On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Quiddity <pandiculation@gmail.com> wrote:

I noted in the VPR thread* that adding campaign links to the various welcome-templates might be a good idea.

I've gone ahead and added a campaign (anonwelcometemplate) to these as a group.

Relatedly, I was rambling last night about what links we include in welcome-templates, over at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Flow_Portal/Welcome_Module#What_content_we_wish_new_users_would_read (There are a few good links within there, that should be checked out)

We don't need to go crazy by attempting to clean up the majority (there are almost 500 welcome-templates...). But it might be good to clean up the main-directory listing them, and the most-used examples (particularly the ones twinkle uses**).

Maybe we could/should:
* Make a list of some recommended link-targets to include in any welcome-template
* Minimize the quantity of links in each template
* and fix-up some of the standard sentences.

Maryana and I did some A/B testing of welcome templates on German and Portuguese Wikipedias back in the day: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template_A/B_testing/Results#Welcome_messages.

The German results were particularly significant, and were similar to the results of our other tests. Namely, brevity is important, and it's much better to link to one or two key pages rather than to link copiously. I'd also say that it makes a big difference to write conversationally, rather than make a template a bulleted or numbered list of items. New users still know it's a semi-automated message or form letter of some kind, but it's definitely friendlier.

I'm also wondering if we want to try to analyze the welcome-templates, (or the links that we put in them), to the extent of grouping them into - or creating new ones to target - "demographic-specific" sets? Eg. Templates that are good for computer-geek-archetypes. Templates written for technophobe-grandfather / old-tenured-professor archetypes. Templates for pop-culture-editors who have displayed snarky humor and are likely to roll their eyes at formalese.
Or by the archetypes named in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Editor_Lifecycles#Model

Thought for food.

Quiddity.

Steven Walling

https://wikimediafoundation.org/