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Archive 1 Archive 2

RfC on welcome template standardisation

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is a clear consensus that now is not the time to have this discussion, with people still deeply concerned about the current state of Template:Welcome. I strongly suggest that any of the number of editors who have been discussing that here should start an RfC or a VPR thread on that subject, which I still haven't seen (pinging Moxy in particular, who has been consistently eager to discuss this, and who I'd like to see put across their views in a formal setting). This is not going to get resolved by people sitting on their hands and arguing until they are blue in the face, but rather by a genuine effort towards a consensus on the matter. Once there is consensus on the current state of Welcome, we ought to have this discussion separately; I think the only thing that there is any semblance of consensus on here at the moment is that this should not be done without discussion whatever the outcome of the new set of discussions over Welcome might be. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 20:47, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The main welcome template was recently updated to a new style with a small set of large buttons, following discussion on the topic at the Village Pump. There has been discussion over whether, in the spirit of WP:CONSOLIDATE, other welcome templates should be adjusted to become wrapper templates, either of Template:Welcome itself or any of a number of core templates.

The request for comment in this venue is specifically on the below questions:

Should all but a core of welcome templates become wrappers of members of that core?

  • If so:
    1. what should be the defining characteristic of the core?
    2. which templates should wrap which?
  • If not:
    1. is any modularisation of the templates a good idea?
    2. how should welcome templates be kept in sync with each other - should they be at all?

Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 07:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  • I'd like to explicitly state at the start that this is not the place to re-adjudicate the issue of whether the changes to Template:Welcome are positive, and if you'd like to do that, please open a separate RfC, or take the issue back to WP:VPR. What's being discussed here is exclusively with regards to various welcome templates becoming wrappers of a core of welcome templates. I'm also noting here that there has been a recent ANI thread on this issue; that notwithstanding, I'd like to ask participants in the RfC to focus on the substantive questions at hand here, rather than on any actions that have been taken in this area. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 07:57, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Support wrapperifying almost all welcome templates around {{Welcome}} or {{Welcome-anon}}. There is a clear need for consolidation among the welcome templates to help make them easier to maintain, within the spirit of the compelling arguments at WP:CONSOLIDATE. Changes to {{Welcome}} before the recent turmoil had made it extremely versatile, able to handle a custom image, custom message at the start, custom message at the end, and even custom border. Within that framework, it was perfectly possible to make templates like {{Welcome cookie}} into a wrapper without any changes visible to the reader at all. This framework can be easily brought back, and will be of major benefit since it will stop them from falling out of date again as the main welcome evolves in the future. The main objection to the wrapperification seems to be that it will involve updating templates that have fallen out of sync with the main welcome, and some prefer the older version. But the changes to the main welcome achieved consensus at the Village Pump, and as noted above, attempts to re-litigate that debate are firmly outside the scope of this RfC and should be fully discounted. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:28, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Too thick to comment I'd like to comment here, but I've failed to fully understand what is being proposed in the gobblegook phrase: Should all but a core of welcome templates become wrappers of members of that core?. In 'Plain English' are you asking whether every welcome templates we deploy should follow a uniform design - possibly that of the rather anodyne new incarnation of Template:Welcome? If so, I'd say it's far too early to make major, across-the-board changes without first looking at how well the new Template:Welcome is performing. Moxy makes a very valid point below. Nick Moyes (talk) 12:47, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Explanation with example: @Nick Moyes and Andrew Davidson: It might help to have an example. Looking at {{Welcome cookie}}, the idea of that template is to be the same as {{Welcome}}, just with an image of cookies. Here's most of the source code from when it was a wrapper the other day (it looks complicated but what it does is actually pretty simple/elegant): 
    {{#invoke:Template wrapper|wrap|_template=Welcome|image=File:Chocolate chip cookies.jpg|imagecaption=Here, enjoy some cookies!}}
    In this, |_template=Welcome means that the template enacts the same thing as the standard welcome, only with a few preset options (parameters). The standard welcome had options for a custom image and image caption, so |image=File:Chocolate chip cookies.jpg and |imagecaption=Here, enjoy some cookies! set some of those options. It was fully operational before the mass rollback; no one to my knowledge has discovered any bugs or other technical snags. The idea of wrapperification is to do this to a bunch of templates for consolidation. This makes them easier to maintain, so that when there are future change to {{Welcome}}, those changes will be automatically reflected in {{Welcome cookie}}, without someone needing to sync them manually, which was not happening. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:14, 9 May 2020 (UTC)Note:comment written before the conversation was closed; I only realized it had been closed after I published, but leaving it up in case it's useful. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:16, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Object I object strongly to any such move. I disagreed with the changes to the main {{welcome}} template, and I will not under any circumstances use it. I also understand that the current template does not work well for mobile viewers, which should have been a disqualification in and of itself. I will now clone {{welcome-retro}} in my userspace, and if this change comes to pass, will use that clone exclusively. Users should be allowed a variety of ways to welcome others. I have never been fond of {{welcome-screen}} but soem are and they should be able to use that style. Such a change is an attempt to be prescriptive in how we welcome new users, and is totally inappropriate. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 13:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with Nick in that I am not understanding the question. It seems that the welcome template(s) have become too complex and volatile to be readily understood. As I want to understand exactly what I'm telling newbies, I will be doing my own thing with a simpler message that I can customise for the occasion. Also, it occurs to me now that, as I didn't substitute my many welcomes, I should now have to revisit them to see what has become of them. This will be a chore but may be useful in following them up. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:21, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Andrew David,son and Nick Moyes as i understand the proposal it is to designate a small number of welcome templates, perhaps just {{Welcome}} and {{Welcome-anon}}, as "core" and change all other welcome templates to be redirects to or wrappers around one of those "core" templates. This would have the effect of making all welcome templates very similar in appearance and effect. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 13:28, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Clarifying what the hell it is any of this means because I've realised from DESiegel and Nick Moyes' comments that it's not immediately obvious - apologies for the murky wording. To be clear, wrapperifying templates in this way means that, rather than having a number of completely separate templates with completely unique coding, a group of core templates are used with completely unique coding, but those core have an extensive number of parameters allowing for their customisation - effectively, allowing all of the text surrounding the main part of the template to be changed using parameters. This would mean, for example, centralising on one template the links/buttons/whatever used on the different welcome templates, whilst still keeping the different wording and imagery on other templates (at least, that is my understanding of the proposition). I've made this RfC as someone who's relatively neutral on the subject - I can see why it's a good idea in theory, but I also understand that there's a significant degree of opposition without a lot of discussion. Sdkb who is strongly in favour of this has presented above an argument for why they believe this should happen, though. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 13:54, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I would add that the previous RfC was at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to streamline the welcome template. I t6hink the intentional omision of a link to it in the header of this RfC was a mistake and decreases the legitimacy of this RfC. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 14:59, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    @DESiegel: That link is in the header of the RfC, I think you're mistaken. There's certainly no intentional omission on my part. The main welcome template was recently updated to a new style with a small set of large buttons, following discussion on the topic at the Village Pump Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 15:33, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    My error it was the ANI thread that was being not linked to. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 15:47, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    @DESiegel: That's correct; I've not linked the ANI thread in the header because I was and still am concerned that linking it there would lead to even more off-topic discussion about the merits or demerits of the welcome template itself, rather than the substantive point here about whether it's a good idea to modularise and/or wrapperify our welcome templates more broadly. You've already seen I've linked it below in the discussion on that point, but I don't believe it's germane to any of the points in this RfC itself; this is not an RfC on the behaviour of any editors, it's an RfC on a specific templating technique. I hope you don't still feel that I'm deliberately obscuring anything, I'm very much trying not to - indeed, if there is anything at all I can clarify, please do let me know and I will try my best to fix it. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 15:51, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    I think, Naypta, that the ANI thread should have been linked in the header, as it was that discussion, and the actions which are discussed in it, which directly led to this RfC. If this rfc is not prompotly clsoed, as I think it should be, I call on you to add such a link to the RfC header promptly. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 17:04, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    @DESiegel: I've added it to the first comment I made underneath as per your request and the RfC guidance for minimising the actual header content. I'd appreciate it if you would retract your claim that I'm trying to deliberately conceal or obscure details important to the community. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 17:06, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    I did retract it by striking the comment, and by writing "my error" above, but for the avoidance of doubt, I hereby retract my suggestion that there was any attempt to obscure things from the community. While I do think the ANI thread should be linked, I do not think that not linking it was any attempt to hide or obscure anything. Is that clear, Naypta? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 17:39, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    Thank you, I appreciate that. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 17:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Not now. Based on the comments on this RfC, it seems that there are several important questions that need answering before there can be a meaningful answer to however many questions are being asked here. Once we know what the answer to those questions is (and that might take a while for some) then, if this is still relevant then, it can be asked again without prejudice, but preferably in a way where everybody understands what is actually being proposed. Thryduulf (talk) 16:51, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Thryduulf: To the limited extent I have an opinion on this change as the RfC writer, I tend to agree with you. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:53, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    Reluctantly, I have to say fully Agree . The idea of wrapperification itself should have been an uncontroversial technical matter; we've been doing something similar with infoboxes for years. But it also requires updating the outdated welcomes, which is controversial. And despite Naypta's admirable efforts to constrain the scope of this RfC, it is clear that those who disagreed with the VPR discussion outcome a month ago are firmly intent on inappropriately turning this into a referendum on that outcome. The situation is unfortunately too volatile to handle productively right now. Returning to it in the future once the standard welcome is no longer controversial will hopefully allow for a quick and calm discussion that leads to the obvious result. - {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:40, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Is the RfC addressing the concerns that are outstanding?

