Requests for comment/Welcoming policy

This is a subpage; for more information, see the Requests for comments page.

There seems to be strong support on Talk:Welcoming policy to adopt Welcoming policy as a global policy, however, it was never officially brought to an RfC. Thus, I request comments concerning whether or not the welcoming policy shall be adopted. Here is its full text as of 20:30, 27 November 2024 (UTC):

A wiki is only allowed to post welcome messages to users if their account was originally created at the wiki, or the user has at least one non-imported edit there.
Some wikis post welcome messages to the talk page of new users accounts, for example saying welcome and linking to important policy and help pages. Many user accounts at a given wiki were created automatically by the global account system when a logged-in user from another Wikimedia wiki randomly clicked a link to the wiki. Accounts can also be created automatically for users who have never visited the wiki, if the user once edited a page at another wiki and it was later imported with page history. In both cases, the user may have no knowledge of the wiki or its language, and can be confused or worried by unreadable messages. Posts to user talk pages trigger a notification at other wikis and often an e-mail in the language of the wiki.
Welcome messages may both be manually written and use templates. Allowed welcome messages may both be posted by editors and bots. A plus or home icon under "Method" at Special:CentralAuth may show where an account was originally created. As of 2020, imported edits appear to generally not be included in the edit count at Special:CentralAuth.
Wikis are free to make stricter local rules for welcome messages but not to allow more messages.

JJP_{Mas_ter} (she/they) 20:30, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Support as author of the proposed policy. Welcome messages at wikis I never edited are not welcome. Many confused users at the English Wikipedia have made concerned questions about unreadable posts in a foreign language, often in a script they don't even know. Some worry their account was hacked. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mach61 (talk) 22:19, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support for the same reasons given by PrimeHunter above. Schazjmd (talk) 22:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gelasin (talk) 22:50, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the above. I was also very confused today to receive a welcome message at the English Wikisource, my most recent edit there was in about 2017. If it confuses someone like me, who is less than a month away from 20 years of editing Wikimedia projects, it must be even more so for brand new editors. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp · wikidata) 01:11, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf, the page history seems to tell a different story. That welcome message has been on your talk page since 2005 (as a transclusion) and 2006 (when a bot subst:d it). What happened this week is that someone correct Special:LintErrors on your talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was still confused, but it seems that the source of my confusion was a different "helpful" edit. My opinion is unchanged. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp · wikidata) 09:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support as proposer; since creating this RfC, I literally got one of these at Farsi Wikibooks. I have never edited there. JJP_{Mas_ter} (she/they) 01:33, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support * Pppery * _{it has begun} 02:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kudpung (talk) 04:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support because creating a large number of SUL account is not avoidable for cases such as Global reminder bot. Also (i) what happens if a wiki ignores the policy? and (ii) I thought that imported edits will show up as long as the option to attribute edits to local users were set. Leaderboard (talk) 04:39, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Having a message show up "welcoming" you to a site simply because you clicked a link to it feels, quite frankly, creepy and inappropriate. If sites are going to place welcome messages on user talk pages automatically at all, they should wait to do so until the user makes an edit or another similarly logged action. Omphalographer (talk) 05:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Look, I don't love receiving these – and if a wiki is posting these, I've probably already received theirs – but I do understand the impulse, especially for very small wikis, which get relatively few users and needs to encourage people to stick around. Also, newcomers often wonder why "the system" isn't set up to feed them information as they need it, and an automated welcoming message is one of the ways to do that. Commons did this for years, and while I believe that they have voluntarily chosen to stop, I think there might be some valid reasons to shove links to their rules in everyone's faces before you make an edit/mistake there. But in the category of "bad policy writing", as written, this prohibits all welcoming messages until after you've made an edit – even a hand-written, 100% personal note from a friend. As written, if you happen to notice in Special:RecentChanges at a sister wiki that a friend's account had been autocreated, you are prohibited from leaving a note on their talk page that sounds anything like a welcoming message, but it'd be totally fine for you to post a note saying "Go away, you stupid jerk". I suggest to you that a rule that prohibits hospitality, but not other forms of contact, is a very bad policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:16, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Millions of welcome messages may have been posted to users with no edits. I have never heard of a rude post to a user with no edits. The local wiki can deal with that if it ever happens. The rude poster would be unlikely to know or care about a global policy. This policy is meant to address a real issue which affects numerous users. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:31, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much every place that has automated or systematic ones has spammed me personally – usually twice. As I said, I don't love these messages. But I don't mind messages that are truly posted individually.

