Wikipedia talk:Please do not bite the newcomers

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# 22 Feb 2003 - 31 Dec 2006

Contents 1 Be welcoming vs not biting 2 I like the phrase 3 Helping 4 Transwiki'ing as opposed to just deleting 5 WP:DONTBITE 6 Ignorantia juris non excusat? 7 Wikilinks 8 Inserted link to case study 9 Umm...Original research? 10 Is biting becoming more prevalent? 11 Boxes for newcomers and for non-biters 12 WP:NOR 13 Yes thank you! I was bitten and am definitely leaving the sandbox. 14 Yes thank you! I was bitten and I may be going too 15 Does this ever get enforced? 16 Humourus? 17 WikiLawyering 18 Not just newcomers 19 Newcomers to articles 20 Newbies are being treated like babies 21 Wikipedia structurally hostile to newcomers 22 The Line Between Biting 23 I have a question:

[edit] Be welcoming vs not biting

I'm just wondering if the attitude this page takes is wrong. Rather than "Do not bite the newcomers", perhaps it should be "Be welcoming" (or something like that)? Not only would that be shorter and arguably easier to understand, but it suggests a positive course of action, rather than just condemning negative behavior. Granted, I'm not sure how much it really matters, but sometimes attitude can make a difference. Thoughts? —DragonHawk (talk) 03:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that's so totally true, we should be more positive. i guess since they invested so much time drawing a don't bite new users logo and everything, they don't want to have to change it. speaking of the logo, what I'm really wondering is, why is a caricature of William II biting the newcomers in that picture. It looks just like him, he has the mustache, the German Spiked Helmet and everything. —jtgerman

The Do Not Bite picture was based directly on a famous caricature of William II. You can see the comment to that affect in the descriptive text on the image page. —DragonHawk (talk) 19:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be really nice if much of the negativity on Wikipedia's policies and behavioral guidelines were changed to something more constructive. I think that the negativity has completely overshadowed Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, which is a pretty positive, constructive policy. I think in effect, that the IAR policy does not seem to be followed.

What do you suggest a positive way to say, "Don't bite the newbies" is? Fredsmith2 00:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's always m:Don't be a dick...er, I mean of course Wikipedia:Be nice. Feezo (Talk) 06:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I like the phrase

Please do not bite the newcomers is a good title for this page. It's a common phrase now on other forums.

I'd like to complain about how hard it is to request an article, or to create one in the first place. I think we should greatly encourage readers to show which articles they think need correcting. My solution to that problem had been to first create the talk page, using the talk page to provide useful links and notes about an article I think needs creating, and that I can spend just a bit of time working on. That now seems to be against wiki policy, for reasons I don't understand.

ENDRANT. Barring that, I think we should improve the wikipedia process for request articles. It should be greatly streamlined. Mathiastck 11:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Helping

think we could put something in here guiding experienced users to help newcomers fix their edits instead of reverting them or deleting parts of them. this is a common problem if you ask me. thuglas^T|C 15:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

A good place for new users to get help is to ask on the Help desk. Most new users won't know what something like NPOV or NOR means in the edit summary, even if they know to check the page history. Many new users probably need a human to explain it to them, or at least give them a link. --Teratornis 00:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transwiki'ing as opposed to just deleting

See the recently-added section: Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?#If all else fails, try another wiki. I'd like to get some opinions about adding something similar to Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers#Common newcomer errors. Wikipedia allegedly gets about 4,000 new articles and deletes 2,000 articles per day. Many of the deleted articles were probably created by new users who haven't learned all the complicated rules yet, and most of them probably don't know where else to go. Simply deleting their articles without suggesting alternate outlets seems to violate the spirit of WP:NOOB, and it probably makes some deletion debates unnecessarily heated. Moving someone's work is potentially much less threatening than destroying it. Therefore I would think part of not biting the newcomers would be to make a good-faith effort to find alternative outlets for their articles that do not meet Wikipedia's standards. Comments? --Teratornis 00:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

