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