Wikipedia talk:Welcome, newcomers

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Angela (talk | contribs) at 05:24, 13 December 2003 (from the village pump). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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"There are a lot of Ph.D.s and graduate students and other very smart and knowledgeable people at work here--but everyone is welcome. "

I dislike this sentence in the welcome article. It seems to place a premium on formal education. Much human knowledge is distributed diffusely outside of academia's ivory towers and fairly restricted peer publishing. Anybody have ideas for better wording? mirwin 14:08 Aug 17, 2002 (PDT)

That exact sentence also appears twice. -- Tzartzam 20:41 Sep 8, 2002 (UTC)

Well, there should be a premium placed on education, formal or otherwise. People who write for encyclopedias should know stuff. Education tends to make people educated--emphasis on the word "tends." Frankly, Wikipedia needs all the educated people it can get.

...and so it depends on what you define as "education." And I'm not talking about "the University of Life." Education need not take place in colleges and universities. -- Tzartzam 20:41 Sep 8, 2002 (UTC)
Nobody's arguing with that.
Yes, people who edit encyclopedias should know something. If you can find me somebody, anybody, who doesn't know something, then I'll be very impressed. Even people who know nothing can help, though - fixing typos, for example. I've removed the sentence. Martin 21:13 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I would suggest that the type of education needed differs on the particulars of the article being created/revised. An article on cuneiform writing would benefit greatly from the work of an archaeologist or renowned professor; whereas an article on modern architectural techniques could be appreciably enhanced by the writings of a welder.
Also, human experience being what it is, an article on the benefits of prosthetics might be better written by an ex-taxicab driver who was injured in an accident and is fitted with an artificial leg than by professor from UCLA.

The true question is the long-term scope of wikipedia. If it is to mirror the Encyclopedia Britannica or Encyclopaedia Universalis, then indeed scholars are our targets. But if instead it is to expand into a true reflection of mankind's knowledge, then the man on the street is our target. I personally believe the latter to be a more worthy goal; one that will make WP (WikiPedia) indispensible in the decades to come, simply because the breadth of knowledge it will encompass will be enormously greater than that ofany printable encyclopedia.

Besides, printable encyclopedias cannot hyperlink, and have a hard time staying current.

This originally appeared here. It was suggested that I move it this article, but I am leaving it for someone else to in corporate into the article or another related page. --Two Halves

Note to Newcomers:

There are some people who work on the Wikipedia who are not polite. You might say that they are mean and rude. You would do well to ignore their coarseness, even when their criticisms of your writing are valid. Cruel comments should not deter you from trying to make the Wikipedia the best Free Encyclopedia in existence. If you might be one of these rude people, you might consider the effect of what you are saying to others.

Where do I ask questions about Special pages that aren't editable and don't have a Talk page? (Special:Wantedpages ;-)) -- Timwi 12:53 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:village pump, or here... what did you want to know? Martin 14:31 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Guess my hinting at Special:Wantedpages wasn't clear enough. This page displays as a character jungle on my machine. If a sysop could fix that, or even generate a new up-to-date version, I'd be much obliged :) -- Timwi 22:36 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)
All fixed now. Problem was that a sysop had edited directly Wikipedia:most wanted articles - which they shouldn't do... Martin
You can ask at Wikipedia talk:Special pages. Angela 07:16, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
You may also want to have a look at the Wikipedia FAQ collection.
The village pump is where people ask and answer general questions. If you would like to see how we resolve disputes, try Votes for deletion or problem users. We try to keep everyone calm, but, there are times and subjects that people take very seriously. Writing on a controversial topic is one way to encounter all of this head-on at once.

The above is from Wikipedia, where it was meant to be guidance for newcomers.

About the rewrite: Martin, this looks really fine and is probably more newbie-friendly, but shouldn't the GFDL be mentioned on the page (I think it was in the earlier version)? Kosebamse 20:47 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hmm - good point. I saved the text in notepad, so I'll cut it back in (unless anyone beats me to it). Thanks! :) Martin

Yaron Livne from Israel: I think it is really weird, it means that right now I can come here and write nonsences, like: !@#!@$!@523542; right? anyway: this place really helped me in some research (in history) but only after, when I realized what it means "a free encyclopedia" I now hope that I can relly on this information... and also what will happen if someone decides to erase everything I red about the Ostrogoths and the Roman empire for example.. it won't be here anymore... someone has worked hard for writing it.. and it can easily go away... I hope someone is saving all the info around here...