While I don't object to your idea, the scientist in my has to point out that you're making an assumption with regards to the content and intent of the articles that get deleted. I could just as easily say, "Most of them are probably spam and typos that deserve to be deleted immediately." So don't argue from such a shaky premise. Instead, just state a fundamental premise. For example: In the case of potentially useful content that is just not appropriate for this encyclopedia, instead of just deleting the content without comment, suggest to the contributor a more appropriate site. Wikimedia has many projects. —DragonHawk (talk) 00:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I was sloppy not to explicitly mention the articles that can be speedily deleted (they implicitly fall into the complement of the "many" deleted articles I explicitly mentioned, and the complement of "many" could also be "many"). At the risk of hairsplitting, I could say the scientist in me doesn't see how I expressed an assumption about something by not mentioning it (see: Argument from silence), although by not mentioning the "speedies" I unwittingly tossed out a red herring (i.e., I made it plausible to assume I was not aware of the speedies). So let me partially make amends by specifying more clearly the class of deleted articles I'm talking about. Browsing through today's discussions on WP:AFD/T, I see several articles that could be transwikied, but few discussions in which anyone mentions that option. I've also seen several people ask "Why was my page deleted?" on the Help desk, as well as (inappropriately) on Wikipedia talk:Why was my page deleted?. While I have no scientifically valid statistical data to support my hunch, everything I have seen so far suggests that only in a small fraction of deletions where transwiki'ing is a valid option does anyone bring it up. Even if this is only 5% of total deletions, that's still a disservice to as many as 100 well-meaning editors per day, many of whom (I suspect) are simply new users who don't know about other wikis. (Even lots of experienced editors seem not to be very aware of other wikis.) When a well-meaning but naive newcomer spends hours editing an inappropriate article (bearing in mind that not only are they writing their new articles, but probably struggling to learn wikitext markup at the same time), they can feel hurt when their articles get deleted. Wikipedia is a charitable organization, and deleting someone's good-faith contributions without even mentioning the possibility of transwiki'ing does not seem charitable to me.

I'm speaking more about deletions of entire articles. There is also the matter of deleting unencyclopedic portions of otherwise encyclopedic articles. That sort of edit does not require any discussion beforehand; anyone can unilaterally delete portions of articles. Others can revert the deletions, possibly leading to edit warring. A peaceful resolution in some cases may be to transwiki the unencylopedic portions.

I get the sense that transwiki'ing is not used as often as it should be. Some people who contribute inappropriate content to Wikipedia might not do so if they were aware of appropriate wikis; and some editors who delete inappropriate content from Wikipedia do so without making any attempt to find suitable alternative wikis, or mention that possibility to their "victims." Therefore I am looking for appropriate places in the guidelines to mention this. It seems we can probably work something suitable into WP:NOOB, accounting for the obvious spam, vandalism, etc. that does not warrant a charitable response. --Teratornis 00:39, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:DONTBITE

I added WP:DONTBITE because I think it is friendlier than WP:NOOB and WP:BITE, although the latter are easier to remember. For instance, one can say "Please WP:AGF and WP:DONTBITE". Rjgodoy 05:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ignorantia juris non excusat?

Someone in the talk page of WP:KEYSPAM raised that the mistreatment of so-called "vandals" and "anarchists" on the part of certain admins and editors was to be excused based on the legal principle of Ignorantia juris non excusat "ignorance of the law does not excuse".

Others (and I) believe this to violate both WP:AGF and WP:BITE.

However, since "Ignorantia juris non excusat" is indeed a legal principle highly esteemed in the western world, from which the bulk of the english wikipedia editors come, it is only natural that people would feel this principle applies.

So I think an explicit guideline with regards of the non-applicability of this principle is needed in both WP:AGF and WP:BITE. --Cerejota 12:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The biggest problem with Wikipedia is it is not transparent - i.e. its processes are not easily accesible to newcomers, and there often are no links, explanation, or easy answers to how to do what one wants to do. It is not explained why some page is not editable, it is not linked to any way to do editing or request editing or request unprotection.

People just constantly delete or modify and it is like a big argument, except no one is listening to the other person.

It is no wonder users run into problems, because the main issue is the site is too confusing and has too many protocols that the average person is unlikely to either understand or be willing to research.

This is a major problem and needs to be addressed, or this site will end up as some source run by a group of internal experts who understand it and not by the general public. Too often, the jargon is incomprehensible and the rules unclear.

What the devil is that about? Why can't this be simplified? If there are moderators or administrators, it should be much easier to find a way to contact them. If not, then what is a person to do?

69.181.188.254

I'm going to reply to you on your talk page. Please see User talk:69.181.188.254. Thanks.-Andrew c ^[talk] 22:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I replied to you below your answer.

