Template talk:Welcomelaws

Rationale

This template summarizes WP tenets in addition to providing facilitative links. The other templates lean too far in facilitating the newcomer to edit Wikipedia and Be Bold, which is all very well, but it may be beneficial to emphasise the tenets that govern such editing. ImpuMozhi 14:53, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Three-tilde error

There's a small error, the current template encourages to " sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~ ", but:

• Policy is to sign with date (four tildes) on talk pages
• Same for "votes" on AFDs

So, that's at least a first point to amend, I think. Furthermore:

• Actually, four tildes are required practically everywhere, except where the page specifically ask otherwise in bold.
• And thus that seems to me to be information overload for a welcome template, the user isn't going to go into special vote pages before a while.

So, my second suggestion would be to removed the "three-tilde" concept entirely from the welcome template. The rare places that prohibit them warn against it in bold, anyway. Maybe something more like this:

By the way, when discussing with other wikipedians, please remember to sign your messages on Talk and vote pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~ (the software will replace them with your name and the current date). Again, welcome!

-- 62.147.37.195 12:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

Given that we give this welcome message to new users who won't know the Wikipedia lingo, I recommend we change the line

• No edit warring or sock puppetry.

to

• No edit warring or abuse of multiple accounts.

We have recently had the case of a user who opened a string of accounts to get around their blocks and apparently never knew that they weren't allowed to do that. Of course, one can always click on the link for "sock puppetry" to find out what it is, but we can't really expect that the new users would click on every link in the welcome message. I think using plain language is helpful here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:46, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:14, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I have made the suggested change. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:21, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

• Sounds good. Thank you both. Drmies (talk) 13:50, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
• Very good idea, I agree too. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:57, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Two possible link changes

1. It seems a bit odd to have a link to WP:Article titles as one of the first things we show a new user. Article titles matter, of course, but I expect that many people edit successfully for some time without needing to consult the page. A link to the Teahouse would be far more helpful to new users, and it would be easy to replace [[Wikipedia:article titles|Naming conventions]] with [[Wikipedia:Teahouse|The Teahouse]], our help forum for new users.

2. In the last paragraph, WP:Questions would probably be a better place to send brand-new users than the WP:Village pump. It seems less potentially confusing/intimidating, and is used on most welcome templates. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 10:21, 22 July 2020 (UTC)