UESPWiki talk:Messages

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Archived discusssions about the site's Messages

Purpose of Page

The purpose of this page is to make it easier for editors to add standard warnings and notices to user talk pages. The idea behind doing it this way rather than setting up some templates with standard messages is that with these messages it is very easy to customize the message as appropriate for the situation. With existing templates such as Template:Blocked you have to either take the entire message exactly as is, or write a new message from scratch. With these messages you can start with a generic message that includes all the appropriate links and recommended information, then tweak just one sentence, or add a couple of extra details.

The idea was originally Aristeo's, but I've made some modifications. For one thing, I've put it into the UESPWiki namespace so that it's more obvious that editors are welcome to edit the messages. I've included some ideas I've seen people mention, such as the fact that having a warning message in a red box with a stop icon is more official-looking than just a plain message. I've also tried to expand the messages to include more links to relevant help pages and policy pages.

But the point here is to make these messages useful for editors, so the question is: does everyone think these are useful? Are there changes that need to be made? Different types of messages that are needed? Other ideas for how to do this? --Nephele 01:08, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Spamming Blockings

Alright, this has kinda been on my mind for the last day or so, but should we even bother putting block messages on the talk pages of spammers? I mean, it seems unnecessary, as long as the IP address is still used by a spammer, but what happens if that changes? I've heard plenty of stories about spammers using 'zombie' computers to spam a lot of sites at once. If there's no block message on their talk page, and they are unable to create an account, they'll have no idea why they can't edit it. Of course, the chances of this happening are a extremely low, due to the number of IPs on the internet and the relativily small number of IPs that edit our wiki. So, is it worth the extra work, or not? If it is an issue of to much work for certain admins, I can handle the messages, I just don't want to do it if it would be considered a waste of time. --Ratwar 20:14, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

Don't blocked IPs get some sort of message stating that they're blocked when they try to post something? We could always customize that message, explaining how to appeal the block and all. Just have to figure out where it is. Somewhere in the Mediawiki stuff, but may be hard to find the exact one... --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 22:20, 28 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm not totally sure, since I've never been blocked, but adding a message about how to appeal the block (if it isn't already there would be helpful). I'm not an expert at Mediawiki, and I'm not really full of time currently.--Ratwar 13:31, 29 April 2007 (EDT)

The message that appears for blocked accounts is at Mediawiki:Blockedtext. It already includes some info about how to appeal block, but more could be added to clarify that if there's no message on the talk page it's because the IP was a proxy server and/or used by a spammer. --Nephele^Talk 00:44, 1 May 2007 (EDT)

Blanking

I notice there isn't a warning for unexplained blanking, only a message, does it not count as vandalism? Volanaro 14:54, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

In most cases, blanking only warrants a notice. Under Assume Good Faith, we assume that the editor made a mistake (didn't understand how wiki editing works, for example) instead of assuming that it was intentional. Blanking doesn't provide any clear evidence of intentional bad faith, unlike for example adding obscenities to a page, for which there is no reason to "accidentally" be typing them on a UESP article. In particular, the recent example where you used the message does not in any qualify as vandalism, so a friendly message is the appropriate response. Page blanking by itself would only qualify vandalism if done repeatedly, even after being given a notice. And at that point one of the other warning messages could easily be adapted for the situation. I'd rather do that than have a standard warning, which I'd guess would lead to more inappropriate uses than legitimate uses. --Nephele^Talk 15:09, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

ok, i guess that's fair enough Volanaro 15:12, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

The Welcome message

In order to ease pressure on the Recent Changes patrollers, I propose 2 additions to the standard Welcome message, a line about how to add your signature and one about how to use preview. Those are two common mistakes that come up for new editors and tend to drive up the the post counts. Some editors (who shall remain unnamed) make a living by adding the unsigned template to comments from new users ;)

In addition, in praxis only users that already have made an edit will get this message, so the comments about the sandbox might be superfluous. Here is a quick suggestion for the change:

Hello <Name>! Welcome to the wiki. I hope you enjoy using the site and find the information on it useful. If you decide you want to help improve any of our pages, we're always welcoming to new editors so feel free. You might want to look at our Getting Started page for some tips, and use Show Preview to see your edit before saving. Please remember to sign your edits on Talk pages with 4 tilde (~). If you need any help or advice, please ask one of our mentors. Enjoy!

