1

I’ve been taking the time to welcome each new user to wikiHow, but as I scroll down the pages of the new users log, I find more and more ignored profiles. Sadly, accounts from a few hours ago have been skipped over altogether, and are not likely to get a welcome until they make a contribution. I think welcoming new users makes them more likely to contribute. For this reason, I think we should be a bit quicker to welcome new users. Does anyone want to help the future of wikiHow by welcoming the new users of the present?

2

This is pretty common, actually. Check the dates. Some days we’ll get a HUGE number of new users… and it will take us a day or two to catch up with the influx. As long as we welcome them within a day or two, it’s not a huge issue.

3

I’ll try to keep up on the new users log, so thanks for the reminder ISMKW.

4

No problem. I’m checking it right after I check these forums for new messages.

5

A link to the page would be helpful.

6

@Ttrimm http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=newusers&user=&page=

7

Most sites which welcome do so with a bot. While that has it’s advantages in speed, I’m inclined to believe that our personal welcomes outweigh any bot, even if they come a day or two late. I’ve mentally written off sites which did the bot thing as “impersonal” and “want to sell me something”. wikiHow caught my attention because the welcome was from a real person, offering personal help and links that might be useful to me.

8

I agree. I’d read wikiHow for awhile -make that years- before I signed up, but I had virtually no idea that there were people (and an entire community of editors, at that) behind the articles until I got my welcome message. I figured that if wikiHow was another site with bots, they were getting pretty darn creative at making them looking like real people! …on point, this has been brought up here and here… http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/1675/can-we-be-more-careful-when-welcoming-users/#Item\_20 http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/1407/user-creation-log/#Item\_25 Not missing names in the log, being more deliberate about going through 'em, etc.

9

I tend to disagree. If I join a site, and don’t get a general idea of what I can do on there for a few hours after I join, I’m pretty unlikely to even check back.