  • Cart before the horse! Should be asking the questions left over from the closed RfC that are still pending...question 1 .. what is the best page to link to our potential new editors? Do we want to lead our readers to a tutorial that no one is completing? Is linking the teahouse on the COI template logical over the copyright noticeboard ?? Should we have action buttons with no actions that dominate the page over the template purpose main links? Not sure this addresses the problems the RfC said we should address that so may have a problem with. We also need to follow the protocols set out at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility and Wikipedia:Help Project/Guidelines.--Moxy 🍁 11:32, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
    • I agree with the above comments, this RfC seems ill-timed and ill-prepared. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 13:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
      @DESiegel and Moxy: As I mentioned earlier, this has come from a fair bit of discussion at ANI on the subject. I've deliberately tried to make this RfC narrowly construed because I knew that this debate also exists, but this is emphatically not the place for it. Moxy, I understand your concern about the level of consensus reached at the previous VPR thread on the topic of the new welcome template, but that is not the subject of this RfC, and I'd please ask you to raise that point in the appropriate venue - as mentioned earlier - either in a separate RfC or again at VPR. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 13:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
      How can we pick a wrap when the design and links needed to be discussed first. Why can't we talk about what's best for retaining editors?--Moxy 🍁 16:26, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
      @Moxy: I'm not at all suggesting you can't talk about what's best for retaining editors. This RfC is not readjudicating the issue of the main welcome template, it's addressing the conceptual question of whether or not it is a good idea to use template wrappers in this way. The issue of what Template:Welcome happens to look like at any moment in time is naturally separate to the issue of whether wrapperising templates is a good idea, because if templates were wrapperised and a change was later made to Welcome, it would affect them. I'm in no way saying you should not readjudicate the issue of what Welcome looks like itself if you wish to do so - feel absolutely free to. I would, however, like to reiterate my plea that you do so elsewhere - it is not the same topic of discussion. I once again ask you to open a separate RfC or VPR thread on the actual design of Welcome if you would like to continue discussing that topic; I'll be happy to participate to the extent I can, and happy to link to it from this RfC to separate the discussions effectively. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:34, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
      How can it be separate when the proposal is to use the template in question? So in this case my so called vote would be no because we dont have an agreement on what template to use for this purpose or any secondary examples in the proposal.--Moxy 🍁 16:42, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with Moxy aboive that the current and immediately future state of the main Welcome template should be determined first before we decide wqhether to sync all other templates to that one. I think this RfC should be closed as having been started too soon, and restarted only after a different RfC deals with the outstanding issues in how the main welcome template should be used. It is true that if other welcome templates are made intyo wrappers around {{welcome}} they will pick up any future changes made to it. But at the time that any such changes are proposed, it could also be discussed how they would afect the other welcoem te,mplates, and the wrapperization could be reversed before major changes are made. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:57, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Moxy:: Thank you for inviting me in this discussion. I have not yet read much of ongoing discussion. It seems its about an welcoming template.

In my opinion, the welcoming template should contain 1. A button to enter help about tutorial especially technical editing and formatting. 2. A button linking to a tutorial to site map and diferrent web domains. 3. A button to Guidlines about what is wikipidea and what wikipedia is not; and the Do's and don'ts.

RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 17:37, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

ps. sorry I accidentally misplaced the message. keep this one RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 17:37, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

which one is best

hello! which template works best for when someone has already registered an account but their profile page is a redlink?--🐦DrWho42 (🔨) 21:23, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@Moxy: Thank you for inviting me in this discussion. I have not yet read much of ongoing discussion. It seems its about an welcoming template.

In my opinion, the welcoming template should contain 1. A button to enter help about tutorial especially technical editing and formatting. 2. A button linking to a tutorial to site map and diferrent web domains. 3. A button to Guidlines about what is wikipidea and what wikipedia is not; and the Do's and don'ts.

RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 17:32, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

My view, RIT RAJARSHI is that the normal way to take people to other pages on Wikipedia isd by Wiki-links, and that an "action": button whose only action is to serve as a link is confusing and counter productive, and misleads a new user about how Wikipedia works. It seems to me that all such buttons should be ordinary wiki-links. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on welcome template standardisation

This being the "the appropriate discussion page", I'll comment here. I fully understand what the wrapperifying suggestion was. I see many objections to this, but the main one, is that this is a software engineer-inspired proposal written in software engineer-inspired language as a solution to a standard problem in software engineering, that has no place here in Welcome template land, imho. The very fact that it had to be explained is symptomatic of that. This is something that software engineers would see as an elegant solution for various reasons: it's thrifty of resources, avoids duplication, provides heritability of functionality, and various other software-engineer gobbledygook that is really irrelevant here, and is an example of pointless implementation-creep, just as too many guidelines becomes instruction creep.

The fact is, people are going to use the welcome templates they want to use. You want to wrap some and nobody objects? have at it. In the meantime, other folks will create other templates, and yet other folks will argue with you about the wrapperifying, and we'll all be here discussing, and debating, and splitting hairs, and arguing about elegance and efficiency and consistency, instead of welcoming. Excuse me, I have to go welcome somebody... Mathglot (talk) 00:06, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Standardizing is sometimes not the way to go. I remember 7 years ago when bio infoboxes started to be merged all over. In my view template mergers and standardization of edit notices....caused many Wikiprojects that had carefully drafted there own Temps and Noticed after much debate to stop participating in Wikiprojects altogether. Since projects have started there has always been a behind the scenes conflict between projects that are vusual and wide in scope like Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates vs projects that focus on direct reader content. Only strong content projects like Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history have the edit force to debate and have enough votes to have there say in what's best for their readers. I have been advocating for accessibility for over a decade, but despite this, and the fact accessibility should be everyone's concern, it's ignored all the time with collapse content, coloured links in nav boxes so they're not distinguishable as links, layouts that dont function with no mouse or screen readers..etc....etc.--Moxy 🍁 00:52, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Link to contributions