If/when approved, someone in-the-know would have to change the template ;) -- Cheers, Benould^•T•C 16:27, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

While I understand what you're trying to accomplish, I'm not sure that the welcome message is the best place to add such information. The vast majority of the unsigned talk page posts are from anonymous editors, and changing the welcome message won't have any effect on anonymous editors.

But your note made me realize that we're not taking advantage of a few features used by wikipedia. What I've done is modify a few of the messages that appear when you're editing a page. Talk pages now have an extra notice box telling people to sign their posts; all edit pages have a line directly below the Save page button recommending that editors preview the edit; anonymous editors also get an additional message pointing to the sandbox. Unfortunately, I'm sure there will still be editors who ignore the new messages. But there's nothing we can do to force people to read information. Hopefully the new messages will at least help those people who are willing to read what's on the page in front of them.

Also, FYI, anyone can change the welcome message; no special privileges are required. There's an editing section at the bottom of the page providing links to all of the actual messages. --Nephele^Talk 23:03, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

I am only a 'regular user' - but I am also a teacher, and I have to say this information really needs to be more obvious, if you want to cut down on the signature and preview problems. It stood out to me the FIRST time I went to edit a talk page, before even creating an account. I know from work experience that a lot of meticulous people are unable to view things from a non-reader type of person's perspective, but that is one of my "teacher powers." I specialize in rewriting worksheets, project instructions, and handouts for teachers, as well as any important document being passed around for faculty/parents. With a few changes in wording and layout, you can dramatically change how well people follow written instructions. I won't bother going into details, because I am also a lengthy writer, but if anyone would like more information about general rules of thumb, ask on my talk page. Here are just two things that stand out to me (among many):

• Why is the Save Page button shown first and in bold? Experienced editors will have no problem finding the save page button. Inexperienced editors are going to read what stands out most, first. The Preview button should be FIRST and also in BOLD. I understand this would take getting used to, and may cause problems, but honestly, I am shocked this would ever be built this way in the first place, on a site that allows anyone to edit. Perhaps there could be some compromised way of attempting to fix this, perhaps phasing in changes over time. Don't forget that in this computer-based society, we have encouraged the idea of "Don't forget to save often!" People could even be pressing the save button, thinking that it will save their current work like when they create an email or a document. Perhaps Publish would be more appropriate and clear wording.
• If signatures are such a problem, why is that note hidden in the list? Yes, those bullets are good, but you must pick your battles, and if signatures are one, then that should be made much more visible. Also, notice that it isn't explained that everyone, even people without an account, should sign their posts. I'm not sure if the wiki realizes that it makes "common sense" to assume that if you don't have an account, you have no signature. A person might think, "I have not created a signature, so that wouldn't work for me." (For example, on emails, to "add your signature" means to paste in text that you pre-made specifically to be your signature.) It might be good to rephrase it to indicate that everyone, even if you don't have an account, needs to put (~ ~ ~ ~) at the end of their comment/post. For best results, try this general rule: Use "for dummies" phrasing FIRST, then explain SECOND. The current statement is backwards; it is attempting to explain on a higher level of wiki understanding FIRST, then it is clarifying in 'just-tell-me-what-to-do' speech SECOND. Try reversing it, such as: Always add ~ ~ ~ ~ at the end of your post on Talk Pages; this will automatically add a signature with the day and time. Or try catching their attention with a question:

Should I sign my post?

On Talk pages, always add ~ ~ ~ ~ after your post.

Never add your name or signature on the main article page.

Well, I could go on and on with various suggestions and explaining various tenets and rules-of-thumb about improving understanding and follow-though for your average non-reader... but I shouldn't. I just happened across this post and thought, "Oh, they do acknowledge this problem and are willing to make changes to try and fix it." So, I thought I would try and point out the two most obvious problems and see what happens. --Amsuko 18:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the position of the save button is hard-coded in the MediaWiki software. It could probably be changed, but then our wiki would be different from almost every other wiki out there, which would be even more confusing. The bulleted list comes from a standard wiki page, so is much more editable, but any significant changes to that should probably be brought to the Administrator Noticeboard. – Robin Hood↝talk 03:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Information Already Exists

I am requesting that a notice be made for checking if information already exists before adding it. This seems like a common problem and it would be much easier to handle with an admin approved message.
One example is:

Hello and welcome to UESPWiki! Thank you for your interest in the site. When adding information to a page, please check if that information already exists elsewhere on the site. Adding redundant information only means other editors must find and delete off the edited page. You may also want to check our Getting Started guide. Feel free to ask if you have any questions. --Puddle ^{Talk•Contribs.} 20:00, 27 June 2008 (EDT)

That is all.-Puddle ^{Talk•Contribs.} 20:00, 27 June 2008 (EDT)

Yes, people adding redundant information is a common problem. But 99% of the time it's not dealt with by adding a message to the user talk page. Normally, the edit just gets undone with an edit summary explanation of why it was undone. Or in the case of someone creating an article (which tend to be the cases that generate more discussion/feedback than routine redundancy), an explanation is given in the proposed deletion tag. Posting a message on a talk page every time just takes more work.

