User:Tmorton166/policy welcome

This is a policy idea for Welcoming Commitee that I am developing. It is unlikely to ever be Wikipedia policy. However I am hoping that other Welcomers will join this common sense policy.

[edit] Introduction

Soon after I became a wikipedian I decided to join the Welcoming Commitee, a group of users who go around posting welcome messages to help new users get the feel for wikipedia.

So I started to welcome as many new users as I could - and then had a flash of thought - was this really helping? After one user got the wrong end of the stick and complained I was 'admin abusing' him I decided that I should stop welcoming brand new users but instead welcome users who had made an edit - or a few. I also decided that the welcome message needs to be more personal as well, complimenting a person on their edit, telling them why there article (for example) was deleted or just something that says 'hey it's you!'

Below is my personal policy on welcoming new users, I hope you adopt it too. Comments and suggestions PLEASE!!!

[edit] Who do I Welcome?

Generally speaking I do not welcome brand new users - alot of welcomers just use the new users log as I said above that is a little silly as you end up welcoming alot of sockpuppets and / or vandals - not good and a waste of space. So here is my (non-exhaustive) criteria for who I will (and will not) welcome.

[edit] Criteria for welcoming

• Anyone who has edited a page and has nothing on the discussion page

For this I generally use Special:Contributions/newbies and then follow the links through to the new user. This has the advantage that the user has definitely made an edit and I can easily comment on what he/she has done. For example explain why it has been nominated for deletion or merger etc. or why it has been reverted.

• New users who has created a page that I notice when patrolling the New pages

Same criteria applies as above except for the exception below (criteria for not welcoming).

• Users with no talk page and / or user page who edit articles on my watchlist

I do this regardless of how long the user has been editing as I think even the longest serving members need a welcome!

[edit] Criteria for NOT welcoming

• New users who have created a page I notice when patrolling the New pages where the content is inappropriate, illegal or vandalism (or all of them)

That does not include people who create stubs or content that has no place on wikipedia or should be elsewhere (unless, as I said, it is inappropriate).

• Ip addresses - I am working out a welcome message I could post there, something along the lines of you should register, is this IP used by a college etc.

[edit] The personal touch

[edit] It doesn't end with a message

[edit] Ip addresses

Working on Welcome for IP addresses at the moment. Will be loosely based on the current anon template.

[edit] !!!Current IP addresses Welcome Message ideas!!!

1. Ask the user to register so that they can make edits properly (hmm not sure about that wording)
2. Remind user to sign posts. Suggest using a name as well so that other users of the IP address can be differentiated

[edit] Add your support

This will stay as my personal policy for the forseeable future, however that doesn't mean you can't adopt it as well. If so you can add your wote of support - with the ultimate aim of getting this recognised as some form of informal welcoming policy for the welcoming commitee.

You can support the scheme by adding your name to the list of users following this policy and adding either the UserBox or Banner on your user page.

If you do not welcome new members but still want to support this then please add the banner to your page. If there is enough demand I may make a userbox of support as well.

[edit] Welcomers Adopting this policy

Well I hope many other Welcomers will adopt this (what I consider) common sense policy to Welcoming new users. Anyone that does (wether they are on the commitee list or not) please put your name down her so we can all see who is following the policy. You might also like to put the psuedo user box (see below) on your userpage

1.  Tmorton166 (Errant Emote)  ^talk - well I may as well be the 1st

[edit] Additons / Amendments

Any additons you can think of (or amendments) then please stick them here. Normal Talk page esque guidelines apply! -- Tmorton166 (Errant Emote)  ^talk 05:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Show your support on your user page

If you are willing to follow this policy then please feel free to add this pseudo userbox or banner to your page. As much support as possible is welcome! If you have aby suggestions for these boxes then let me know and I will endeavour to add them!

[edit] Pseudo UserBox

As you can see it is basically an edited version of the Welcoming Commitee userbox version 2! ({{User wikipedia/Welcoming Committee 2}}) but with some new colours and text (with a link to this page)

I decided that in light of the current userbox wars making a proper one probably wasn't appropriate so I'd advise you copy and paste the code into a page like User:Tmorton166/welcome_user and then load it up into your main page as if it was a template eg: {{User:Tmorton166/welcome_user}} (obviously replacing tmorton166 with your username).

[edit] Code

[edit] Design

It looks like this:

This Welcoming Committee member follows an extended welcoming policy.

[edit] User Banner

Coming soon.

[edit] Code

see above

[edit] Design

see above