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I'm wondering if we shouldn't get rid of the parameter that links the warning to the article. I know that sounds crazy at first an I wouldn't suggest it for any other criterion, but here's why I think we should for this one: The majority of attack pages appear to be school kids mocking/teasing one another. Leaving a warning that names the person being attacked therefore seems like it would only exacerbate the problem, drawing more attention to the attack and increasing the likelihood of other students seeing it and possibly copying it before it is deleted. The person who posted the attack knows what they did, creating an attack page is in over 95% of cases a manifest act of bad faith. After the page is deleted it would take an admin to determine who was attacked if there was no link in the warning, reducing the impact of the attack, which would seem to be in everyone's best interest. Thoughts? Beeblebrox (talk) 21:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You make a very good point! What do other folks think? SchuminWeb (Talk) 23:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A very good point. I am fully in favour of the change. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An excellent idea. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Two weeks on and nobody has found a reason to object to this idea. I'm going to attempt to make this change, but I warn you I'm pretty clueless about coding stuff so I might be coming back to ask for help. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:18, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've got it removed from the template itself, but I'm not sure what to chop and what to leave in the coding in the documentation. Also wondering if Twinkle and/or Huggle need to be tweaked or if they will know not to ask for the article name anymore. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was doubt about how to handle the documentation that held me back from making this change just after it was suggested. Maybe I'll find time soon to try to sort it out, unless someone more knowledgeable can step in. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Excellent idea. Why not 5 years ago? ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 12:26, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Please update the doc page accordingly. I tried to remove the parameter from the documentation but it's only transcluded from some standard page. So maybe the template should have a documetation of its own now. De728631 (talk) 20:21, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't know if this has been implemented yet but if not, it should be. Good idea and well reasoned. doomgaze (talk) 19:14, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's been implemented. I've updated the documentation. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 19:36, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Signpost reports this week on a study examining the (calculated) readability scores of our user talk namespace template messages: http://endami.blogspot.com/2011/05/readability-of-user-warning-messages.html

The results are a little discouraging. Thoughts?

-- Powers ^T 19:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How can one have 1200 years of education? And the level 1 warnings are the most unreadable, they give the impression of "tl;dr", and fail to address the problem directly enough. --Σ _☭^★ 02:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is a decimal comma there in the chart. --Dami (talk) 12:33, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a consensus, then, that the messages are as good as they're going to get? Is the research flawed? Powers ^T 17:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:uw-sanctions doesn't appear to have a topic option for Ayn Rand (which is listed in WP:AC/DS#Affected areas). Richwales (talk · contribs) 06:49, 21 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added an Ayn Rand topic option to the template. Hopefully I did it correctly; if I made any sort of mistake, I trust someone who is more experienced than I am with this sort of thing will fix it. Richwales (talk · contribs) 16:23, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just created {{uw-ew}} to complement {{uw-3rr}}. Personally, I have always been a little dissatisfied with how that template emphasizes 3RR in particular more than the edit warring policy in general; I often find myself in situations where it is appropriate to give someone a warning about edit-warring behavior even though they are not necessarily in danger of breaching 3rr, and in those cases {{uw-3rr}} is often more a distraction than anything else--people read it and, rather than dealing with the issue, just respond "but I haven't broken 3RR". So anyway, I just threw together {{uw-ew}} as a very similar template only without a warning about 3rr in particular. If there is any way it can be improved feel free to play with it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I have often found that the standard edit-warring warning overemphasises 3RR, so that users tend to think it means that it's OK to edit was as long as they stop short of 3RR. That is not a reasonable reading of the message, but it is a very common one. Maybe the new template will help. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just for info guys, {{uw-npa1}} has been put up for deletion. Cheers ^Khukri 05:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've had this template sitting around in my userspace a while and never got around to talking about turning it into a "uw-" template. The notice in question is a single-issue notice for users who edit archives, explaining what a talk archive is, why it's not considered a good idea to edit them, and how to revive an archived discussion. User:cymru.lass/archive notice gives the following:

Hello! Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. One of your recent edits added text to an archive. Archives are places to store old discussions, so it is generally not a good idea to edit them. Additionally, few people read archives, so messages posted there is not likely to be read. If you find an archived discussion that you would like to revive, feel free to do so on the article's talk page. For more information on archives, check out Wikipedia:Archives. Hope this helps!

