Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-5956954-20160413131709

Hello,. Today I just want to address some concerns I am having with how the admin welcome messages present themselves on the wikia for new users.

When I see their welcome messages, the new user usually responds with a question, whether it is about some rumor or a genuine question about the wikia in general, or the worst scenario, none at all. What I am trying to say here is if the messages do not inform new users about the changes and rules compared to the other wikias, then they are likely going to break a rule and get blocked.

I want to use Warren3danger as an example (I hope that is fine with you.). They were uploading Elu Tran's extended soundtrack videos to the gallery and adding descriptions to it. Uploading videos are against the rules here because there is a template that does the job itself, and since this user did not know about this template, they broke a rule by accident. Assuming good faith, they were only trying to help.

There is not only concern with unintentional rule-breaking, but there are questions in general about how and what to edit on the wikia. Taking Luke W. Lake as another example for this thread. I will admit. This wikia is already nearly complete, but every contribution helps. I botched here because I did not link the Manual of Style or the Community Portal to them. It would've simplified the learning process for the new user. Should've been in the welcome message. Before you give the eye? They are going to be unblocked May 6th where they turn 13. They have done nothing wrong on the wikia... yet ;)

These are examples of the concerns I have and in conclusion, I have one sentence:

The welcome messages do not offer enough assistance.

The welcome messages need to present what is the wikia. It is great it offers help by messaging that admin, but in case they are not online or are on vacation, they might not be there to guide the new users. I did notice only Psychobilly2422, and Velocity Chicken are the only admins that make these automated messages, and yet there are more active admins like NamelessRumia, but they never get the message because they did not make that bot message for some reason.

The things that I feel should be added is a link to the Image rule thread (or just the entire news and announcement thread really), the Admin Report Thread, the Manual of Style, Community portal, and briefly explain each on the message. This is what I would hope to expect:

''Hello,. Thank you for your contributions on the Undertale Wikia. ''

If you want to know some of the Wikia's rules, you can check out the News and Announcement forum for some of the adjustments we made to keep the wikia working, such as the image rules, formatting, etc.

If you have an issue that you cannot solve yourself, such as editing a protected page or blocking a vandal, feel free to use the Admin Report thread.

''Lastly, if you want to contribute to the wikia, the Community Portal page will show you some good places to start your edits, Whether it is formatting correctly, or even fixing a little punctuation mistake. If you feel a task has been completed here, you can tell us about it, and we will update the page.''

''If you have any other issues you wish to address, feel free to message me. If I am offline, you can try bothering the other staff about it. (might need time schedules)''

Happy editing, .

Yes, I know. It sucks at the moment, but it will get better if comments below help out with some suggestions, if any. It is certainly better than the welcome message that we have now. As I said before, it will help guide new users, and it will help solve a lot of problems, whether it be preventing any new user breaking a rule by accident by uploading incorrect images, videos, help them how they can contribute, or how they can navigate the wikia for all the info they need.

Thanks for reading. I really hope this helps :) 