69.181.188.254 18:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Everyone understands the general rules, but I'm sure we can't make it judicial, especially if the information that is posted, hypothetically controversial, turns out to be true. This freedom is one of the main reasons why Wikipedia as a whole has done so well. I am not saying that rules are a bad thing, but ignorance of law can only occur if it is in a centralized format. It would take a lawyer to keep up with the dynamics of this site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slapshot24 (talk • contribs) 16:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks

I have wikilinked the numbered list of way not to bite to include relevant pages. This gives depth and interconnectness to the article--Cerejota 05:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inserted link to case study

Please notice that I have inserted a link to A case study in the "See also" section. It is provided only as "food for thought". I am not assuming that people will share my opinion, but I believe that this case is quite interesting, in this context. Do you agree? Paolo.dL 15:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Umm...Original research?

"So when their edits are deleted, they will often panic, start an edit war or leave Wikipedia because they mistakenly assume that hours of work have been irretrievably deleted." I didn't see any cites for any information in this article. Is there any research for this article (discounting original research and conjectures), or did someone just pull this out of his/her ass? Honestly, who the hell would panic just because a wikipedia edit they made was deleted. Do we really want people that unstable editing an encyclopedia article? But I digress. My point is this: wikipedia is so anti-original research (which I agree with), but here this policy has no research behind it whatsoever; if this article does contain actual research, it needs to be cited. --MKnight9989 13:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I think that the sentence should be changed immediately, for instance by substituting the adverb "often" with "possibly", and "panic" with "get angry" or something like that. If somebody will be able to show with some data that the adverb "often" is correct in that sentence, they will be able to put it back. The verb "might" could be also used, but I am not sure about how: I do not know whether a sentence such as "when something occurs, someone might get angry" is syntactically correct or not. Paolo.dL 16:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is biting becoming more prevalent?

This example ([[1]]) was particularly disappointing to me. Whatever happended to the welcoming committee - seems like we have a 'let's see if there's a rule you've broken' committee now. Trollderella 00:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say we are, unfortunately, likely to see more biting. As Wikipedia grows, even if the rate of biting remains the same, the total number of bites will increase. Plus, growth tends to be exponential, so by the same principle, the number of clueless newbies arriving will increase, while the number of experienced Wikipedians is not going to grow at the same rate. A discouraging thought, to be sure. • To help counter this, perhaps some sort of active campaign to be more welcoming is in order. I'd say it would be best to raise such issues over at the village pump, though, and not this one page. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 14:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Good idea - I'll mention it there. Trollderella 15:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Have you seen my "open letter"? One of the comments (by Scrawlspacer) helps understanding the problem describing the points of view of both the newbies and the adiministrators. Also, the software (WikiMedia) is not perfect and some very small changes would spare automatically a lot of trouble and wasted time. Even in your example, if MediaWiki had automatically prevented the user from selecting an invalid user name (by recognizing a sequence of more than two identical letters), possibly he would have been able to complete his page and the page wouldn't have been removed. Several other examples are given in my open letter. Regards, Paolo.dL 14:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Boxes for newcomers and for non-biters

I found a box to be used by newcomers

Please be nice and patient with this New Wikipedian.

using {{user Newcomer}}

but there is not one to be used by who believes in not bitting newcommers, so here it is:

Please be nice and patient with the New Wikipedians.

you use it placing

{{User Nice to Newcomer}} in your page. It adds to Category:Wikipedians Nice to Newcomers

Vanished user 12:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The Keep It Simple label is:

{{User label WPKind}}

Jenny^Len☤ 11:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:NOR

How about adding that new users shouldn't be swamped with upper case policy shortcuts? "Please read WP:NOR." is a real slap in the face compared with "Please read the Wikipedia policy on original research." Something in the form of "When talking to new users, consider piping all policy links" should about do it. —AldeBaer 17:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, but where's the link for "piping"??? ;-) Paolo.dL 17:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:PIPE. —AldeBaer 17:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I was joking. I meant to suggest:

• When talking to new users, consider piping all policy links.

But I also suggest to add your comparison:

• For instance, consider the difference between "Please read WP:NOR" and "Please read the Wikipedia policy on original research".

