) 15:19, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 14) Hey, I'm a teen (albeit a mature one--at least, that's what I tell myself!) and I endorse this message — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 03:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 15) Templates are fine for most standard situations. They are also much better than incompetent or aggressive personal messages.   Sandstein   19:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 16)  Armbrust  WrestleMania XXVII  Undertaker 19–0  20:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 17) Stifle (talk) 06:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 18) Ost (talk) 15:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 19)    DGG ( talk ) 19:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 20) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 21) Yes. Safer and more consistently professional-sounding when coming from noobs (whatever their age). Rivertorch (talk) 04:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Od Mishehu
On Wikipedia, we have different "niches", where any given user is likely to belong to one or more of them. The niches of Vandalism watchers, Spam watchers, New name patrollers, and Speedy deletion taggers are all very similar - users in any of thease niches have some idea what shouldn't be here, but not necessarily what should. Many of these have a basic grasp of all our basic policies and guidelines, but don't necessarily have a deep grasp of any - or maybe just one or two, which are likely to be more in the realm of article content or userpage use (SPAM, VAND, CSD) and not interpersonal relations (such as BITE, CIVIL, AGF). Were these users to write their own messages to the newcomers they revert (or object to the user names of, or tag the pages of for deletion), these messages would likely to be problematic. In fact, in my early admin days, I helped deal with an issue between a newcomer and such a user who suspected her of being a sockpuppet - and this second user was an admin-level spam detector, but was horrible at inter-user relations and had several blocks for NPA and CIVIL. If we want these users to leave messages for newcomers, these messages should be templates.

An other group of users who fit into these niches is users who have very little time on Wikipedia, and want to use it for tasks which require little time. When these users would leave messages on other users' talk pages, they would probably inevitably be templates - be they saved pages or manually writtenm each time, be they public teplates or their own private ones. I think that giving these users a nice set of templates to use, rather than having each one use his/her own, is a good idea. Additionally, many of these users probably, in order to save time in this task, use semi-automated tools, and for the sake of these tools, we shoulod have a fixed set of templates which the tools can reasonably detect and modify their behavior accordingly.


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:24, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 03:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Jayron32
The problem is this is presented as a dichotomy, that between "templating all behavior problems" and "having to craft a personal message for every single vandal, no matter how trivial their vandalism". The real middle ground is that templates should be used appropriately; if the behavior of the person indicates they are likely a drive-by vandal with little or no interest in working on Wikipedia better, then templates are fine. If the person is a serious editor, with an interest in improving wikipedia, who is just screwing up, getting frustrated, or lashing out, they should NEVER be templated for any reason, and should always be addressed personally and directly with specific regard for their behavior. The retention of new users depends on existing users knowing and recognizing the difference between common assholes, and people who geniunely wish to be helpful and are having trouble. The former should be templated and the latter should not, and if you cannot tell the difference between the two people, then you should probably find some other part of Wikipedia to work in. -- Jayron  32  13:46, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Jayron  32  13:46, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) Edison (talk) 17:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC) By all means, continue to template apparent vandals using throwaway new IDs, since what they want is to pull someone's chain and get him to waste his time pouring out his heart in a carefully crafted explanation and plea. A template gives the vandal much less of a reward. Allowing only custom messages would mean 10 times as many manhours for vandal patrol, and the vandals would quickly degrade the quality of the encyclopedia. Edison (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 3) I support the concept, although I'm not sure that "never" is quite right. Judgment is needed. Johnuniq (talk) 10:23, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 4) Generally yes, though, like Johnuniq, I think "never" is too strong. Warning templates should probably never be used with new editors who are learning the ropes.  However, welcome and notice templates (AFD, ANI notices etc) are generally OK, though hopefully the editor gets some personalized communication as well.-- Kubigula (talk) 21:20, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 5) I think I was lucky. But then I actually sought out a 'real person' for some input / guidance (with the helpme template) before I was 'slapped' with a template - I could have been mistaken for a vandal, I know.  If I'd just been templated, I would probably  have quit.  I was effectively a newbie, having done around 15 edits in 2006, and then nothing for five years.ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 03:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 6) — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 06:29, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 7) And I think this is largely what happens. Stifle (talk) 06:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 8) We lose good new editors because of excessive templates, especially templates left by bots. If necessary, change editing policies to get rid of the causes of templating.  For example, something like 80% of all new articles are speedied by NPP, because the creators don't understand the criteria for keeping an article.  There's similar rampant problems with NFCC uploads that are mostly cruft.  There's constant calls to keep more crap articles as "newbie retention" (really, deletion rate might go from 80% to 70%).  Better answer is to say that we're past the part of WP history where there were many subject with no existing article.  So start requiring "reviewer" or equivalent to create new articles or upload images; admins can set the bit after a discussion with the user, checking their basic knowledge of content policy.  New users with articles to create can propose creation and get human assistance, instead of being fragged by NPP.   75.57.242.120 (talk) 09:20, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 9) I agree, but I unfortunately think the implication of Jayron's last sentence is that somewhere between 10 and ??% of the current admins should change their ways, or alternatively resign or be removed    DGG ( talk ) 22:54, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Hasteur
The User warning templates have been reviewed by the wikipedia community to be neutral, welcoming, informative, and facutally correct. I would rather recieve a template notice letting me know I flubbed rather than the user kicking a honeycomb around to get the wikizens riled up for my editorial head. Do template the regulars uses the templates as a informative way to express concern to a user (even if they are more widely known than User:Jimbo). I know I use the talk page history of a unfamiliar editor when I see them making a poor choice of editorial powers so that I can get a feel for the user. If they don't have templates on their page I'll drop a informative notice about the concern I have and try to engage them in dialog prior to using other mechanisims.