I think all welcome templates should include a link to that user's contributions. Endercase (talk) 18:21, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

A link to the contributions of the user being welcomed? or to those of the user placing the template? In either case, why, Endercase? What is the benefit of such a link? The user being welcomed presumably known at least roughly, what he or she has done on the site, and has no particular interst in the contributions of the welcoming editor. What is the purpose of such a link? I would oppose this unless a clesar benefit is pointed out. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
DESiegel, since they haven't responded, I'll try and mindread them, and assume what they're looking for is a little bit of personalization. If that's the case, I'd rather see a free-text optional param, where one could add something that links the welcomer with the newb, possibly based on commonalities. E.g., something like, {{welcome-perso|Le Testament|French medieval poetry}} might generate: "Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you very much for your contribution(s) to Le Testament; I have an interest in French medieval poetry as well. Let's talk! I hope you'll keep up your contributions in this area, or on any topic that interests you."
Then again, my telepathy is not that good, so maybe we'll have to wait for Endercase to speak for themself. Mathglot (talk) 02:49, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
@Mathglot: They haven't contributed since October 2019, so fine if they want to reply, but I wouldn't bet on it; we're replying to a post from 2017 here. Regarding the flexibility to use a custom message at the start, I recently introduced that to {{Welcome}} with the |customstart= parameter following this talk page message, but it got accidentally rolled back during the recent messiness. Hopefully it'll get restored soon. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:34, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb:, Ha! thanks for that; I totally fell into "close-enough-Month+day syndrome" if you know what I'm talking about. All I saw on the timestampe of the OP was, "24 April-something-something..." and my eyes went into jitter mode, landing on DES's message, and the second half of the date: "...May 2020", and I just assumed the "24 April was a few weeks ago. Yeah, I saw the custom-start param, but I'm moving in a different direction. Hopefully I'll have an interesting template up soon, if I don't get distracted, although I usually do. Btw, If you've ever fallen into that syndrome, and know what I'm talking about, we need a better name for it; can you suggest one? Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 06:09, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
I would call it just "seeing what you expect to see, not what is there" and I did it when I responded to Endercase here. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 14:29, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

My Thoughts Suggestion

I have gone through the various templates available for welcoming new users and a lot of them I feel offer too little information, colors are not accessible (which is a requirement under US law for ADA for the governmental websites (Fed, State, and downwards, but not for those companies outside thereof) and then there are others I just feel blah about. The one I do use and post I think is one of the best ones.

Welcome to Wikipedia

Galendalia Talk to me CVU Graduate 18:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

(which is a requirement under US law for ADA for the governmental websites) how is this relevant to Wikipedia? This template is covered under this very prominent and easy to find guide. Praxidicae (talk) 18:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@Praxidicae: Please remember I am new and am not familiar with all the policies yet. I would appreciate you toning down the language, please. You could have said something to the effect of "Hey Galendalia, we have an article that focuses on this located at....." That would be much better instead of making me feel like you are WP:Bite. Thank you for pointing out the page. Galendalia Talk to me CVU Graduate 18:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for the tone policing. Praxidicae (talk) 18:24, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

New optional param for foreign lang welcomes

Hi all. I've added optional param |foreign= to {{welcomeen-fr}}. Set to "yes", for editors that post article content or Talk messages entirely, or mostly, in French (instead of bad English). This changes the boilerplate of the welcome message, accordingly:

Result of {{subst:welcomeen-fr|foreign=yes}}
Welcome!

Hello, Welcoming committee/Welcome templates, and welcome to Wikipedia! While efforts to improve Wikipedia are always welcome, unfortunately contributions not written in English are not useful here. You appear to be familiar with French; did you know there is a French Wikipedia? You may prefer to contribute there instead. In any case, welcome to the project, and thank you for your efforts! If you need help, please feel free to notify me on my talk page. Mathglot (talk) 21:38, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Bienvenue!

Bonjour, Welcoming committee/Welcome templates, et bienvenue sur Wikipédia. Bien que les efforts pour améliorer Wikipédia aient toujours le bienvenu, malheureusement, les contributions en français ne sont pas aptes ici. Vous semblez être familier avec le français. Savez-vous qu'il existe une Wikipédia en français ? Il est possible que vous préfériez contribuer à cet endroit. En tout cas, bienvenue dans le projet, et merci de vos efforts ! Si vous avez besoin d'aide, vous pouvez m'en faire part sur ma page de discussion. Mathglot (talk) 21:38, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

This was prompted by an actual article Talk page message entirely in French; I've seen others before, and even foreign language content in articles, so I think this could be useful on occasion.

