User blog comment:Toughpigs/Standard new page layout -- looking for feedback/@comment-121225-20100419073433

My experience at a larger wiki is new users using the new page layout, but then writing their information above all the prewritten text, and leaving the placeholder text untouched below. Usually the experienced users have to step in and clean it up. I don't know what happened, but our wiki used to have these buttons you could push that created a standard layout for the type of page a user was creating (item, quest, location, NPC, etc.). That had worked very well, as there was no "instruction text", just headers and empty parameters. At least if they left it blank, the template would configure itself to appear informational for the info it had.

On the other hand, there has been a lot of complaints from my wiki from the experienced users. For years we've created articles fine with the blank white page, although now it takes extra time and loading. We also found that new users created better stubs before having a placeholder.

I personally think it's a step in the right direction, but still needs some refining.