Similarly, I do not use them for first mistakes by people who are
naive or inexperienced, especially if they have made an embarrassingly
overpersonal posting. I even remove the bot warnings sometimes. I do
use them for routine vandalism by people who know they are
deliberately doing harm. I do use them when I want to make an impact.
By the time its got to the third level, it may be needed.
Though it often is enough just to write calmly: I will block you if
you ever do something like this again. and nothing more. (The firm
old-fashioned teacher approach.) DGG
Another sentence like that is "Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't have
articles on people until they have done something really notable. "
On 5/31/07, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote:
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
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