I've seen multiple blocks of users with no edits. One of them was blocked for having one too many characters in his username. An admin at idwiki spent years blocking editors with numbers in the middle of their usernames, because that was w:en:l33t speak. Arwiki (unless they've changed it recently) has an unusually stringent username policy, rejecting usernames that contain places and groups associated with regional politics. Would you really prohibit them from posting a message to a zero-edit user that says "Welcome. We have some policies, including an unusually strict one about usernames. You can change your username by..." while accepting a message to that same zero-edit user that says "I've blocked you for violating the username policy"?

BTW, the "policy" as written says that if I'm on a sister project, I can't post a message on your User_talk: to welcome you. But it would allow me to go to any project where you have made 1+ edit to post that welcome. I doubt that's intended ...but it is what y'all wrote. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:44, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the main reason for a post is to inform of a username problem then I wouldn't consider it a welcome message just because it includes a welcome. Has anyone ever spammed welcome messages to a user everywhere they have an edit or account? I don't think a global policy would have stopped them but the user is free to report it and a reviewer of a report is free to consider the circumstances, e.g. that the spammer isn't acting as "A wiki" posting welcome messages. I don't think we should write various special rules for hypothetical cases which may never happen. Wikimedia rules are not like penal codes which are usually enourmous and require highly trained lawyers. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:00, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you write a policy to encompass almost everything, then it will someday be enforced against good things, by someone who has poor judgment or a vendetta.

If you want to stop the thing you actually care about, then write what you actually care about: "Do not systematically post generic welcoming messages to all auto-created accounts, especially if that person has made enough edits on other SUL-connected wikis that they are likely to know about this rule. Experienced editors often find these messages irritating, especially when they can't read the local language. Once they've made any edit locally, this rule no longer applies." WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support per Leaderboard. It's also very antithetical to have these "welcoming bots" welcome long-term abusers and spammers and adds an extra layer that could easily be avoided. --SHB2000 (t • c) 07:41, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
could it welcome only autoconfirmed users who are not banned at another wiki? this could help rule out the spammers. i agree that welcoming spammers is an issue thanks. Gryllida 01:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose On the current wording I'd be breaching policy if I saw an editor at English Wikipedia working on Icelandic sagas and created a welcome message at their is.wikipedia.org talk page. Creates far more problems than it appears to solve. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 07:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you assume that an editor working on Icelandic sagas in English speaks Icelandic at all, let alone fluently enough to usefully contribute to the Wikipedia in that language? Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp · wikidata) 09:27, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf Because I am a glass half full kind of person. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 21:33, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure that plenty can be written about the Icelandic sagas based on a high-quality translation and/or non-Icelandic language research. The mere idea that if a user writes about the Icelandic sagas this means they understand Icelandic isn't true. And if a user occasionally reads Icelandic Wikipedia (which they would only do if they understand Icelandic, and would cause them to have an account there), it still doesn't follow that they want to have the account there and to be welcomed. Animal lover 666 (talk) 01:44, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Goldsztajn: The way this is worded would make me assume that it applies not to individual people, but to the wiki itself (e.g. using automated welcoming bots). @PrimeHunter: please let me know if I'm wrong. Besides, you probably shouldn't do that, as not every person who knows what Iceland is is fluent in its language. JJP_{Mas_ter} (she/they) 14:59, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The intention is to stop widespread welcome messages from users or bots representing the wiki. A global policy means the posters can be asked to stop. It's unlikely anyone will care about a single message formulated individually for the recipient. Neither party will probably know the policy. I wanted a simple rule and not a bunch of legalese to try to exclude a few rare cases which will probably happen anyway with no objections. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Making it clear it refers to automated edits would be the simplest thing. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 21:35, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I said "users or bots". It also refers to manual edits. They are usually made with templates or copy-pasting with the same user making numerous identical messages. I have never seen or heard of an individually crafted welcome message to a specific user with no edits. If they actually happen then I doubt the suggested policy will affect them in practice. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Making it clear that it refers to "widespread" messages would help a lot. Or do you actually want a rule that says nobody is allowed to post even one message that starts with the word 'Welcome' under any circumstances? "It's simpler to just make all of it be against the rules, but everyone is reasonable, so we won't enforce it when it's actually a good thing" has been proven wrong many times, on wiki and in real life. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the policy says widespread then many recipients of unwanted welcome messages from strangers will feel they have to check this particular poster has done it widespread before pointing them to the policy and asking them to stop. That's a big annoyance when you have already wasted time on the post and the wiki is usually in a language you don't know so it's hard to check edits, and it may turn out that the user is just starting on their mass posts. Some small wikis who feel they really need the attention may look for loopholes like making mass posts from dynamic IP's or multiple accounts. We could add that posts to users you know are excepted. Has anyone ever heard of an individually crafted welcome post to a stranger with no edits? That sounds creepy to me and could really concern some recipients, e.g. women worrying about their safety. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:03, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let me check this: You're saying that it takes more time to:
Receive a message (zero seconds).

