Quoting James Forrester jdforrester@gmail.com:
On 06/11/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@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@wikimedia.org | jdforrester@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.