1

Though putting a hard-and-fast contribution/time requirement on welcomers of new users seems to go against the wiki way, I’m not so comfortable about cases like this: http://www.wikihow.com/User:Kezreader This user has one contribution, joined wikiHow TODAY, and is posting welcome messages for new users saying “Hi! Welcome to the wikihow community. I will answer any questions you have for me and guide you until you think you’re ready to go solo. Just click “reply to kezreader” and type away. :)”. Is this really an advisable thing? I’m concerned that new users are going to be shortchanged by asking questions they may have about the site to people possibly not fully equipped to answer them (since they themselves are new to the site).

2

We do have standards. Usually if someone has just gotten here and sent welcomes, someone will write asking them to wait after they’ve stayed a month or made a certain amount of edits. A {{Welcome Wait}} template has been developed for new people who are welcoming a lot to caution them about certain practices. We also have a template {{WelcomeGrammar}} for people who send poorly worded welcomes.

3

I left this contributor a gentle coaching note:slight_smile:We have guidelines/standards, but not rules, as Nicole mentioned.

4

I generally go back through their edits and add the welcome links tag in addition to their notes. I will also post a note similar to Krystle’s, asking them to use the template in addition to whatever else they want to say. I’ll also link them to the article about welcoming new users as a reference.

5

I told KezReader that I would be more than happy to act as a back-up for any questions he/she is asked and can’t handle. Perhaps we should make a policy, like Mike suggests? No offense to the newbies, but some of them just sit there and guess at the answer to a question and then when it gets too much to handle, drop it. Which results in a bigger mess then if they’d been welcomed by a more experienced editor. Maybe they should have at least 100 edits perhaps? Max

6

I don’t like strict, inflexible requirements like this. So if someone with plenty of experience on other wikis comes here, reads our policies and guidelines before diving in, and writes an excellent, helpful welcome message and assists the newcomer, they should be reverted and/or warned? We’ve already got safeguards in place against this sort of thing which work most of the time.

7

Lewis: true, true. Still it does get a little annoying when you have to clean up the messes.:stuck_out_tongue:

8

{shrugs} They can’t learn any younger… and the beauty of a wiki is that everything is fixable. If one of them is getting REALLY out of hand? We can always block them for a short period of time while we get communication on how to welcome going… but generally, it’s not necessary. I can think of a whole lot WORSE things for a newbie to be doing… and if they are directed to the article on how to do it, they realize pretty quickly that they’ve been going about things the wrong way.

9

I agree with Elocina on this. I think these templates do a pretty good job letting newer users know that it might be best to take up welcoming when more experienced, and I’m not sure that revamping the standards for welcoming is necessary. I find that what we have set in place for this typically seems to work, and if not, we can help the user find something else they may enjoy doing (categorizing, adding images, weaving links, etc.) that don’t require some experience to answer potential questions.

10

I have to agree with Jordan.:slight_smile:Hats off to your great thought pattern:slight_smile: