Earlier today, I had a user post a message on my talk page. She just signed up today. Although it took her awhile to get the real message out there that she didn’t even realize what the site was about, it took her quite a few messages for her to explain to me that she needed help figuring out what it was. I answered her a truthful answer with the {{welcomelinks}} template attached. She accepted not only my answer to what we do here(write and edit how-to articles), but she was thoroughly impressed that we had links to resourceful information about this site’s policies. She resisted replying to the author’s welcomebot who welcomed her at the time ( @BR
), and so, because it had no links, she felt she had no where else to turn. Suggestion: Allow the welcome bot to post these helpful links to new users. It will help guide them in there adventures on this site. You’ll thank me in the long-run for this suggestion.
We deliberately left out the welcome links when designing the bot because while some people like having the links provided to them, many feel overwhelmed. A message comes off as more personal when it is simple. We wanted to leave it up to the volunteers to decide when to give the welcome links, and that seems to be exactly what has happened here, which is great!