It also seems to cross the line from what's necessary to what's excessive. Especially with anonymous editors, we need to remember that more often than not, the next time that editor returns to the site, his/her IP address will be different. In that case, the editor will never see the message posted on the old IP's talk page (instead, it may confuse a future reader who is dynamically assigned that IP address). So messages shouldn't be counted upon as a reliable way to communicate with someone. Warnings are used because they have to be: we have to warn the user before blocking the IP address. But in many other circumstances, I don't think it's always necessary to proactively contact the editor: if the editor later returns to the site and wants to know what was done and why, the editor can post a question on the article talk page.

The situation today (with an anonymous IP posting the same redundant information in three separate places) is one of the rare exceptions where an editor is doing something repetitively and therefore contacting the editor may be useful as a way to prevent the information from getting posted ten more times. But I don't think we need a standardized message for every rare situation. If a message is only likely to be used a few times per year, and even then only with significant customization, then it seems better for everyone to just start with one of the existing notices and customize that. Just because the notice section says, for example "First Person," doesn't mean you have to use the message for that exact purpose. You can start by adding that message, and then replace the middle sentence with something more appropriate. --Nephele^Talk 20:34, 27 June 2008 (EDT)

Okay, that's what I did today, I'll just keep on doing that, but I've seen many cases of this, thus I considered it a good idea at the time.-Puddle ^{Talk•Contribs.} 22:15, 27 June 2008 (EDT)

Warning Powers

I just noticed that I can Warn IP accounts. Has this ability always been there and I haven't noticed it, or did some wires get crossed giving me Patroller privileges?Temple-Zero 17:25, 12 April 2009 (EDT)

Everybody can warn everybody else. Enjoy yourself :) –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 01:13, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

New Welcome Message

A few people have mentioned that our current welcome message could use a little help, so I've put together this little number. I added links to our policies and guidelines so it seems more fair for us to expect newer users to be knowledgeable about how we do things here. I also threw in a link to the quick editing guide in case the user has never touched a wiki before. The mention of signatures and show preview seemed pretty obvious as well. Feedback, please! ;) –Eshe^talk 16:39, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello! Welcome to UESPWiki. It's always good to have new members! If you would like to help improve any of our pages, you may want to take a look at the following links:

• Policies and Guidelines: UESPWiki standards and expectations
• Quick Editing Guide: a quick guide to wiki markup
• Getting Started: how you can help

When you're editing, it's always a good idea to leave edit summaries to explain the changes you have made to a particular page, and remember to sign your posts with four tildes ~~~~. Also, the "show preview" button is a great way to view the changes you've made so far without actually saving the page (our Patrollers really appreciate it!).

Feel free to practice editing in the sandbox and don't hesitate to contact one of our mentors if you need any help! Have fun! --~~~~

Well, we might want to specify that you only sign Talk Page posts...  ;) --GK^Talk2me 19:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I like it. Two exclamation marks on the first two sentences is a little much, and I'd add linkify Edit Summary but otherwise, yes. GK's point is a good one too. –rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 04:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I like the new version. We also might want to notify new users of the fact that when they ask a question on someone's talk page, that person will answer on their respective talk page, instead of on the talk page of the person who asked the question, and the other way around. We recently had some discussion about that. Or is that too much? Wolok gro-Barok 15:36, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's a good suggestion, but I'm not sure if it's been a frequent enough problem to mention in the welcome message. I'd like to keep the message from getting too overwhelming so we don't scare anyone off ;). What do other people think?

And thanks for the feedback, everyone. Hopefully I'll have the new message in place by the end of the day. –Eshe^talk 16:29, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

We so should have put in the "We're watching you, Scum" part--Ratwar 06:02, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Welcoming ALL Members...

