Bureaucrats, content-moderator, emailconfirmed, Administrators (Semantic MediaWiki), Curators (Semantic MediaWiki), Administrators, threadmoderator
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I like Sulphur's idea. Templates would be very helpful in guiding new users. I think you need to make the guide a bit more simple. No one wants to read pages upon pages of instructions. It's a bit off putting. Try to condense topics and include "read more" options so you can stifle blocks of text out.----[[User:Skittles the hog|Skittles the hog]]--<small>[[User talk:Skittles the hog|Talk]]</small> 15:17, May 7, 2011 (UTC) | I like Sulphur's idea. Templates would be very helpful in guiding new users. I think you need to make the guide a bit more simple. No one wants to read pages upon pages of instructions. It's a bit off putting. Try to condense topics and include "read more" options so you can stifle blocks of text out.----[[User:Skittles the hog|Skittles the hog]]--<small>[[User talk:Skittles the hog|Talk]]</small> 15:17, May 7, 2011 (UTC) | ||
:::Boblipton's post is probably the most insightful in this discussion. I think we are awfully quick to simply point out errors, rather than taking the time to walk people through why their edits were not as we expect them to be. I think it should be a '''requirement''' of admins that they, at ''least'' once a month, go through the logs to check edits done by new contributors. They should then make comments upon those edits, pointing out what was great, and ''gently'' guiding them away from bad habits. I think we especially need to notice people who, like Bob, make somewhat incremental changes to articles. Copy editors should be praised, cause they're doing the work that most of us don't want to. We all want to add a paragraph or two on a piece of information from the latest story we've experienced. But how many of us want to go to an article on a subject with which we're unfamiliar and edit purely for grammar and punctuation. Not that many of us that come to this forum — but there are a actually a lot of users who drop by to do just that. These users ''must'' be cultivated. Bob is ''absolutely'' right that gratitude, and not sarcasm, should be our first response to most users. And when we find that we've erred on the side of sarcasm or harshness, we should apologize and move forward more constructively. | |||
:::A way that I have also found effective of engaging new editors is to invite them to discussions here. Now, standard wiki advice on consensus building wisely says you don't invite everyone and their mother to the party. Do that every time and you'll never be able to close the discussion and move on. However, on arbitrary matters where the choices are incredibly clear-cut — like, "Should we call this thing x or y" — a big group of respondents is the way to go. What I often do is use {{tl|Please see}} on the 50 or so people who've most recently edited, regardless of their IP status or number of edits. My point is, the people who participate in this forum are the ones most likely to stick around. So get as many people as possible into this forum. | |||
:::Sulfur, as usual, has a great technical idea, and I'd support it. But of course we do need to back up the template messages with bigger articles to which users can go from the template message. Tangerineduel and I at one time played with getting some basic grammatical points together, and we've jointly expanded the help pages a noticeable amount in the last year. What we need is a list of various points of grammar, wiki etiquette, and typical "problem" areas. That would guide us in how we might then structure a more dynamic Manual of Style — one comprised of a lot of linked — but, importantly, ''short'' — articles to back up these template messages. {{user:CzechOut/Sig}} <span style="{{User:CzechOut/TimeFormat}}">'''15:30:15 Thu '''12 May 2011 </span> |
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