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Hasteur (talk) 21:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

View from User:Steven (WMF)
As a staff member I don't really consider myself involved in the decision to try and minimize talk page templates. That's up to the editing community to decide, though perhaps I might participate as a regular Wikipedian if you see me using my personal account. Anyway, this isn't so much my personal view as it is a chance to point out relevant research my colleagues and I have done.

So one of the questions involved in deciding whether there is too much user talk template-giving to be healthy is How has the type of messages directed at newbies on their talk pages changed over the years?

To take an informal stab at this, we took a randomized sample of several hundred edits per year from 2004-2011 to the user talk pages of new editors, all within 30 days of that new person making their first edit. We then classified them by the type of message (was it template or not? a warning or a welcome? a regular content debate? a piece of advice? etc.) and by the tone (negative, positive, or neutral).

You can see a more detailed description of this all on our Wikimedia blog post today, but the relevant point for WikiGuides and this discussion is the following result:



We threw out edits to the talk pages of obvious vandals, spammers, and sockpuppets. I think Jayron32's views above explains why those are appropriate. But in February 2011 of our sample, about 35% of all messages given to good faith newbies are negative templates. So it's not just the vandals and spammers getting templated a lot; many decent new editors are getting caught in the crossfire apparently. I'm sure lots of people who've been around since 06 didn't even really notice this kind of rise in the templating of newbie's talk pages -- I sure didn't anyway. We're actually being quite generous in our definitions as well, since user warning templates that are very gentle (all level 1 uw templates) were counted as neutral in tone. As for praise, since we were looking at these edits by hand we counted handwritten thank you messages and general words of encouragement as well as obvious stuff like barnstars.

A sample, even a large, random sample, is definitely not perfect. The amount of templates given to newbies probably fluctuates throughout the year (due to school being in or out, for example) as well as over the years. But for anyone trying to see the effect lots of critical, impersonal templates have in correlation with editor retention rates, I think this trend line is pretty clear.

Let me know if you have any questions or are interested in working on this kind of research. We've put together a team of graduate students who will be working at the Foundation for just a couple months this summer on similar stuff, and having the help of Wikipedians on our work would be a big asset. Even if you don't consider yourself an academic or researcher, having your perspective as an editor is helpful. Thank you!


 * Users who endorse this view
 * 1) Steven Walling at work  03:16, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 2) Although I note that the y-axis doesn't go up to 1.0 (ie, 100%), nonetheless I have to say: Wow! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed, courtesy our friend Bdamokos. :) Steven Walling at work 17:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

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