Is there really a purpose for welcoming members who haven't even edited before? I highly doubt a welcome message is going to nudge them towards editing. I think we should shy away from welcoming members until they edit at least once. A quick look at the current Recent Changes page show how completely unnecessary this massive welcoming is. --Elliot^(T-C) 18:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You have a point here. It might be a bit too much, although I don't think an edit is a requirement for welcoming a user. People probably do not make an account just for the sake of making an account, but I will stop welcoming EVERY user for now. Wolok gro-Barok 18:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Some people do. But if we don't know if they are planning on editing, then why welcome them? It might sound harsh, but it is reality IMO. I personally will only edit if they have plans on contributing and only then. --Elliot^(T-C) 18:49, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it really matters either way. A few extra edits on the wiki never hurt anyone. There's no reason to have a policy for or against it.--Ratwar 21:05, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Who knows? A nice welcome might even encourage new members to start participating? Krusty 21:13, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I think editing is more premeditated than anything. This isn't a big deal, I just don't see the need to welcome all of them. --Elliot^(T-C) 21:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with Ratwar. Rather I'd have a policy not to have a policy on this. If a user likes to welcome a new user, he/she is free to it. If it's not your style, then don't do it. There have been discussions about welcome messages before, with remarkable sad results (editors biting each other over it), so I'd recommend not pursuing this. --Timenn-<talk> 21:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not throwing this out there a a mindless banter. It just seems as a knee-jerk spam reaction to welcome members in piles, which is bad. There is absolutely no need for it. So we can't welcome anonymous editors who edit a lot, but we can welcome new people who register that have yet to edit anything? Like I said, there just isn't a need for it. And it wouldn't be a policy (and like I have said, I am not randomly throwing this out there). And you would rather have a policy to not have a policy... please take this seriously. --Elliot^(T-C) 23:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that the point of welcoming new users regardless of whether or not they have made an edit is to prevent a lot of corrections/reprimands that often have to be made. The point of the welcome, should you choose to use it, is to make sure new users are given quick access to the information we expect our editors to be familiar with. Making sure new users are familiar with our policies or how to sign posts, for example, saves us a lot of time and saves those users potential embarrassment. I'm with Ratwar and Timenn on this one. If you don't want to welcome users, don't do it. If you'd like to, feel free. We don't need a law about this. –Eshe^talk 23:42, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with Eshe, Timenn, and Ratwar. A welcome when a user has registered with our community does not seem out-of-place to me at all. It won't hurt anything if it happens. The problem with welcoming anonymous editors is that the person who made the edit might not be the one that receives the welcome, and there's no chance of that happening with a registered user. --GK^Talk2me 02:29, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Just keep in mind I am trying to save time and edits (that aren't really needed). --Elliot^(T-C) 02:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Understandable, but what you have to remember is that for many editors (really all of us) the UESP is a hobby. A hobby is no good if there's nothing to do on it, so saving time and edits really isn't a big deal around here. --Ratwar 05:11, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

I was thinking that is could be possible to set up the messages as templates, and then use substitution to places messages on the user talk pages. I think this could make the process a tad easier (not that it is hard or anything...). But it would be easy to include information without having to worry about all of the mess the messages can make. Something such as {{subst:Welcome|User Name|Additional Notes}} would create:

---

Hello User Name! Welcome to UESPWiki. It's always good to have new members. If you would like to help improve any of our pages, you may want to take a look at the following links:

• Policies and Guidelines: UESPWiki standards and expectations
• Quick Editing Guide: a quick guide to wiki markup
• Getting Started: how you can help

When you're editing, it's always a good idea to leave edit summaries to explain the changes you have made to a particular page, and remember to sign your talk page posts with four tildes ~~~~. Also, the "show preview" button is a great way to view the changes you've made so far without actually saving the page (our Patrollers really appreciate it!).

Feel free to practice editing in the sandbox and don't hesitate to contact one of our mentors if you need any help.

Additional Notes. Have fun! --~~~~

---

With both, obviously, being optional. This could work with warnings and blocks as well: {{subst:Warning|Vandalized Page|Diff #}}. This would create the line such as this edit to "Vandalized Page".

