Forum:Welcome tool

Truly, what nonsense is it? I just created a wiki and after editing the so-called "Main Page" I got a "welcome message" from... myself? Andrey Markov 22:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It the new Welcome tool : Forum:New features on Wednesday, March 18th. — TulipVorlax 00:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, Andrey! Yeah, the welcome tool is a new feature that we've launched which helps admins to welcome every new contributor who comes to the wiki. You can see more information on the User:Wikia page, which is also posted on your wiki.


 * This is a brand-new feature, so there's still a bug fix that we're in the process of making -- turning off welcomes for people who are admins on the wiki, so that the situation you just had won't happen again. If you'd created your wiki a couple days from now, it wouldn't have happened. :)


 * Meanwhile -- congratulations on starting your new wiki, and good luck with it! -- Danny (talk ) 00:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It is a rather obtrusive feature. The default should be off, with an option to turn it on. Kingturtle 22:05, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The defaut is On because there's a lot of inactives wikis where this is becoming more important. — TulipVorlax 00:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Since the main new features forum page is fill with multiple subjects...

A user reported me


 * Another problem. Signing the comment from "User:@latest" This should not even been happening.
 * And here, signing the comment from the user themself same as original subject since he is a staff he should not even be welcome.

--


 * Blame Danny about that. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 09:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, one of those things happened because we're working on fixing the other one. :) We're changing the code so that staff members, helpers and admins don't leave welcomes for themselves. Unfortunately, the code that we released yesterday to fix that had a glitch in it, which left @latest as the signature for a couple hours. We identified the problem and rolled back the code, so that's not happening anymore, and on Monday, we'll work on fixing the code.


 * I'm sorry for the confusion with that. This is always the way it goes with brand-new features; you have momentary bumps along the way. -- Danny (talk ) 16:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * While we're on the subject... I've been keeping an eye on the stats since we launched the welcome feature, and it looks like anonymous registrations and edits have gone up significantly since we started welcoming anon users. We launched the welcome feature site-wide on March 19th, and from March 19-27, registrations are up 15.9% over a corresponding number of days two weeks ago (March 5-13). This doesn't seem to be related to an increase in traffic -- anonymous pageviews are only up 1% for that time period.


 * Also during that same time period: anonymous users clicking the save button is up 20%, and for logged-in users, saves are up 11.6%.


 * This is what we were hoping to see, once we started welcoming everybody while they were still on the wikis. The welcomes seem to be encouraging anonymous users to log in, and they're encouraging everybody to stay and make more edits. -- Danny (talk ) 16:45, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Another issue
For some reason Staff member Angela got signed here and I was the active Sysops there --


 * Interesting, thanks for pointing that out! I'll take a look and figure out why that happened... -- Danny (talk ) 16:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, we figured out what was happening and it's fixed now. I'm sorry for the glitch; we're trying to do the last tweaks on this. -- Danny (talk ) 17:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Back to first topic
has the issue been resolve? if the answer is yes... please see this because i was editing a wiki i dont touch and found out i was admin xD so i update the User:Wikia page and I got welcome with my own name... if the answer is no, how much time is estimate for the fix? --


 * Funny you should ask -- we actually just fixed this in the last ten minutes. :) Admins, staff and helpers no longer get welcome messages. There shouldn't be any more self-welcomes, starting now. I've checked everything, and I think it's all working properly -- let me know if I missed anything! -- Danny (talk ) 21:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

And more unic issues...
There is a bug only (because our special url) at w:c:dofus with the welcome tool when it creates pages the links appear as http://www.wikia.com/wiki/WhatEverPage instead of http://www.wikia.com/dofus/WhatEverPage So every one that clicks on the links gets directed to central wikia. Once the page gets edited(blank edit also) the link corrects by itself. This for me its annoying as i had some users contact me here at central, also if they click on link of the page they edit they will be directed to non existent central wikia pages. I left a msg at Danny's talk page at dofus but since no ACK now here --


 * This is a very weird thing... I'm trying to figure it out. I'll talk to you on Dofus... -- Danny (talk ) 16:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for new variable
On Memory Alpha, we'd like to use a welcome template that doesn't suggest that an actual admin is signing the message, while still linking to a currently active admin in case of immediate questions. For that to properly work, we can't use $3 (which translates to a complete signature) - instead, we'd need a new variable that translates to a talk page link of the admin in question. Can this be added? -- Cid Highwind 19:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * $2 --

Failure from unexpected edit
Apparently, the welcome tool doesn't greet a new user if the first edit is own that user's own talk page as seen here. I don't know if that's something anyone would want to fix, but it is definitely interesting. Jay32183 07:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this is a known effect: as far as I know the tool looks for red userpage links to tell whether to welcome someone. If they immediately write on their talk page, it doesn't recognise them as new. 11:39, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Same goes for if someone else makes their talk page first (i dont know why/how someone would make your talk page before you edit...), no auto-welcome edit is make after their first actual edit. --Uberfuzzy 01:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Makes sense. Jay32183 01:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Disable
This is a good idea but the wiki I founded (w:c:hardyboys) is small and I'd rather welcome contributors, myself. Is there a why I can disable this tool?

WHLfan (talk to me!) 06:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it was already explained up there i think. But you can also to there User:Wikia. — TulipVorlax 07:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It's easy to disable it, but I'd like to encourage you to keep it on, and customize it. Small wikis need the welcome tool more than big wikis do! We've found that the welcome tool is really effective at encouraging anonymous contributors to log in and join the community. Since we launched the welcome tool, logins have gone up a lot, site-wide.


 * There's a delay when you welcome contributors yourself -- even for an active welcomer, you're likely to be a couple hours late. The welcome tool leaves a message right away, while the person is still on the site -- so it catches anonymous contributors before their IP changes.


 * You can customize the messages to make them personal to you and the wiki by editing MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user and MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon. That way, new contributors get your message, but at super speed. -- Danny (talk ) 17:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

"New message" triggered by wiki duplication
Sorry for the bump, but this issue may be related to the initial post of this thread. I wrote in the MediaWiki bugzilla:


 * My "you have new messages" bar showed up today, because help.wikia.com was copied to sarahtestwiki.wikia.com. User:Wikia had welcomed me to help.wikia.com in May 2009, so MediaWiki thought the new page was a new message, even though it isn't.

Someone called Roan Kattouw answered:


 * Copying wikis is not part of the MediaWiki software. It must be something Wikia wrote, so it's their code that's broken. It probably copied over the user_newtalk table as well, while it shouldn't.

Ryan W 22:39, November 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for checking this out with MediaWiki, and posting about it here. This isn't really related to the welcome tool -- it just happens that you had a welcome message on your talk page. I'll make sure that the folks who were doing the Help test know about the bug. Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:05, November 7, 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, no problem. (Hey, I understood one of your replies!   :D     Ryan W 00:43, November 8, 2009 (UTC)