I've named the parameter 'foreign' (rather than, 'French' or similar) so that it could more easily be extended to other foreign lang welcome messages with some simple copy/paste and translating the needed bits. If you need a modification of some of the other ones, I can handle ca/de, so ping me for those, and I'm sure we can find volunteers for any of the other ones that need it. Thanks Mathglot (talk) 21:38, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

What happened to the Unregistered users section?

Formatting is broken so they can't be copied easily, and the history is too much a mess that I don't wanna go looking for where it went wrong. Gatemansgc (TɅ̊LK) 21:03, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Somebody apparently inserted example usages, which is better handled at each template's doc. I have considerably reduced the space taken by these sections. CapnZapp (talk) 07:32, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

No short template for IP users

Maybe I'm blind but I couldn't find any "short" version for IP users, that is, like W-short plus an encouragement to sign up.

Why don't we create a redirect for {{W-short|anon=true}} so we can write something like {{subst:W-short-ip}}? CapnZapp (talk) 07:44, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: Sounds good to me. The wrapper-redirect, as you suggested, is the right way to go about it. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:43, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Here's hoping somebody can create this then. The idea is to be able to add {{subst:W-short-ip}} to the list of "neutral or positive" templates for unregistered users, substantially increasing the visibility of the way you can already today use W-short for IP users too. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 07:44, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
CapnZapp,  Done; see Template:Welcome short anonymous, which has the shortcut name you suggested and can take any parameters {{W-short}} can. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:30, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion for non-english Welcomes

I noticed that all the non-english Welcomes don't have their own header so I'm thinking one should be added that is stylized like this: Welcome/(Welcome in the non-english Welcome language). So for example, the Spanish non-english Welcome header would look like: Welcome/Bienvenido(s or as if the user has selected whether they want to be called a he or she) Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 18:21, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Blaze The Wolf thanks for pointing this out, and you're right, there is some inconsistency among the templates as far as whether they have section headers or not. Spanish already does, but not all of them do. Are you familiar with any of the languages already covered (or for that matter, any other language with a Wikipedia)? If so, you can help; lmk. Mathglot (talk) 16:53, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Sadly no. My dad knows Russian but that's about it. I don't know Russian myself. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 20:11, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Mathglot: The only way I would be able to help out would be if I used Google Translate (which is known for not being all that reliable) or for me to learn a new language which I'm not interested in doing. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 20:14, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Blaze The Wolf:, thanks anyway, as you pointed out automatic translation would not be reliable. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 20:16, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Consolidation of foreign welcomes

Rather than have a proliferation of different templates to handle welcomes for users whose first language is not English, I've consolidated them all into one template, {{welcome-foreign}}. This will ensure that any coding changes going forward need only be applied to a single template. An additional benefit is that the localized welcomes written in the user's language are found outside the template in individual language subpages (e.g., {{Welcome-foreign/Albanian}}), so the text can be easily adjusted without requiring template-writing skills. This also facilitates adding a new language to the template for any language with a Wikipedia, by simply translating the English welcome into the new language; this will be picked up automatically by the template without a code change. The twenty existing language templates are now wrappers, and work as before. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 16:49, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Thanks for doing this; I'm very glad to see it! If you plan on wrapperifying any other welcomes, be aware that it's unfortunately been a controversial area in the past. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:51, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb:, thanks. Wasn't familiar with previous issues and in any case, not planning on wrapperifying any others. But if I did, I would make sure that it was transparent to the user which would presumably mean, non-controversial. Or, am I wrong about that?
That said, user Blaze points out above an inconsistency in section header usage, which could be addressed if needed. I've also never really understood why the section headers are H3 headers instead of the standard H2, or why the foreign text should have its own section header with a separate section edit link; seems to me a bold header ('''Bienvenido''') instead of the section (===Bienvenido===) would be better. But that's something that could be discussed separately, and any consensus implemented easily.
Do I remember that you speak some foreign language? New languages are easy to add, now. Hint, hint... Mathglot (talk) 17:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Mathglot: The part that made it controversial was that the forked welcomes had drifted out of sync and different people liked different versions. If I'd thought to wrapperify them before reforming the content rather than after it would've been a lot easier. The last attempted RfC was a mess (I see you commented after it was aborted); hopefully we'll be able to revisit it at some point.
I unfortunately don't speak any foreign languages not already covered (apart from vernacular Pig Latin, and hopefully we won't need a welcome template for that one...). {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:13, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Ankthay ouyay eryvay uchmay orfay atthay oroughthay explanationway! Athglotmay 21:02, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Consistent treatment of section header

It would be desirable to have consistent treatment of section header usage in the welcome templates, which are currently all over the map.

Some welcome templates specify H2 by default (e.g., {{Welcome cookie}}). Some include an H2 header conditionally under param control (e.g., ({{W-basic|header=Some header}}; {{Welcome|header=y}}). Most of the graphical ones ({{Welcome to Wikipedia}}; {{Welcome-g}}) don't create one by default, although I don't see why they shouldn't. One template ({{Welcome to Wikipedia}}) claims to conditionally change the level (and the title) via a param (i.e., {{Welcome to Wikipedia|3}}) but it doesn't appear to work.