What do you think? Appropriate for inclusion in template namespace as a "uw-" template or not? — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 19:07, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:VPR#Uw-3rr.2C_ANEW.2C_and_WP:Don.27t_template_the_regulars prompted the drafting of {{Uw-3rr-resolve}}. Any comments/suggested improvements? Rd232 ^talk 22:41, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well that template needs some work, but it seems like a good starting point. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think a link to WP:Contact us should be in the expansion, in case of, for example, copyright violations. May I propose the addition: If you wish to request removal of illegal material, the proper channels are specified within Wikipedia:Contact us. (And you might add the address for legal service of the Foundation, which I can't find at the moment.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:05, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I support this guardedly. We should have some sentence there in the spirit of WP:DOLT, but most of the time people making legal threats aren't looking to remove "illegal" material per se. So maybe something about if you want material removed from an article you can remove it yourself, contact an admin or contact the WMF? Protonk (talk) 20:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was lately warned using Template:uw-3rr on my talk page, and it caused a lot of confusion. I was not involved in an edit war on this page, by wiki's definition of the term, my 4 reverts on the article being mostly unrelated issues. A template informing users they have passed/are at 3RR is perfectly useful, but it is not useful for that template to also accuse said users that they are engaged in an edit war, when they might not be. In fact, in my case this template's accusatory nature led me to file a Wikiquette alert under the mistaken believe that I had been directly and falsely reprimanded for edit warring, not passing 3RR. Surely it would be better to have Template:uw-3rr as it is as a warning for edit warring, and re-write the 3RR template to "You appear to have exceeded the three-revert rule..." etc., with a subsiduary mention of "If you are involved in an edit war..." U-Mos (talk) 14:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You raise a good point. We probably should separate the two templates. SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A proposal relating to this issue has been made at Wikipedia talk:Edit warring#RfC on proposed new 3RR exemption. ╟─TreasuryTag►Counsellor of State─╢ 10:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I made up a notice of sorts for an inappropriate edit, I am posting the actual notice here to see if anyone thinks a transcluded version could/should be added to the single-level templates section:

The tone of the text you added to Tom Anderson (entrepreneur) with this edit was inappropriate for a Wikipedia article and was reverted. Wikipedia is not a webspace provider or social networking site, inappropriate commentary and remarks will be deleted.

Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 13:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two things: (A) appropriate/inappropriate doesn't say anything about why it is not up to snuff. Come up with a better term. However, (B) do we really need a warning for this? I feel like this is a maintenance issue rather than a behavioral issue. SchuminWeb (Talk) 16:29, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Without quoting it, this particular edit referred to the personal life of this BLP's subject & was placed within the article. Didn't seem to be quite covered by any of the available notice templates. A parameter/space could be added to any possible template with room for additional text (like your reason why), but I am definitely not any kind of an expert on templates/transclusion/coding. That's why I posted my vague idea here. If folks feel it isnt needed, then that's that. I was just wondering if something like this might be useful. Cheers, Shearonink (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The cited example is perfectly covered by uw-unsourced which provides: Your recent edit appears to have added incorrect information and has been reverted or removed. All information in this encyclopedia must be verifiable in a reliable, published source. If you believe the information that you added was correct, please cite the references or sources or before making the changes, discuss them on the article's talk page. Please use the sandbox for any tests that you wish to make. Do take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thank you.

WP:TONE redirects to Wikipedia:Writing better articles. As a linguist, I interpret 'tone' in our context to be the level of language used. Traditionally, encyclopedias are written in a tight, formal style without being overly intellectual or academic and hard for readers to understand. Informal language (magazine and/or spoken stye), such as the use of contractions, referring to bio subjects by their first names, and addressing the reader as 'you' are certainly inappropriate, as is of course 'teen-talk' and the language used by rappers and garage bands and their fans. Not everyone is able to communicate in a formal tone, so there is certainly a need for some kind of uw template, but as a single issue notice. Tone is something regular users here or the GOCE can easily clean up, and warnings for tone should not be served up to reprehend. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The choice of words and the phrasing of that particular edit I came across didn't seem encyclopedic to me (even if the edit/assertion might be true and could be verifiable), so I thought a template might prove useful. Thanks everyone for your feedback.Shearonink (talk) 23:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There have come to my attention that Template:Uw-hangonnocsd (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) might be valid for inclusion in the official list of user warnings. Anyone for or against this? I know the template might need to be cleaned up before inclusion. _→AzaToth 21:37, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can see this being helpful, as I've warned a couple of people about using hangon tags during AfDs (I couldn't begin to tell you why they were). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a new template at Template:uw-notvand, thought it might be useful to be added to this page, but I wanted to discuss it here first. It's basically a "Hey, that wasn't vandalism" notice, because I've seen a lot of improperly labelled rv vandalism edit summaries and Your edits are vandalism! comments on talk pages, when the edits in question weren't vandalism. Figured a template would be good to inform users who might not know what is and is not vandalism. - SudoGhost™ 17:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]