Paolo.dL 17:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

My reply was tongue-in-cheek, partly because I understood the joke but didn't get the other part of what you were saying. Good idea though, that link should be in there. —AldeBaer 17:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Agree also to including the example. Now let's hear it from others. —AldeBaer 18:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I second (third? fourth? whatever) this. This is worth mentioning. Paolo.dL's comparison is a great example. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

He blatantly plagiarised that example from me! —AldeBaer 21:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. Whoever, whatever, it's a good idea.  :-) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 21:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion was quite different: I placed the full stop mark outside the quotation marks! :-) Paolo.dL 08:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad and thankful to stand corrected. —AldeBaer 14:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yes thank you! I was bitten and am definitely leaving the sandbox.

I would just like to shout out to user EricV for viciously accusing me of vandalism, because as a newcomer, I apparently didn't complete an edit properly.

I was visiting a page that had a link that looked like this:

jojpppjpsdofjosdfsd.ajsh

Okay, that was obviously not meant to be there, so I retyped the text I knew should be there. The link didn't connect properly, thus my mistake.

I no longer want to participate in this process because EricV's very harshly worded accusation still stings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.9.104.211 (talk) 15:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Can I help you in any way? I couldn't quite understand your question. I'll be glad if you could rephrase it, please. Thanks! Puchiko 22:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think I can explain. User:EricV89 must have gotten confused, and confused the very correct revertion that 147.9.104.211 (talk) made to be vandalism. User:EricV89 appears to also be a newbie. Fredsmith2 00:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yes thank you! I was bitten and I may be going too

If Wiki only wants the present members to contribute then say so. If no more members of this little club are wanted say so. OK Nyttend. Vic dood 21:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

My comments are based upon my experiences, and research into the treatment of others.

Vic dood 04:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

After my treatment at the hands o a self proclaimed "rouge admin" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Merope I am no longer going to bother trying to edit here. wikipedia is going to die with admins like that running the show.

Vic dood 21:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Vic dood! Yes, I got a bit of critisism as well. I won't complain though because it is on a subject I am good at. Also, if you want to do some more editing, try the wikis at Wikia. They have specific subjects for wikis there and it is really good.

But don't leave Wikipedia! We need as many people as we can get! LB22 19:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I am a newbie! I joined last month!

[edit] Does this ever get enforced?

Is this only something that admins just think is a nice idea, or does it ever really get enforced? Fredsmith2 19:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see the boilerplate: "This page is considered a behavioral guideline on Wikipedia. It is generally accepted among editors and is considered a standard that users should follow. However, it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." --Gutza ^{T T+} 21:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that Wikipedia never enforces any of its Behavioral Guidelines, all of which include that boilerplate? Fredsmith2 00:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

My impression is that it doesn't. In any conflict between a Wikipedia regular and a newbie I've seen, the regular always wins. If they've been unnecessarily harsh, they can always defend themselves by saying "Well, look at all the dumb newbie things they were doing. I had to set them straight." I've even encountered an admin who thinks that the rule doesn't apply to newbies who violate a policy (which would make it about equivalent to saying "Don't randomly yell at newbies out of the blue for no reason").

Wikipedia needs more people -- particularly admins -- who are willing to take the side of newbies, mistakes and all. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

So, seriously, nothing is in place to tell a long-term user that they need to work with the newbies? Fredsmith2 00:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's their talk page; that's pretty much the definition of where you go when you need to tell someone something. I'll also offer to help talk to the person if you get blown off. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Humourus?

The first pic looks houmourus!

--PwnersRule (talk) 16:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)PwnersRule

P.S Im new i joined yesterday! —Preceding unsigned comment added by PwnersRule (talk • contribs) 16:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and what is this, Uncyclopedia? No way!

--PwnersRule (talk) 18:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)PwnersRule

Do you have a point to make here? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 19:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiLawyering

Directive 9 under How to avoid being a "biter" explains "Avoid WikiLawyering" essentially as writing in wiki shorthand. I think this should say "Avoid jargon" instead. The term WikiLawyering has implications of bad faith, gaming the system, and such; I don't think that is what is meant in this guideline. / edg ☺ ☭ 01:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Seeing no objections, I changed "WikiLawyering" to "Wikipedia jargon". Since I have had a few years experience, you are free to bite. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not just newcomers

What about changing things just a little here so we don't bite the old timers either. Everyone has the potential to not understand or be completely aware of all the rules. The same courtesy we apply to newcomers should apply to all editors. Jeepday (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

There's always WP:CIVIL. / edg ☺ ☭ 21:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Newcomers to articles

This guideline talks kinda condescendingly about newcomers (the teddybear ear-biting picture included). Not all newcomers are timid/ranting intuitionless web users, so I think they deserve a better tone.