The legacy foreign templates (e.g., ({{welcomeen-fr}}, {{welcomeen-es}}) generate H3 level headers (=== Welcome! ===) instead of the H2 headers typically used. After the consolidation of foreign templates, this handling has been inherited by the new, {{welcome-foreign}} template. (This is somewhat different than the other cases, as it can be fixed without changing the template code; see the separate discussion at Template talk:Welcome-foreign about the level issue.)

Should we entertain proposals for a streamlined, more consistent handling of section header? Just based on what most templates seem to do now, the minimal-change scenario (not necessarily the optimal one) appears to be this:

  • Proposal 1 – hdr='Welcome!' / hdr-change=yes (2 params) / level=2 / level-change=no. That is:
    a) Section header = 'Welcome!'; included by default.
    b) ability to change section header: yes; via params |header=yes and |headtext=New heading.
    c) Header level = 2 by default.
    d) Ability to conditionally change section header level: no (only one template claims to do this, but it doesn't work).

(A more optimal one imho would be just one param for point 'b)' but most don't do it that way currently.) Thoughts, or alternate proposals? Mathglot (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot, we're at an advantage because welcome templates are subst-only, so we don't have to worry about messing up history if we change the parameters (we do have to worry about breaking Twinkle, as we recently found out, but that's manageable).
My suggestion for optimal behavior would be to have only a single parameter for simplicity. Setting it equal to "none"/"no"/etc. would result in no header. Omitting it or setting it to "yes"/"y"/etc. would result in the standard header (probably "Welcome!" for most templates) being used. Finally, setting it to "foobar" would change from the default header to some custom text "foobar". This might be trickier to code, but I think it'll be more intuitive from the user end, and that should matter more. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:55, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
@Sdkb:, yes, I agree; user benefit should come first, for sure. Good reminder about the subst-only meaning we don't have to be backward-compatible; that will help. Btw, I'm also all over the map, lately, too, so it won't be right away, but I'll get to it eventually. Of course, anyone else is more than welcome to jump in as well. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 05:18, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Cheatsheet: An old page, resurrected?

Hi, welcomers! I just followed a link to Help:Cheatsheet from a non-standard welcome template I hadn't seen before, and even though the Cheatsheet hasn't been updated since 2006, it's really not bad at all, and might be worth a look. It's possible that it's worth linking it from some of the welcome templates. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:46, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

It is a worthy link. Worked on the page a decade ago and found it to be very stable because of its simplicity.....something that is missing from most welcome templates nowadays.Moxy- 03:56, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
It is a useful page, although I hope that improvements in the editing interface have made/will make it largely unneeded (as is already true for VE). A good UX doesn't require a cheatsheet. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:33, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia

Just a heads-up to interested editors that I've made a change to {{Welcome to Wikipedia}}. This is the boxy one full of icons and columnized links, and had some breathless leader prose, including, "Now that you're here, there are 42 gazillion users!" I find that cringeworthy, not really helpful (why bother joining if there are that many already busy on the project), and not really accurate (far fewer are active). So, I dropped the statement, but I did it in two steps, so in step one there is a hybrid version with a milder statement instead of the "42 gazillion" which we could revert to if consensus favors that. Step two dropped the statement entirely (which is my preference) and is live currently. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:02, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

IMO, {{Welcome to Wikipedia}} is so bloated that it's not really worth saving, so I don't much care what happens to it. I tend to use either the standard {{Welcome}} or {{Welcoming}} for users, and {{Thanks}} for IPs. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:08, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Agreed, but I'm finding it's still being used a great deal, and if some welcomers favor it, then shouldn't we continue to try to improve it, or at least soften the worst excesses, even if we don't particularly care for it ourselves? I guess that was my unstated motivation. Mathglot (talk) 02:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Well, if improving it causes more welcomers to use it or keep using it, that's not particularly productive. I think one question we ought to be asking is why so many welcomers are using such ridiculously bloated templates. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because there's this impulse to offer up "here's everything you need to know, and if you spend an afternoon reading through it, you'll be up to speed on all the main PAG." Of course, no one ever actually reads it all, but welcomers feel better having dumped the links onto the newcomer's talk page. By contrast, the more streamlined welcomes feel way too bare-bones to many welcomers. And of course, the problem above all this is that our poor user interface makes editing so complicated that it's necessary to read a bunch to get into it in the first place (some of the social/bureaucratic complexities are unavoidable, but the technical complexities, e.g. "remember to sign your comments", are 100% avoidable). I think the best use of our energy is focusing on those most root issues, but to the extent we engage with our current set of welcomes, our main focus should be pushing editors toward the better ones through things like Twinkle options. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:01, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Your response made me smile; I couldn't help thinking, that if improving it causes more welcomers to use it or keep using it, that's not particularly productive, then maybe we should just add a megaton of additional bloat to it, and that might cause *fewer* welcomers to use it, and we could solve the problem that way? But seriously, I know what you mean about a spectrum of wordiness that one or another welcomer might prefer, and especially how complex it all is (from tildes, to replies, to all the rest), so hopefully that approach will, if not totally solve the problem, at least bring some efficiency to bear there, and then a few words more or less in the welcome templates won't matter so much. I think we all have the same goal in mind here, and are all struggling with how best to get there. Were you as surprised as I was, with how many users still use this one? I didn't even click "next 500", so not sure how many there actually are (plus, they're not in date-sort order, which is annoying, and I don't know if that's an option). Mathglot (talk) 04:06, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Tea house hostbot

