Thread:Sakaros/@comment-26925323-20151023061427/@comment-104549-20151023064403

What is the right term? I think I remember "Fanoneer" being used...

Although I'm not a Bureaucrat or an Administrator, I do think you have a fair point. When I started, the Layout Guide was the substantially more complex Manual of Style. A lot of people were put off by its complexity and nuance, which is why it was changed to the current, simpler version, but I actually found it helpful. I also relied on the Coding Tutorial to learn a lot of the basics, because I had never done Wiki coding before.

That said, the vast majority of what I've learned has been by trial-and-error, playing around in the Sandbox and experimenting to see what works. I've made a couple templates over the years, and all of that was by consulting other, existing Templates on the Wiki (and Wikipedia) and adapting them for my own purposes. So I can see the utility of a basic guide for people unfamiliar with coding at all—I used to be one of them.

Do you think the Coding Tutorial won't be helpful to new users, or that it's helpful, but needs some introduction? Are you envisioning a sort of "New User Hub" that centralizes all the info for new users? The "Getting Started" tab up at the top seems like the right place for that; it has the basic article skeletons and the Image Uploading tutorial, but it doesn't have a link to the Coding Tutorial or any basic guide, so that might be something worth remedying.

You may have seen Savage posting the generic welcome message on new users' walls, which is, "Hi, welcome to Star Wars Fanon! Thanks for your edit to the [first edited page] page. Please leave me a message if I can help with anything!" This replaced what the Admins used to use, which was a much longer message with links to every imaginable resource and policy on the Wiki. Here's a copy (in Savage's Talk Page archive) of what that message used to look like. I wasn't part of the discussion when the change happened, but I seem to remember a general feeling that there was so much information in that original welcome that people were glossing over it—and, when they had questions, just asking the Admins anyway.

Do you feel there's a better way to phrase the "Welcome to SWFanon" generic message? Something between the current version and the old one? What would your ideal introduction to the Wiki for new users look like?

NB: Never be afraid to be constructively critical here. I can only speak for myself, but I think it's helpful for us. Users who have been around for years and posted hundreds of articles get to the point where Wiki coding is as natural as typing, and while we do our best to be available to help new users, we may just not see where they need help or how best to provide that help. It's obvious the Bureaucrats and Admins are committed to making the Wiki available and inviting to new users as well as veterans, and I think a fresh pair of eyes is often invaluable in figuring out how to do that.