Delirium wrote:
Templates on
user talk are IMO amongst the Worst Ideas Ever. Bot
warnings about fair use images are one thing ... templated
experimentation/vandal warnings are just obnoxious.
One should use one's own words. A template says "you have been
bureaucratised".
Well it is basically bureaucratized, which I don't see as that big a
deal. The vast majority of such template messages are standard
boilerplate aimed at newbies who might not realize what they're doing.
If I had to custom-write text for each time I told somebody "it seems
the edits you've made might not be helpful, but please don't get
offended if you were editing in good faith", I would probalby never
bother to do it at all.
I do generally avoid using such templates when dealing with non-new users.
I'll second this. I avoid templates for most things, especially for
welcome messages. (Nothing says community like, "Dear DAAVID GERRARD,
welcome to Wikipedia!" followed by three paragraphs of impersonal
blather.) But for RC patrol, WP:TWINKLE and its quick-access warnings
have been a godsend for me.
To be fair, I only use them for edits where I think the editor knows
exactly what the problem is. For people interested in dialog and
especially people just going through typical newbie problems, I really
prefer the personal note. But using the one-click templates for the 9
out of 10 reversions that are obvious idiocy gives me more time to
concentrate on that one person who's trying to be a serious contributor.
William