When someone writes a message with a template in on your message wall, such as {{spellchecker}} or {{tipspatrol}}, is it because you have been using the tool incorrectly or making mistakes a lot, or is it just reminding you of the rules when you have used the tool a lot?
Usually it’s because the user’s been using the tool wrong and making mistakes all over the place. Those just serve to remind the user of the right
way to use the tool.
We have a list of talk page coaching messages at https://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Templates/Coaching
. The reason for the existence of coaching templates is to guide users. For the Community Dashboard coaching messages, it’s frequently for when a user has used a tool/app incorrectly and are providing info on how to correctly use the tool, as @McDonalds1
explained.
We also try to be friendly with the language we use, since otherwise it becomes like Wikipedia with their angry and rather unwelcoming community.
+∞ They assume we have the time to read and understand dozens and dozens of endless policy pages.
There definitely could be room for improvement there—for starters, being friendlier!