Click the link in Echo/Notifications to see what it's about (five seconds).

Determine that you don't like it (five seconds).

Make a choice: Do nothing (0 seconds, and skip the rest of the list), revert the welcome message (10 seconds), or check the page history to see who posted it (let me turn on my timer – seven seconds, so let's round up to 10).

Check that person contribs to see whether they're posting all the same things (10–30 seconds).

Leave a note on the User_talk: page for the person/bot owner (28 seconds in my simulated test, but let's say two minutes).

than to:
Receive a message (zero seconds).

Click the link in Echo/Notifications to see what it's about (five seconds).

Determine that you don't like it (five seconds).

Come to Meta-Wiki and find the policy page (60 seconds).

Read enough of the page to make sure that it's a real violation (60 seconds if you're a native English speaker and twice that if you're not).

Figure out where you're supposed to complain about Serious Violations of Policy (60 seconds).

Go back to check the page history to see who posted it so you can ping them (10 seconds).

Come back to Meta-Wiki to write and post the complaint (probably about five minutes).

Check on your complaint repeatedly during the next week to make sure it's being addressed (by whom?) to your satisfaction (five minutes if someone responds but nobody argues, and much more if nobody responds and you decide to spam "Please see" notes around, or if they argue with you).

Discover that there is no enforcement mechanism, so if the local wiki disagrees and wants to keep doing this, or if they just ignore you, there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it.

By my estimate:
Option 1a ("do nothing") costs you 10 seconds.

Option 1b ("revert the welcome") costs you 20 seconds.

Option 1c ("complain locally") costs you two or three minutes.

Option 2 ("have an Official™ policy") costs you ten times that.

Remind me again which one is wasting my time? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nearly all my welcome messages have been in languages I don't know where it's challenging to just make simple navigation without setting the interface to English. Some were in right-to-left scripts which confuse the hell out of me. The user may have other edits between welcome messages. A wiki may try to circumvent a lenient policy by rotating who welcomes new users. I have 28,000 edits to Wikipedia help desks and have seen many confused and worried users. I'm spending time on this proposal to help others, not myself. If I see a violation, I would inform the violator of the policy and see if they stop on their own. Most violations would probably be from users who don't know the policy but will accept it. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 08:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Happy Editing--IAm Chaos 23:23, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Even if I publicly announce that I speak some given language, that doesn't mean that I want to be welcomed by all wikis which speak it. Unless I take an action that makes it clear I want to be on that wiki, the wiki should leave me alone. Animal lover 666 (talk) 01:23, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This seems like a reasonable practice but it's completely unnecessary to enshrine this as a policy. ElKevbo (talk) 04:14, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Takipoint123 (talk) 06:00, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support an end to the disruption. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 15:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Let's say you been a Wikipedia editor for 10 years and you decide to edit let's say Wikidata too. It would be hurtful to your ego to see a Wiki welcome message again.WikiEditor5678910 29 November 2024 (UTC)