It is kind of a small thing, but I think it could make it easier to put these on the user's pages and to coordinate the inclusion of page names etc. Also, I was thinking about adding {{subst:BASEPAGENAME}} to the welcome message, just (again) to make some things easier. I know time is non-existent, but simplifying things never hurt anybody. :) Thoughts? –Elliot ^talk 16:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

These messages were very intentionally set up to not be templates, as explained at the top of this talk page. I don't think anything has changed since then, so I still think using templates for this purpose would be a bad idea. Furthermore, subst'ing templates containing functions (#if, etc) produces a pretty ugly mess in my opinion -- yes, it looks OK to readers, but the wikitext is ugly and makes it painfully obvious to the person being welcomed that the message is a generic, cookie-cutter template. --Nephele^Talk 18:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

That is perfectly fine! Although I don't believe many feel the welcome message is personal as it is, making it completely obvious is rather not a good idea. However, I think Warning and Block notices could be enhanced by this. Just by adding the page name and diff number to a simple template, you can get a nice warning message displaying exactly what they did wrong (this takes away the manual labor of going to the contribs. to find it out. However, I still think the {{subst:BASEPAGENAME}} would be beneficial, since it leaves no signs of anything impersonal.

The Block notice would be trickier due to the expanse of them, but I think it could help out. We can leave the Welcome message as just that, a message. :) –Elliot ^talk 18:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion moved to UESPWiki:Community_Portal#New_Template_Category

---

Link to UESPWiki:Userboxes in welcome messages?

Linking to that page might be beneficial. First of all, new users don't have to ask where that page is or wonder if such page exists at all. And secondly, users might be more inclined to make a userpage for themselves now they have all the information at hand. Therefore I think it's worth including that link. ^Talk Wolok gro-Barok _{Contributions} 16:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Good idea! People do get pretty excited about userboxes, so maybe having a spiffy user page will encourage them to stick around and help more. Here's to wishful thinking, right? ;) –Eshe^talk 17:10, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Done it! Almost forgot my own suggestion ;) ^Talk Wolok gro-Barok _{Contributions} 18:45, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Recent Edits

I went ahead and updated the images for the warning messages. One reason was to enhance the images themselves (as Wikipedia had done), and another was to differentiate the block from the warning as well. I know the colors differentiate, but I think this makes it a tiny bit better. If you feel otherwise, feel free to comment here! Thanks. –Elliot ^talk 01:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't feel fine with the new images, they have some poor gradient to it, and basically detract from the simply but firm icons. I find the new images to be too flashy, instead I prefer the simple icons that did their job well. The warnings already looked quite differently from the block notices, due to the different background colors. --Timenn-<talk> 11:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

How can you say they have poor gradient? Keep in mind that I took these from svg files which are far superior to any other type of file; I only couldn't use them here since the wiki doesn't support svg's. And I think it is important to differentiate with an X on the block, since they both mean two completely things. And obviously it will tak some getting used to, since we those other images since the beginning of the wiki (which is exactly the reason I changed it). –Elliot ^talk 19:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

At a glance, it looks like a poor gradient, but in fact, it's deliberate. See the .svg version of it on Wikipedia. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 00:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

In MediaWiki 1.14+, thumbnails of SVG files can be converted into PNG thumbnails as long as the right software is installed (see [1]), but I'm not sure if UESP is configured for that sort of stuff yet. Perhaps Daveh or Nephele can help in that area. I prefer the Nuvola-style images that Elliot uploaded from Commons, but everyone's preference is different. --Michaeldsuarez ^{(Talk) (Deeds)} 02:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

We do not have the software installed at the moment, but it would be beneficial if we did have it. –Elliot ^talk 02:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

\=>Look, I simply preferred the simple icons that were here before. I never was a fan of flashy icons. Now apparently Ratwar felt it necessary to remark on IRC how I'm bitching about the issue (or did I really read that wrong?). It's very simple, Elliot uploaded new images, notified the community and invited people to comment if they want. I gave my opinion, and if everyone else is happy with them than that's fine, it's as simple as that. It's just a minor stylistical issue, I never claimed it was more. --Timenn-<talk> 16:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly didn't take your comments as anything more. I haven't seen the IRC remark, at least not that I can recall, but it may have just been intended to mean that you didn't like the new graphics. I know there's been some friction lately, but let's not sweat the little things like what might have been just a poorly-worded comment. —Robin Hood (Talk • E-mail • Contribs) 02:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Any misunderstanding on both our parts has been settled, so I believe the issue to be closed.

As for the icons, well I stated my thoughts about it, but if everyone is fine with them then I'm at least happy you're happy. ;) --Timenn-<talk> 12:50, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

not a fourm message

hi just thinking a not a fourm message might be usefel sometimes and sinse there's the person evry once in awhile who does tthibk uesps a forum so just wanted to know if you guys think it's a good idea--GUM!!! 14:01, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism Advice Notice

A new advice notice that I think we need after a fair few instances this past year.