I am increasingly noticing the Tea house hostbot placing Template:Teahouse HostBot Invitation on new users' pages. I am not sure how others feel about this, but I'm not in favor of it in a lot of cases. First of all, it seems even more remote and anonymous than a live user using a template. At least when we leave a welcome, they have someone to talk to, and most welcome messages invite them to talk right back to us, and I take that seriously. Secondly, the HostBot invite tends to get there really fast, and so far I haven't seen any pages which had a HostBot invite, *followed* by a Welcome Template placed by one of the Welcoming Committee. It seems to me, that an early invite from HostBot is actively discouraging manual placement of later Welcome messages, and I think that is detrimental to the project, to editor retention, and to the onboarding of new users.

I am starting to break that mold, and I am now adding Welcome messages to new user Talk pages, regardless whether it already has a Tea house invite or not. I want to actively encourage everyone to not be dissuaded from placing a welcome message, just because the Tea house bot got to their door first. In a couple of cases (two or three, I think) I've gone further than that, and have replaced the bot message with a Welcome message, when I think that's the right thing to do, and I justify that based on what's an improvement to the page, and what's best for the User, and the project. I'm not encouraging anyone to go there, but I do have concerns about the Tea house bot, and I'm not so sure it's a net plus for the project, or not. Pretty much every welcome message already has an invitation to the project, and I'd like to see us continue to welcome new users as we have been doing all along, and not to be discouraged. Mathglot (talk) 03:38, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging bot operator Jtmorgan. I believe the conditions under which a Teahouse invite is sent are configurable. There's also some relevant recent research about automated welcomes that we should consider, as well as the role of the new mentoring system. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:36, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Mathglot what are your concerns, precisely? Welcomers are wonderful and personal connection is best, but HostBot directs good faith newcomers to an important source of personalized help (The Teahouse), at a scale that volunteer welcomers can't match. Replacing the HostBot template with a personalized welcome (as long as it contains a prominent link to the Teahouse--not buried in a huge wall of links that no one will ever click on), is awesome and I encourage you to do it whenever you see fit. But how do you get from "newcomers deserve a warm welcome" to "HostBot must be STOPPED!"? Is it really an either/or scenario? J-Mo 22:38, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
User:Jtmorgan, Thanks for your comment. I don't think it's either-or. I'm concerned that a human welcome-editor may feel queasy about reverting what is a sort of welcome already on the page, or uncertain about the appropriateness of reverting a bot, which seems "authoritative" in a way. I'm also concerned that a bot works at light-speed (more or less) and humans don't, so it's more likely the bot will get there first. I think either a built-in delay in the tea-host bot, and a hidden message right in the subst'ed wikicode inviting welcomers to go ahead and replace it with the Welcome template of their choice, might mitigate those concerns.
I even think it might be interesting for the bot to do a two-pass approach: in pass one, it would generate page WP:Welcoming committee/Welcomes needed, containing a list of users needing welcomes and maybe some metadata such as when the bot noticed them, maybe a confidence score based on how many pages they've edited, last edit date, article edit count, Talk edit count, and so on. This could be structured either like Tea house or Help des with dated sections, or if voluminous, a dated-subpage structure. In pass two, the bot would check the page(s) for how long a user has lacked a human welcome, possibly in combination with the metadata (e.g., no user edits since first notice--keep waiting, etc.), and if unwelcomed longer than user_welcome_delay_threshold, then issue the Teabot welcome. In the meantime, welcomers could browse the list at any time, and go welcome a bunch of users of their choice. (To make it easier on the bot, we could add a hidden "welcomed" token to existing templates if that would help any.)
Finally, some actual data about how many new users are out there and ought to receive a welcome, and what the criteria are for welcoming a user, would be welcome. So any background data you have, or could generate, and post here or somewhere would be helpful in coming up with the best approach. I think we're all agreed that the goal here should be improving editor retention, right? so we should just figure out the best way to do that. Adding Sdkb. Mathglot (talk) 00:17, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Good points all, Mathglot. The easiest-to-implement of the HostBot improvements you suggested would be adding a hidden message to the template code. I'm happy to do that right away; just ask a friendly admin to add the language you prefer. Re: HostBot's sampling criteria, it starts with this SQL query (roughly: joined in past 48 hours, has made at least 5 edits, hasn't been blocked, hasn't received Teahouse invite from HostBot), and winnows down from there based on factors such as whether they've received a level 3+ warning, whether they've received any messages that contain certain keywords that indicate likely bad intent (e.g. "sockpuppet", "only warning"), or have already received a welcome template that contains a link to the Teahouse. About 100-200 users meet these criteria per day, on average. I'm going to give a think to some of your more complex suggestions, and I'll try to reply soon. Happy to keep the conversation going. I agree that we're all on the same team here :) Cheers, J-Mo 18:54, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Jtmorgan, Sounds good. No hurry, so take your time to think it out, and I'll be eager to see what you come up with. One question in the meantime: in your list of criteria, you didn't mention, "whether there is already a (Welcome Committee) welcome template on the page", but I don't recall seeing Hostbot adding a welcome after a user has been welcomed, so are you already checking for this? If not, would you like a standard hidden token added to welcome templates that HostBot could search for? Almost all welcome templates link the tea house, but we could either skip adding the token to those templates that don't, or add a TEA link to that subset. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Mathglot I don't look for welcome templates specifically because HostBot sends invitations to the Teahouse, not welcome messages, so I don't view these as mutually incompatible or redundant; it's good for a user to get both IMO. And not all welcome templates have Teahouse links (here's a relatively recent example). Unfortunately I just noticed that HostBot isn't currently sending invites, and hasn't since mid-December. Sigh. Looks like I need to dig in and debug my code a bit :) J-Mo 19:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Major change to anonymous user handling coming soon

