Good Morning
I just wanted to send out a friendly reminder to our lovely page designers; it is considered a form of talk page spam to offer design services unsolicited. There is an unspoken rule on site that page designers should wait to be contacted / asked for their services and not directly spam new users with offers of colourful talk pages and sparkling user pages. Remember, although your user and talk page are your personal area in which to express yourself edits to those areas do not do anything to directly push forward the wikiHow mission.
We do not want to give the impression to new users that wikiHow is a social network or that the User: and User_talk: spaces are the first thing they should worry about. If you would like to include links to How to Personalize Your wikiHow User Page
or wikiHow_talk:Page-Designers
on your own user page and in your general purpose talk page templates (with the exception of welcome templates) please feel free however we need to steer away from directly messaging new users and asking them if they would like their pages designed.
Well-designed articles with words look much better than well-designed user pages with colors.
I am a page designer, and my user page is easy to read, indicates that I’m a page designer, and gives a link to my talk page. Just because a user page has color doesn’t mean it’s hard to read. I know some user pages are very bright, and an eye-sore, but I’m starting to notice whenever a page is colored, people are saying it’s too bright and messy, even if it has nicely blended light colors. I think people on wikiHow just don’t like the idea of page designing itself, not just the fact that some user pages are too bright. I’m not saying page designing is wonderful, much less it’s wikiHow’s mission, but if you don’t like the idea of page designing, maybe we shouldn’t have it on wikiHow. I don’t want to start a fight or anything, just putting this out there.
^ I’ve actually never gotten a complaint on my page/talk page, but for most of the users who don’t take their time to get less bright, more pastel, but still nice colors, they end up with really bright, neon pages that distract from the text and hurt eyes. I think page designing is fine (not awesome, albeit not bad), but shouldn’t be advertised and not done unless requested. And page designing should emphasize what’s inside of it, not the actual borders and backgrounds. Just my two cents.
Also, you can’t really terminate page designing, as page designing is done using wikiMarkup/HTML, and we can’t get rid of that.
EDIT: And, even if a user asks for bright sea green text on a hot pink background, I’ve found that telling/asking them to choose more pastel colors works wonders.
Happy_Penguin_Forerver, I get it, really I do. I used to have my user page all fancy. You can see some of my old designs here: http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=User:Omniomi&oldid=3203728
http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=User:Omniomi&oldid=3046109
http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=User:Omniomi&oldid=3839829
Keeping in mind they are from before the current wikiHow layout so some things are squished. The point I am trying to make however and the thing that people need to remember is that having your page designed is a personal choice. I have seen talk pages messages while patrolling along the lines of “Welcome to wikiHow, would you like me to design your talk page?” which is simply inappropriate. We need to avoid solicitation of that type. If a new user asks how you got your talk page to look the way it does that is one thing, offering it to a user who didn’t ask is another thing entirely.
IMNSHO… Offering to “design” a page for a new user does them a HUGE disservice. Talk about a double whammy? Try a triple. 1 - Neither of you actually furthers wikiHow mission 2 - You both waste patroller time chatting back and forth over colors, UIB’s, etc. 3 - You actually hinder the newbie from learning how to edit by removing the most logical (and least objectionable) place to edit from them… their own user page. Better to give them links to the “How To” article and let them learn on their own. As to the spamming of pages, offering your services… I have very little positive to say other than “Please reconsider your present course of action.”
Agree agree and agree with Omniomi - I design pages, however, I find it quite annoying that when I take away the offer, like, 5 new people say “can u plz design my tlk pge?” or something like that. However, people still like it, I’ve gotten a very positive response except for two people. Like IZ said, pastel colors is the best thing for everyone - All in all, page designers, have fun, don’t make pages neon, and respect our unspoken rule - I understand any people who don’t see this thread though, is there any way to tell wH? I mean, about 3% out of every member on wH read the Forums. June Days
+1 My suggestion: If someone asks how you got your userpage designed like that, give them the links to various how-to’s, such as page designing, wiki syntax, and even on creating UIBs. If you can, let them know that you are open to assist them if they need help understanding wiki syntax, but don’t do it for them. It is very important that a user learns wiki syntax, as it is useful for advanced article editing and template creation.
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^ I actually wrote up the basics on how to use it here
for a user that wanted to learn. I seem to remember the actual article being a bit confusing- either that or I just started stealing the code from other user’s pages and just started messing around with it…
i am a page designer and i just made a discussion on the forums about how i could design peoples pages is that ok?
^ Please don’t bump! This thread is over 3 weeks old.
^ Actually, in this case, it’s okay. I sent a few messages to users asking them to look at this. As Omniomi pointed out, it is not the goal of the site. It’s a fun extra. A lot of teens are doing it more and more. Last year, I didn’t even *know* you could have a colorful page, and now it seems like kids come here just to do it. Sorry for being so serious! It’s just my honest opinion.
I’d suggest just saying on your talk page and asking an Admin to close it, but it’s your choice.June Days
I’m a page designer, and I’ve come across this all the time. I’ve honestly got a bigger problem with the people who are telling EVERYONE about the person who designed their page. I’m not sure why, but it seems somehow disrespectful when someone who’s never talked to you before only wants to tell you about their amazing page designer, especially when you’ve been designing pages longer. Another issue is all the bright colors. I myself have bright colors on my own page, but at least they aren’t NEON. The amount of teenagers who can’t spell who ask me to do their page neon colors is actually kind of painful and growing every day. I don’t know what to tell them; there’s not any RULES against neon colors, but it’s painful on the eyes. This is what I usually say, too, but I usually get snarky responses and they go find someone else who will do neon colors for them. In conclusion, I’d say my own personal designing rules are no neons, no tiny fonts and no asking to design someone’s page. They have to come to me.
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What needs to stop period is people inserting page designer advertisements whilst welcoming people, let alone making it their first approach/introduction to the person.
^ I know, I can’t say that though, at least, I don’t want to come off as rude.
When they ask you to do something, like neon colors, just say a no, it’s hard on people’s eyes, and if you get a snippy response, explain to them why. Usually taking the time to explain is a good thing. Yes, there are no hardcore rules, however, there are guidelines. @Maluniu
: I know of a person who did that, I’m not sure if she’s currently welcoming people with advertising designing, however, if she is/starts up again, what would be your suggestion to kindly ask them to stop?June Days
Yeah, that’s what I normally do, it’s just annoying that people get so mad about something you can’t help.
This, this, a thousand times this. If most of your time on wikiHow is spent designing pages, I hate to be so blunt but you’re doing it wrong.
