It's a good opportunity to step back and discuss a little something. The existence of pretty much every bot is a reason to think of a missing feature in the site's software. The same goes for templates and gadgets.
Why do many wikis have custom welcome templates and bots that send them? The intuitive answer is "to send a personal message to a new user", but if it's done by a bot, it's already not personal. What does the bot actually automate? The placement of a template? But what is the actual purpose of the template? Is it to say "hello and welcome"? The notifications feature already does it nicely. To send people a list of useful links? I heard many times that new users actually do find them useful, and it's a good thing. But it's nevertheless an anecdotal claim, and smarter questions should be asked: * How many people actually read these messages? * Are all the links useful? Do people actually click them? * Could some be removed? Could some be added? * Why is it different in every project? Could at least some parts be reused across languages in a robust and properly localizable manner? * Is the talk page really a good place to do this? * How useful is it for people for people who come from another language and have an account auto-created? And so on. Welcome templates have been a part of our sites for well over a decade, but it's never too late to ask fundamental question about what purpose do they serve, and how could this purpose be served better. Happy New Year :) בתאריך 29 בדצמ׳ 2017 11:21, "John Erling Blad" <jeb...@gmail.com> כתב: > Users on other projects are complaining about the welcome messages at > arwiki. A bot at that project are welcoming people that has no activity at > that project at all. The bot operator claims the activity is valid, but I > can't see that this is a well-behaving bot at all.[1] > > I suspect the bot is welcoming every user it can find, but using user > accounts from central login and not users that has local contributions at > arwiki. > > Can someone shut down the bot until the user fix the spam problem. > > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Meno25#Welcome_messages > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
