Forum:Changing the welcome template to include more links

Forums: Index > Village Dump > Changing the welcome template to include more links

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I've been visiting new users' talk pages and putting the following templates I made with a few links on there. Here's an example:

You may also want to read Uncyclopedia:How To Get Started Editing.
Here are some other helpful places for new users:
Adopt a N00b
List of New Users--Hrodulf 20:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Splaka recommended I either change the namesapce to {{subst:User:Hrodulf/HowToRef2}}, or ask to put my code into the welcome template. What do the rest of you think? I'll take whatever of these two actions you think is appropriate, or just keep things as they are. I don't know the details of how this place works well enough to know for myself what choice is better.
--Hrodulf 04:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Why would a new user want to adopt a n00b? I think only the first link needs to be added. --ZB 04:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Not change the namespace, there is no subst: namespace, subst: puts the contents of the template (inclusion) directly on the page, which is the proper way to do greetings like that. The welcome template is used thusly: {{subst:Welcome}}. --Splaka 04:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The link to adopt a n00b was the result of a conversation I had with Hindleyite. He said that "Personally, I'm happy to adopt n00bs as per the Adopt a n00b campaign but I just don't know how to go about it. Also, not every n00b is aware of this project, so will never sign up. I'm not going to go into this much further right now, I'm just kicking a few ideas around." (this is from my talk page, User_talk:Hrodulf#A_few_things). So that's why that's in there. And if we change the welcome template, I'll just QVFD my howto "templates," so changing the welcome template would resolve the entire issue without getting into moving my code around. --Hrodulf 04:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I feel obliged to chip in here, since I have been namedropped. Personally, I think the existing welcome template is good to let new users know of all the reference points in one place (HTBFANJS, Beginner's Guide etc.). However I've got the feeling that all that reading is going to put people off, and, like me when I first joined, will just skim through it or not bother to read it at all. Also, encouraging newbies to sign up for Adopt A Noob thing is a good idea, I think. Noobs need to know about it before they can sign up. Just a thought. --Hindleyite | PL | CUN | Converse 10:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Since this conversation sort of went dead, I went ahead and fixed all the talk pages with subst:. I'd still prefer that we change the {{welcome}} template code, but I don't have the power to do that, so in the meantime I'll just keep doing what I was doing, only with the subst: argument.
Got a question? Ask Hal 9000! - Hrodulf 13:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Couple of thoughts: (1)I think the Beginner's Guide adequately covers the "How to Get Started", and probably better. I find the "How to Get Started" article a bit patronizing actually, with it's "help me I'm a little nOOb!" attitude. I mean, suppose you get someone who can actually (a) write, and (b) be funny, and then you're treating them like a ten year old with brain damage? That's not going to encourage the people who actually can contribute in a positive fashion. (2) As to what we ought to add, I think a "Top Ten most read" articles like the NYtimes.com and TheOnion.com have would be good if we could set something up (whether it would work or not is another question; both those sites use number of email forwards which is probably a better indicator of quality than number of times something has been read. Maybe use rank in the search engines?). Anyhow, I think something like that would be good because Uncyclopedia has a lot of sticks (NRV, VFD, banning and soforth) but could use more carrots to reward people for good articles and good work. Also, we should do as much as possible to prominently display the best work on the site where it can be easily found and read. --InfiniteMonkey 20:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

'Nother thought. What about rerunning some of the featured articles as "Classics", or if that sounds like the wrong word for what we do, "UnClassics" or something? Have a list of five articles which have previously been featured, update every week or so.--InfiniteMonkey 16:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we already have a top ten category http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Category:Top_10_Articles_of_2005, so to a certain extent we already do this. There may be other pages, I could be mistaken, but I recall there being more of this sort of thing. If you want to tweak it, I'd recommend starting a new vd forum on that subject so more people can contribute. Maybe it's an issue of getting the word out about it better? --Hrodulf 17:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hrod, I'm in the right mindset to ban you right now. If you'd read the beginner's guide, you'd well know that a lack of response does not imply consent on the part of the administrators. In the future, don't do things like this again, especially considering that the last link has NO use whatsoever, the middle link is of questionable use, and the tone and usefulness of the first article is certainly in contention. If you need admin approval that badly. bother one of us on the talk page.--Sir Flammable KUN (Na Naaaaa...) 21:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

If anyone has any objections to the article, I'll make whatever changes are desired. And if you want the links wiped, I'll wipe them. I was trying to be proactive and I thought what I was doing was useful. You're entitled to disagree. If you want it to be taken down, it will be taken down, and if you want it changed, I'll change it. --Hrodulf 22:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to make an aside here, if I may. I think it would help if we put a link to the vanity policies in the Canned Welcome Speech™. A good fraction of the bans I issue are due to vanity policy violation, and if the vanity policies were in the "required reading" before editing Uncyc, I think it would help a lot. —Hinoa KUN (talk) 22:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Some background appears to be in order. This was not a referendum on the HowTo article, which was formed as a result of a previous village dump conversation [[1]], about one month ago. Recently, in resonse to comments on my talk page by Hindelyte http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hrodulf#A_few_things, I added a few links to a project I had already started to better publicize the HowTo page, which I felt was a useful guide to teach n00bs how to be able to develop articles without having to be subjected to the high standards and inevitable criticism that goes with composing in the main space. Not everyone is capable of sitting down and coming up with a golden chestnut like AAAAAAAAA! or kitten huffing on their first day here. I thought I was helping to smooth that transition.

