Forum:Welcome template

Forums: Yew Grove > Welcome template

The welcome template is the template that almost all new users see, and it definitely influences some of them to edit here. However, there are several problems with the template that I have observed, not to mention not many people use it to welcome people. The purpose of this discussion is to come up with and discuss ideas on how to improve it.

Smithing's ideas

1. Make it more welcoming. Right now, it seems like someone just added welcome and plastered tons of links after it. Adding messages, such as "Again, welcome!" to the end of it, would definitely help.
2. Add <!--Template:Welcome--> (this would normally appear invisible to users unless they were looking at the template code) to the very end to help people identify the original source of the template. This would also be consistent with other templates. Smithing (talk | contribs) 23:50, April 14, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - I made my suggested version of the template. It looks like this in oasis and this in monobook. Smithing (talk | contribs) 15:41, April 15, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Comment - The template is fail, yes, but why not just use our own as so many of us do? Just because the wiki-standard" template exists doesn't imply it should be used in every instance. To put it in terms more of us can relate to, how often is Template:Signature used in practice? Don't take this as me saying the template shouldn't be improved , more the problem has been overcome through other means.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature 23:56, April 14, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - Personally I don't even bother with a template and simply welcome the users with a couple of sentences. Even though it is still templated, I think it appears more personal than with the standard welcome. 222 ^talk 01:41, April 15, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - How many people (who actually do welcoming) even use the template? I can't think of a single person who doesn't have their own welcoming template. And to be honest, I view the welcoming template as having two functions; welcoming the user and giving them a "place to start". The overall point I try and get across is more than just a "hi, welcome to the wiki", but serve a purpose, namely link them to helpful places, such as my talk page, signature requests, and various other things that a new user may most likely end up looking for. And of course, say we actually change the template, what difference would it make if the majority of welcomers don't use it? Hofmic Talk 06:02, April 15, 2012 (UTC)

I, Coel, Walrus use it. Anyway, the purpose of mentioning the fact that not many people use it is it indicates that there is some sort of problem with the template. The fact that the majority of welcomers don't use it isn't really a problem (I just worded my initial statement poorly). Smithing (talk | contribs) 12:21, April 15, 2012 (UTC)

I use it too, although thinking of getting my own. Haidro ^(talk) 12:16, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

I always thought of it as a introductory template before creating your own customised version. Perhaps we should look into making it more customisable but still using the same template. Adding variables like background colours, text colours, border thickness, type and radius, an image to be displayed on the right side of the template (I believe that is the popular location), what links you want to have.... and I'm out of ideas. I can start working on a model like that, but I've no clue how to go about adding varying amounts of links.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature 23:14, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't that just make it... A customized template? <.< User:Urbancowgurl777/Signature 00:03, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

As opposed to the current amount of use of Template:Welcome? I'm not going to lie, the reason I don't use it is because it's uninteresting. I want a welcome template to leap off the page at me to want me to click those links and entice me into editing here. Frankly the standard template doesn't do that.

I had a quick stab at making a customisable welcome template, feel free to tweak around with it a bit if you think something is missing. Here is the template with usage template (which needs to be standardised but as this is a prototype I figure it didn't really matter) and here is it's usage based on my current welcome template.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature 00:18, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

I use the Welcome Template, but not the current one. I made my own copy of an older version of the welcome template, which I liked better, changed the spelling of words to the American variety, and added a link to the IRC, but fundamentally it's the generic welcome template. --Liquid^Talk 01:05, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - I completely support a revised welcome template, that doesn't look so much like a template. We tried hard to make it more personal for each user, by disabling the Wikia auto-welcome and using SUBST to give each user their original message. But a big box with a bunch of links is not at all inviting. A warm message with a link to another bunch of links would work much better at attracting new users. There was ideas to do this years ago, but we never got the wording right if I remember. Chicken7 ^>talk 10:53, April 24, 2012 (UTC)