Hi, Livne - I added a link to wikipedia:replies to common objections to the page - does this help? Martin

welcome committee

Hey folks. Recently a new user showed up, created a "vanity page," and spent a while fussing over whether it was going to be deleted. I talked with him a bit, and got the impression that he was doing that because he didn't really know what else to do. He was willing to contribute but didn't know where.

After that experience, it occurred to me that it would useful to create a group of Wikipedians dedicated to guiding newcomers. I know that there are a number of people who make a point of posting welcome messages to new users' talk pages, but I'm talking about more than that. I mean making a project dedicated to discussion of how to better welcome newcomers and get them started working where they'll be the most help. This project would have a page somewhere (Maybe a WikiProject page or a page on meta) and a defined, if informal, membership. The ultimate goal would be to welcome newcomers, find out their interests, connect them to WikiProjects if appropriate, introduce them to veteran WikiPedians with similar interests, and maybe guide them in their early editing.

I believe this approach would be better than the current system of hoping newcomers will read guidelines, waiting for them to ask questions, and correcting their work when they screw up.

A more proactive approach would have several benefits:

  • It would help get newcomers contributing faster and better, thus adding more good material to WikiPedia
  • It would save time that people currently spend fixing work of newcomers who don't know what's going on.
  • It would immerse new users in WikiPedia faster, and thus hopefully encourage a greater percentage of new users to stay.

Comments? Isomorphic 20:10, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You know, we're usually pretty good about someone posting a "welcome to wikipedia" boilerplates, and whomever does so seems to be the newbie's first "wikifriend". I do try to do this, but I seem to be beaten 99% of the time either by Angela or Theresa_knott (lending support to my theory that they're both highly advanced, super-efficient, perlscripts). I'm beginning to think of amending my own boilerplate to be a bit clearer about autobiographies, as I think a lot of the supposed "vanity" pages are just people not knowing the difference between the main namespace and the User one. -- Finlay McWalter 20:19, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Great idea. Not sure how it would be implemented, except perhaps by having a newbie click on a selection of areas of interest that would then alert an editor with similar interests (that has volunteered to be in the position) who can serve as a "guide" in the beginning, possibly passing off to other subcommittee members. I note there are some such groups already at MetaWiki - Marshman 23:24, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Well, one implementation I'd imagined was having a page somewhere with a coded feature that showed all new accounts that have been created in, say, the last week (excluding anonymous IPs.) Also, where are such groups on meta? I haven't spent much time there. Could someone link? Isomorphic 00:12, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It might be worth anyone interested in setting up such a scheme to look at the way it works on h2g2 (technically another collaborative encyclopedia project, but also a fairly wide-ranging community). There, they(we) have a group of volunteers, known as ACEs, whose primary job is exactly this kind of encouragement/welcome. Obviously, the circumstances are very different, but the scheme is now fairly mature, so it may be interesting to investigate the tools and procedures that have been put in place. See the h2g2 ACEs page for details. - IMSoP 01:03, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

We could create a MediaWiki custom text (see Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace) where people can fill in "tasks of the day" in newbiew-friendly language. Then all people who post welcome messages could add {{subst:totd}} to their boilerplace text to include the message. To avoid improper content, the page should be protected.—Eloquence

I like what I read about the H2G2 model. Anyway, I'd like to continue this discussion but suspect that Village Pump isn't the place. Is there a page somewhere on Meta? I really don't know anything much about Meta, as I'm still new here myself. Isomorphic 09:33, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about starting one at Wikipedia:Welcoming committee if it's going to be specific to the English Wikipedia or meta:Welcoming committee if it applies more widely? Angela. 14:28, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Maybe we should write a welcome page (Wikipedia:Welcome to Wikipedia?). It would merge some of the information from the top of the main page, Wikipedia:About, Wikipedia:Utilites, as well as other useful stuff - basics on etiquette, discussion, NPOV, everything needed for a newbie to find their way around. All written in newbie friendly language, style and formatting, and not longer than a screen of text, plus judiciously chosen and nicely formatted bunch of links to further reading. Make it nice and useful enough that people keep coming back to it.

Then post a link to this on the main page, on the anonymous edit page and on the login prompt pages (as well as under "You are now logged in...") Zocky 14:07, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You do know Welcome, newcomers, right?—Eloquence
No, I didn't. I've always assumed that "Welcome, newcomers" under "Writing articles" was a crash course in wikitax. I see that it's only linked to from the main page. How about making it more prominent - bold the link or put it on the top of the main page, into "Wikipedia is...", as well as to other places mentioned above. Zocky 15:19, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
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