Hello and welcome to UESPWiki! Thanks for your interest in improving the wiki. Plagiarizing content, including images, and placing it on UESPWiki is unacceptable, and any plagiarized content will always be removed upon detection. If you are the same user who posted the original content elsewhere, please identify yourself accordingly before attempting to add the content again. UESPWiki encourages you to take your time and produce your own, non-plagiarized content for use on the site, and your help in doing so is appreciated. You may also want to look over our style guide and Getting Started guide. Feel free to ask if you have any questions. ~~~~

Anyone is free to edit it here, as they see fit. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:28, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

I made a few minor revisions, but overall I think having a message like this is a good idea. I like how Vely added specific diffs and dated versions of pages in question in these two messages for the same topic, as it was specific and clear enough to show which edits warranted the message, but of course adding something like that to a standard notice wouldn't be feasible. It would be easy to add this to the message manually if we wish to do so, though, so of course we can do that if desired. Making the standard message generalized works quite well, especially since it covers images- which end up being completely deleted and therefore lose their public history pages. — ABCface^◥ 00:53, 15 January 2013 (GMT)

I kind of want to see this be a warning and not just a piece of advice. While I'm not a fan of using a stricter tone towards users who may of just not known that we don't tolerate that behavior, it does send a much more clear message. Perhaps we should just remove some of the niceties to make sure that it's understood that this is rather serious, without possibly completely disheartening them if they had good intent. What do you guys think? It may go away from the standard model for these messages, but there needs to be a bit more of a balance between preserving the user's feelings and getting the message across in this specific case. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 20:22, 17 January 2013 (GMT)

Added a touch more emphasis. What about having both, I kinda started out writing a warning, but thought that this issue isn't wide-spread enough to warrant a warning straight-up (though the seriousness might warrant it). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:30, 17 January 2013 (GMT)

Smart as usual, Silencer. The warning would be great for repeat offenders or people who don't have any legitimate contributions to their username. I would say it should also have a block message attached to it, but that situation is rare enough that I don't think it'll be necessary. Generally, plagiarists do something else to deserve the block from my observations, so we usually have to roll a new one up for the situation anyway. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 20:44, 17 January 2013 (GMT)

(←) I altered it a bit, removing the sentence about experimentation and moving the sentence about "also check out these pages". It keeps the tone that other messages have, though a bit more stern with the emphasis Silencer added, so I like it.

I know at least a few people I have warned have had some legitimate edits or just wanted to contribute, and I haven't noticed any of them (except one, IIRC) continuing their plagiarism after being told to stop, so I don't think we need to be too heavy on this message. Vely^►t►e 20:47, 17 January 2013 (GMT)

TOC limit?

I noticed that the intent of the article's table of contents seemed to be to float right, and to only show the level-two headers ("Welcome", "Notices", "Warnings", "Editing", et cetera). Given that {{TOCright}} was already being used, I removed the line <div style=float:right>__TOC__</div>, as the template accomplishes the float itself. Additionally, since limit was set as 1, I figured that the original editor had forgotten to consider the title-level header as 1, and as such hadn't offset the limit (otherwise limit would not have been included as a parameter). If this assumption was incorrect, please remove the limit parameter. gelza1^TalkCont 00:04, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Just realized how wordy this was.

Tl;dr—Edit summary: Removed superfluous line of code; corrected TOCright parameter limit, if incorrect, please remove parameter.

gelza1^{Talk Cont} 00:07, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not even sure what div lines do so someone else can make the call on whether they are needed. The TOC needs to show all the messages available for quick access. The ability to quickly link to the required message, especially warnings, is an important part of having this page. Ease of access is severely damaged by not being able to easily find the right message at the right time. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:38, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

It's a case of page drift over time. At the time of the original edit, it made sense as it was, since there were only level one headers at the time. I'm guessing Lurlock wasn't aware of TOCright back then, or just didn't clue in that the combined commands were, in effect, equivalent to {{TOCright}}. That said, I agree with Silencer's reasoning. I think it makes more sense to list all of the messages.

And no, there's no need for the div now that it's a TOCright instead of a TOClimit—that's all the div was doing. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:42, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the limit; I've never actually used the page to send messages before, so I wasn't all that sure about TOC levels (though I had a sneaking suspicion after I had changed it that I should have removed rather than changed the parameter). gelza1^{Talk Cont} 01:30, 14 June 2017 (UTC)