The proposed policy allows welcome messages at wikis where you have edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:04, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will want to see phab:T314549 be resolved first.--GZWDer (talk) 04:00, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support if adjusted to automated edits to address WhatamIdoing and JJPMaster's concerns – ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · contribs · email · w:en) 02:20, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support without question. Local issues should be resolved individually and any accompanying local policy explanations do not conflict with the Welcoming Policy. In addition, for very small wikis WhatamIdoing mentioned to, it is valid to start a more specific, productive conversation like the one I received on envoy. --Tmv (talk) 08:35, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This RFC seems to be conflating several different things. First: most wiki's don't do what is being claimed (i.e. that the wiki itself is making a welcome message). There are some projects that do, such as hiwki, ptwikivoyage, and fawikibooks (example page) using mw:Extension:NewUserMessage. In more of the use cases being described in the discussion, a contributor is publishing a talk page revision - not the project. So then what? Let us assume this RFC passes, then a project contributor publishes a revision welcoming someone to their project - what is the violation remedy to be? (e.g. Do you expect stewards to lock their account? - Do you expect a body such as UC4 to work on desysoping all of the local project administrators if they don't stop their user?) — xaosflux ^Talk 21:24, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Will this need to remove that extension from approval on WMF wiki's (or disallow certain parameters?) — xaosflux ^Talk 21:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What seems to annoy people most is the fact that their Echo/Notification button lights up, so perhaps Ext:NewUserMessage could be updated to not show the alert outside of the wiki. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The policy is certainly meant to include bots and users at the wiki. I don't expect violators to be blocked right away. They can be informed of the policy and nearly all of them would hopefully respect that and stop. Otherwise they might eventually be blocked. If local admins refuse to block then somebody at meta could block the violator. Desysopping local admins for inaction would be crazy. mw:Extension:NewUserMessage defaults to $wgNewUserMessageOnAutoCreate=false which would be allowed by the policy. Many wikis change it to true via wmgNewUserMessageOnAutoCreate in https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php. That would be against the policy. The extension messages are made by User:New user message. The name helps explain what is happening to many users who know some English but not the local language, although it could be interpreted as a user message which is new instead of a message to a new user. If it didn't cause cross-wiki notifications or emails (for users with that preference) then I could live with an exception for the extension. If the extension waited for an edit by new users then it would of course be allowed by the currently proposed policy. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just an aside: users may disable use talk message notifications globally, and instead opt-in only on projects they care about. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is perhaps something to discuss as a potential guiding principle for the automated messages, but the current wording is a bit broad. It is unclear who "A wiki" refers to, for example. CMD (talk) 08:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Frostly (talk) 17:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tend to support, any bots should either continue run by, and only by obeying that policy, or should cease their auto-welcomism. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, and as Xaosflux points out I'm not sure how this would even be enforced. Projects tend to welcome users to make them feel welcome. For new users that welcome can be helpful, for returning users that welcome can be annoying. Fixing lint errors on welcome messages can be even more annoying. But a couple seconds of annoyance isn't worth the effort of dictating to hundreds of projects what they can and can not do when welcoming new users. Meta and the global policy space needs to maintain a very light touch in order to maintain individual project autonomy; this proposal goes beyond what I feel we should be looking to regulate from the centre. – Ajraddatz (talk) 05:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"a couple seconds of annoyance isn't worth the effort of dictating to hundreds of projects what they can and can not do" - How many user-seconds of annoyance and confusion are you willing to accept for the sake of making your life easier on the policy side? Because right now we must be up to hundreds of thousands. — Hex • talk 13:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. There is nothing wrong even with just requiring welcoming bots to trigger on the first edit someone does, not on the registration itself. It is a very big annoyance currently that random wikis artificially inflate their edit counts and badger all users with welcome notices. It is also entirely unnecessary: most of those messages could just be shown to actual users it needs to reach after they register on wiki (via interface messages), random people that autocreated account do not need it at all, and I imagine all vandals and LTAs also get the same messages. To the enforcement part of it: bots should be asked to be rewritten (or blocked until they are), extension should be disabled until rewritten. It is time to say enough to the spam. stjn^[ru] 06:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To add on this: there is nothing legitimate, helpful or necessary to me about sending messages to random passers-by. If the first thing any other website did to you after you visited it is ‘send an unsolicited message on the first visit’, you would rightfully be repulsed by that. Wikipedias should be held to the same standard. There is nothing wrong with welcoming someone after an edit, there is everything wrong with welcoming someone just because they visited a link. stjn^[ru] 01:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
oppose pending an answer on the talk page about informing the projects affected. --Ghilt (talk) 08:27, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While this RfC might appear logical in theory, its enforcement in practice is likely going to create more problems than it solves. - XXBlackburnXx (talk) 08:39, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which problems? What is problematic about making sure that users do not get unsolicited messages just for visiting a wiki? stjn^[ru] 09:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. This is years and years overdue. Also, something that hasn't been mentioned here is that when you're welcomed to another wiki due to imported edits, those edits may contain traces of a prior user name, for example in summaries of page moves (nothing can be done about that). Someone creating a user talk page for you fractionally increases the chance of those traces being seen, which may well be undesired. — Hex • talk 10:27, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Can be annoying, but don't see this as much of a problem.--A09|(pogovor) 20:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support, with caveat of only disallowing automated messages. Such welcomes have nearly no advantage over sending out after first edit and artificially take up a ton of disk space and editcount statistics, as well as annoying the heck out of a lot of people. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:00, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now pending an investigation whether the welcome messages help to engage more users. regards, Gryllida 01:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Doing a study requires manpower, which I don't think we have. I don't see how welcoming before the first edit has that much advantages to justify any opposition. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:30, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support—weird this was ever allowed in the first place.—Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Rules are written in blood. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:36, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support, welcome messages on wikis that you don't intend to contribute is not okay. It also creates occasional notifications for crosswiki patrollers, where when they have an account autocreated, are sent. ToadetteEdit (talk) 19:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I understand the intent here - a lot of welcome messages can be annoying - but this is basically unenforceable and is likely to make more work than it reduces. Imo, just click 'mark all as read' and ignore them if you're not interested. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 18:49, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And to whoever closes this: as far as I can tell, there has not been sufficient notice to communities who practice frequent welcoming. If this passes and then someone attempts to enforce it, it would be valid (in my view) for local communities to note that they had not been informed. There's a high bar to overriding local practice with a global RfC and, when it's something as widespread as this, the users who would be affected need the opportunity to comment. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 18:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]