I forget the date, but possibly as soon as April, there's a major change coming in how anonymous users are handled. This may affect how we word our welcomes to anonymous users, many of which now say things such as, "...and edit without one's IP address being visible to the public" (example from {{welcome-anon}}). This will no longer be accurate, once the new feature is launched.

Do we want to organize this, as in, build a subpage worksheet with templates that need changing, and check them off as we go, or just let it happen organically, with welcomers checking the Preview the first time they use a template post-launch, and fixing as needed? Mathglot (talk) 03:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Welcome templates flagged by the Unused Templates Task Force

Just a heads-up for interested welcomers who use (or might want to use) some of the less well-know templates: the Unused Templates Task Force has been active and effective in reducing a big backlog of unused templates (see WT:UTTF#Graph). One of the files they work from is this list, and it includes a number of welcome templates. Search on page for "welcome" (73 matches) or jump to row #3638 for a couple dozen of them. If you still want any of these, move them to Draft or a user subpage, or make a few transclusions on user talk pages. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 23:18, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the cleanup—there are far too many welcome templates currently. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:47, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
Still many WTs there, but they're renumbered each time the list is redone, so "#3638" wasn't a very good identifier! That one was "Welcome-WPOKANGAN", which is still there (now #1524) and there are still more than a dozen templates after that one starting with "Welcome-". Mathglot (talk) 01:37, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Automatic post signing

Sdkb, saw your comment about autosign and wondered if you wanted to add something here as well? Seems like a bunch of templates here will need to be altered. Mathglot (talk) 01:45, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks for sharing here! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:16, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Bug? "welcome template" spreads its content over more than the window broadth.

(I'm using this location because Phabricator insists on e-mail, which I don't have.)

The whole content below the head line User_talk:GreggHilferding#Welcome to Wikipedia! appears to be spread horizontally in an un-usual way which causes my browser to create a "horizontal scrollbar". And if I want to read the content, I have to scroll horizontally several times.

For example there is a photo undertiteled "Cookies to welcome". Besides this photo is a text beginning: "Hello, GreggHilferding! Thank you ...". This text appears on my screen as one ! line.

Below this "cookie-chapter" there are other lines and things which can only be seen and read by scrolling horizontally.

I'm pretty sure, this was not intended this way.

My browser: latest FireFox

My OS: Windows 8.1

Steue (talk) 01:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

@Steue:, This is a custom user welcome template (you can find it at User:PrincessofLlyr/W). I started to play around it with it, but it has a mix of width params that are wikicode or html attribute style, and I lost interest trying to unscramble it all. You can try asking User:PrincessofLlyr for help with it. Good luck, Mathglot (talk) 01:31, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Mathglot,
at least it explains the reason why this happened.
Because [Princess]' name was/is a link she will get a ping. And if she sees the ping, maybe she helps. But on her userpage she has written that she is only part time on wp.
If I edit or 'play around' I always use the preview.
Steue (talk) 00:36, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Welcome templates for new users who edit only in their user sandboxes

Is they a particular welcome template that would be suitable to add to the user talk pages of new users who are spending all of their time editing in their user sandboxes? There are things like {{uw-sandbox1}}, but that doesn't really apply in the case of GodoftheTranses. I could add a general welcome template, but thought there might be something more specific that encourages users to spend more time editing in the mainspace so that they don't run into problems with WP:NOTWEBHOST. I've come across some cases of this before where the user seems to be working on some type of fictional content using stuff taken from actual articles, but most of the time they meant no harm. So, in such cases, a welcome template might be less "scary" sounding than the typical WP:UW. A personal message is of course possible, but I generally like to precede that with a welcome template if possible. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:56, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

How often does this occur? Often enough for a template, rather than just a one-off message? Mathglot (talk) 04:30, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
I come across it every now and then, usually when someone adds a non-free image to their user page or sandbox, but I can't say how common it is. Perhaps an individual message is enough. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:38, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

What can we tell new anon users who might be hesitant to register about WMF email policy?

Knowing the answer, could help us persuade anon users to register. Your feedback would be appreciated at this discussion at WP:Village pump WMF. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:34, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

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