[WikiEN-l] Edit Wikipedia Week is coming. How not to bite the n00bs?

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting James Forrester <jdforrester at gmail.com>:

> On 06/11/2007, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Vandalism can wait a moment.
>
> Good heavens, man, do you /want/ to be taken out and shot? :-)
>
> Seriously, a lot of what some term "newbie-biting" comes from the
> concept held dear by many that our old creed of eventualism is dead,
> and that expedient removal of vandalism trumps all other concerns,
> including having a project worth defending.
>
> But yes, exactly as you said - don't expect users, even if they're
> moderately 'old' (a few dozen - two hundred edits or so) to understand
> policy. Don't say "You did X, in clear violation of Y. Do it again and
> you will get blocked."; say "I saw that you did X, but you may not be
> aware that one of our guiding principles is Z which has led to the
> concept of Y, which suggests doing things differently. In this case,
> what if you did...?". Of course, this isn't easily replicated in a bot
> or human-driven script (which amounts to much the same thing), so
> sysops' editcountitis habit can't be fed.
>
> Yours,
> --
> James D. Forrester
> jdforrester at wikimedia.org | jdforrester at gmail.com
> [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

We have a general guideline about not templating the regulars. I'd 
suggest that
that might be a good rule in many cases where the people aren't regulars.
Templates can come across as very impersonal abd BITEy.