Also, this guideline is useful for dealing with newcomers *to an article*. Sometimes, veteran wikipedians stumble into a controversial topic and get (wrongly) pounced upon. This guideline applies there too, so the content of this guideline shouldn't always assume the newcomer is new to Wikipedia. --Gronky (talk) 11:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Newbies are being treated like babies

I can see that in the article you are treating the newbies like babies,. Like I've seen the comment above me, please, wouldn't it be better to use a different tone in this article?. It sounds quite "annoying" when you read it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MXER (talk • contribs) 20:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to fix the tone. I fixed the intro, and some of the body, but quickly realised that this guideline suffers from "too long; didn't read". Someone'll have to trim it. --Gronky (talk) 21:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia structurally hostile to newcomers

I think biting newcomers is not the result of bad faith or insensitivity, but the growth of Wikipedia's policies into monstrous size and overwhelming complexity. Only veteran users master the policies and are prompt to use them against violators (like lawyers master the bureaucracy of government and law -- hence, WikiLawyering). This myriad of policies is what's making Wikipedia structurally hostile to newcomers.

There are no really-short policy summary or only-bare-essentials how-to guide for newcomers who just want to make a small contribution but don't know how to edit, don't know what is acceptable, and don't want to dig deeper into Wikipedia's world -- they just want to add a simple paragraph, right now and without going through any unnecessary or uninteresting policy or how-to articles. 89.139.206.215 (talk) 22:37, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I generally agree with you, but do you have a solution in mind? We have a few pages that attempt to summarize Wikipedia's policies, but they can't cover everything, and some veterans are apt to bite newbies the first time they violate even a lesser-known policy or guideline. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Worse, there's no shortage of veteran editors of particular articles/topics that pounce on contributors (including other veterans) who are newcomers to that article/topic. Pointing to old consensus and telling people to read the archives is very offputting. I don't think summarising policy is the solution. I think we need to better spread the message that when someone makes an imperfect or mildly negative contribution, the first thing to do is not revert, but talk (and then the newcomer might revisit their edit, or revert their own edit, or you might have to still revert the edit). --Gronky (talk) 21:29, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. In the case you describe, "talk" sometimes takes the form of telling the newcomer to the article to shut up and go away (politely at first). Even in your example, you don't leave room for the possibility that a good faith discussion reveals that the newcomer is correct, and the contribution valid. Of course, that makes all the longtime editors of the article look bad, so yes, it never happens. Blackworm (talk) 21:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me the point is this: no one can be expected to know all of Wikipedia's policies in the short term, so simply reply to a newcomer in the same way that you yourself would want to be spoken to after making a good-faith edit. --KSnortum (talk) 04:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Line Between Biting

Last night I reported a serial spammer for both re-creating spam page and using socks to do it. In the closure of the sock case the closing admin, finding the socks to be "obvious socks", asked me to be less biting to the newbies in my use of templates. I'm assuming that the admin was referencing my use of only warning templates on the sock accounts after the puppeteer had be warned. I'm wondering where the line should actually fall on biting "newbies" in cases like this. As the system currently works you can't in good faith report a user for blocking without a proper warning, so if you don't use an appropriate warning level it could lead to further vandalism... that seems to butt heads with the idea of biting the newbies. Does anyone have any thoughts on situations like this? Is it acceptable to place only warning templates on obvious sock puppets? I'd love to hear the popular take on this.--Torchwood Who? (talk) 17:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know your case, but the closing admin could have been making a general comment. I'm no newbie, but I sure find it frustrating when someone talks to me by putting a template on my talk page. If I get the words of a human, I don't feel so bad. I know I can talk with this person. If I get a template, I'm wondering if it was a person or a bot, and I'm wondering if the person will read my reply. And I'm wondering if my future contributions to wikipedia articles and talk pages will also get automated critical responses. A template tells me that there is someone who knows the rules better than I do and that they couldn't be bother actually talking to me.

For obvious socks, sure a template is fine, but I guess by the time an accounts sockiness has become obvious, there will probably have been a human contact before the template contact. So I guess a good rule would be that for the first contact, don't use a template. For subsequent contact, a template may indeed be fine - it's a judgement call for you as to how obvious the sockiness is. --Gronky (talk) 20:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I have a question:

Can newcomers bite themselves?Mashedpotatowithsomegravy (talk) 03:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)