[Wikipedia-l] "tap on the shoulder" to newbs

[Tim Marklew]

Tarquin wrote:
>I've been noticing a number of IP users making mistakes on their early 
>edits, such as plural names.
...
>Would it be helpful if we could give new IPs a "tap" if we spot a> 
> >mistake?
>By that, I mean a *friendly*, *welcoming* message that would appear at the 
>top of their next edit box. Hopefully, that may reduce the >numberof things 
>we have to clean up.
>Something like this:

>Hello, IP {IP NUMBER} Thank you for your recent contribution to the 
>Wikipedia.

>Another user has noticed your edit, on the {ARTICLE} article, and >wishes 
>to alert you to the following point:
>{INSERT MESSAGE}

>You can respond on the {TALK PAGE} for that article.
>You might also want to read up on {naming conventions, etc}
>We hope you will {REGISTER} a user name and join the other active 
>wikipedians.

In general, I don't think things like a misnamed page, or spelling error, 
should warrant even trying to communicate with the user.  Just fix it - they 
will usually get the message quickly.  Bear in mind:

* We do not want to make new users feel like they should have to digest a 
big set of rules before they can contribute.  That would conflict with our 
general openness to contributions.

* The misnamed page may not be 'their' mistake at all - they may have 
clicked on an existing link to a badly named page and started typing.  They 
might get justifiably confused and annoyed if you then criticise them for 
misnaming the page, however polite you are.

The idea for a means to communicate with non logged in users might come in 
handy for someone who is causing real problems, for example uploading 
material we think is copyrighted.  Remember though that IP addresses do not 
uniquely identify users.  I have seen a number of edits made by someone else 
using the same IP as me (through a dial-up ISP), and computers are often 
shared at schools etc.

Allowing people to make edits without logging in is on balance a good thing 
- low barriers to participation are one of the things that makes Wikipedia a 
success.  We have to accept that this openness comes with problems, one of 
which is that it is never going to be easy to communicate with users that 
aren't logged in.

Tim (Enchanter)

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