Help:Welcome tool

From Wikia Help

This is a new feature on Wikia! It may be under further development. Please leave feedback on the Central Wikia forum!

This extension is enabled by default on Wikia.

Contents 1 How it works 2 Customizing the welcomes 2.1 Messages 2.2 Settings 3 Finding the new editors 4 Other notes 5 Any questions?

The Wikia Welcome tool is an automatic process that helps wiki admins to welcome new editors. The goal is to show new contributors that there's a community on the wiki - and to help connect them to admins, so they know where to go if they have questions.

How it works

When a contributor makes their first edit, the Wikia Welcome tool leaves a talk page message for them, and creates a user page.

The talk page message is signed by the admin (or Wikia staff member) who edited the wiki most recently - this is to help the contributor find someone who's available to talk to them if they need it.

Customizing the welcomes

Administrators on each wiki can customize the tool in various ways.

Note: If you'd prefer not to see the welcome messages in your wiki's recent changes, you can ask a Wikia staff member to flag User:Wikia as a bot via Special:Contact.

Messages

You can edit the messages left for users with the following pages:

• MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user is the welcome message that's left for logged-in contributors.
• MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon is the welcome message that's left for anonymous contributors.
• MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page is the user page that's created for logged-in contributors.

There are a couple of special variables you can use on these pages:

• $1 - the name of the article the person edited.
• $2 - the name of the talk page for the administrator.
• $3 - the automatic signature of the administrator.
• $4 - the name of the person being welcomed.

For example, the default user talk page message is:

Hi, welcome to {{SITENAME}}! Thanks for your edit to the [[:$1]] page.

Please leave a message on [[$2|my talk page]] if I can help with anything! $3

Settings

By editing certain pages, you can change the settings for the tool:

• MediaWiki:Welcome-user - You can use this page to change the signature that's left in the welcome message, or to turn the feature off. There are three settings for this page:
  • @latest - Default setting. The message will be signed by the latest admin to make an edit on the wiki.
  • username - If you replace @latest with a specific username, then all welcome messages will be signed by that user.
  • @sysop - The bot will always sign the message as a local admin rather than a Wikia staff member or helper, even if the staff member or helper is the most recent contributor.
  • @disabled - This turns the feature off, so nobody gets a welcome message. If you turn it off, you can turn it back on again by replacing this with @latest or a username.

• MediaWiki:Welcome-enabled - Allows you to enables and disable welcomes. The default message says "page-user message-anon message-user".
  • Removing "page-user" will stop the welcome tool from creating user pages for logged-in contributors.
  • Removing "message-anon" will stop the tool from leaving welcome messages for anonymous IPs.
  • Removing "message-user" will stop the tool from leaving welcome messages for logged-in contributors.

Finding the new editors

Assuming they don't find you first, there are two simple methods you can use to find new users:

• Welcome messages are created by User:Wikia - you can check that user's contributions to see who has been welcomed recently.
• The welcomes are shown on the recent pages page.

Other notes

• Welcome messages will not be left for users with flags such as sysop, bureaucrat, bot, staff, or helper.
• Welcome messages will not be left by sysop accounts that also have bot flag

Any questions?

If you have any questions about the Wikia Welcome tool, please contact a staff member for help.