.The actions I took regarding inserting subst: into the templates I had already placed were in response to Splaka's comments complaining that I had not fulfilled his request to fix the templates. He told me it was inappropriate and confusing to link to a subpage of my userpage as I was doing. So I fixed that as per his request http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hrodulf#User:Hrodulf.2FHowToRef2.

While I understand your concern about the links and the page itself, I am always open to suggestions as to how to improve the page, and how or if it should be "marketed" to new users. As you may have noticed, I've been putting a lot of work into this, and I have no problem with taking other user's opinions and thoughts into consideration as to whether, and if, this should be done, or whether it should instead be done in another way. But I'd like to point out one more thing, before closing. Please review Frogturd's userpage and talk page. Did we do a good job assimilating this user? No. He was driven out of here by the poisonous environment for n00bs that exists in the main space. I'm not criticizing the way the site is run, it's necessary to keep the quality up and vandalism and crap down. I am criticizing that we havn't been doing more to give n00bs a way to compose on the site, with the benefit of being able to work with the wiki-html formatting, without jumping down their throat if their first attempt isn't on the level of AAAAAAAAAA!. I tried to do something about it, and obviously it's been controversial. Let's have a discussion about this and decide what the best thing to do is, whether it's changing the article, changing the links, or throwing it all out and starting over. I'm open to any suggestions that work. --Hrodulf 22:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

From Hindelyte's talk page:

I think I have to disagree that Frogturd was "driven out". With regards to Mr FrogTurd, as much as I will try to give people some slack over their contributions and their behaviour within Uncyclopedia there is a point that that particular user crossed. He was given a chance to toe the line and offered an olive branch. He choose to not accept that. We've got to accept that that happens from time to time.

Many contributors to Uncyclopedia are here to make the site better, and seek to protect the best of what we have here. Sadly we have some individuals who do not share the same thoughts. As an Admin it is my job to protect the good and to kick the bad into touch. At the end of the day, its a judgement call. Mostly we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong.

Its great that you already have the same love for Uncyclopedia that many others of us share, the only thing you need to accept is that to make an omlette you need to break a few eggs. :) -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

I was concerned that you'd consider my citing of the Frogturd situation an attack on you personally, and I did not intend it as such. And yes, his article was hopelessly unfunny. My point was not that you gave him a "hard time"(tm)jtaylor1, but that if I'd gotten him to read about how to create subpages sooner, maybe he would have made his absurd and stupid article in a subpage, and eventually gone on to actually do something funny in the future. I guess we'll never know for sure. I do know that we need n00bs who eventually become committed and skilled contributors to the site for uncyclopedia to improve, and right now I think we're losing too many before they even get started, because they don't know what to do, so they do the wrong things, and get into big trouble. You have to remember that uncyclopedia is competing with television, food, sex, video games, and the rest of real and fantasy life for these peoples' attention. Make it too hard, too intimidating, too . . . for want of a better word, adminny for them, and they'll give up and watch Friends instead. We all want what's best for the site. I have a different vision of that than some people here apparantly. I'm willing to have a conversation about it, and to take other people's opinions into account, including and up to taking down the whole "new user project" and starting over, with consensus and everybody on board. Obviously, this was to an extent already taking place, since Splaka was involved in shaping the project, as was Hindleyite; that process is continuing now. I'm sure the end result will be better for everyone concerned. --Hrodulf 23:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Btw, I have to go somewhere in RL now, and will be offline for awhile, so I won't be able to respond to comments here for a bit. Just fyi. --Hrodulf 00:00, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm back now. --Hrodulf 01:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

User_talk:Hindleyite/1#Uncyclopedia:How To Get Started Editing also gives some background on the HowTo article, if anyone's interested. Obviously a rewrite is in order, given some of the reactions here, but I think that this article, in some form, has a role to play here, and others seem to agree with me. --Hrodulf 02:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I've read through the comments here, and the only thing I could see that I could fix was the tone issue. I've done that, and you can see the results here. It could be there's some more edits people want, and if you don't want to do it yourself, feel free to let me know and I'll take care of it.

Another complaint was that apparently some people don't think the article is useful. I disagree. It teaches new users how to create and properly use subpages, sig templates, userbox templates, encourages them to register, and deals with a little bit of basic conflict resolution. How anyone could honestly think this isn't useful, frankly, escapes me . . . --Hrodulf 14:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

As for the links, the second one (adopt a n00b) was based on something Hindelyite said, so maybe he should address that. The list of new users is important, because it allows us to follow up and see how people are adjusting to the site, and ask them if they have questions, etc. Without the list, there's no way to tell how we're doing in terms of retaining people and encouraging them to be active here. And obviously, you all know my position on the first (now improved) link already . . . .--Hrodulf 15:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, there was a previous forum discussion at Forum:Proposal to move "HowTo:Get Started on Editing Uncyclopedia" to "Uncyclopedia:How To Get Started on Editing Uncyclopedia" concerning the howto article that never reached consensus. Maybe someone could put their two cents in concerning that as well, since we're talking about this issue. --Hrodulf 15:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Brief update on the "new user project." The project, as it was being executed prior to 21:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC), has been filed in "Category: Biggest Fuck-Ups of All Time." See http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/User:Hrodulf/menu#New_User_Project --Hrodulf 18:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Just an 'after the fact' footnote here: I was in a bit of an emotional state when I made the comments I made here, and may have said some things that were hurtful and wrong. If anyone is offended by any of my comments here, which I am not changing for obvious credibility reasons, please accept my sincerest apologies for my lack of tact and respectful restraint in communicating my frequently obnoxious and often ill-informed opinions. I'm not really such a bad guy! Honest! --Hrodulf 14:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)