User:Donner60/Welcomes

User:Donner60. This is a Wikipedia user page. This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any other site than Wikipedia itself.
If you have a message for me, please leave it at the bottom of my talk page, not on this page. Thank you.

As of May 11, 2014, I started keeping track of my welcome templates placed or other welcome messages or welcome links left on user talk pages. I had little or no such activity previously. Most of these messages have become advice with links and other tips but without the welcome language. They are usually placed on talk pages where I have given at least one notice that I had reverted edit. I put these extra messages on the pages of users whom I think are making mistakes because of lack of knowledge of Wikipedia guidelines, styles and policies and not intentionally vandalizing or disrupting the encyclopedia. Since their initial nonconstructive edits were minor, I may think they could be good candidates for encouragement. I think a little further information and instruction could help an apparently good faith new user become a productive contributor and even perhaps a disruptive user become a constructive contributor. The links and tips in these messages may be helpful for well-intentioned users who violate policies, styles and guidelines due to lack of knowledge rather than bad intent. There are such new users, though it may be difficult to identify them if their initial edits appear disruptive or completely clueless.

I am keeping this list mainly for statistical reasons and perhaps will remove it or not keep it up after a time. While keeping track of the users can allow me to check back to see if constructive edits are made, I realize that anyone who becomes a constructive user is likely to register. That will make any follow-up to see if messages left on many IP user talk pages had positive results impossible.

I did a check back on some early users after some time had passed but did not find any constructive editing in their contribution lists. A few of these users had constructive edits when the welcome messages were placed on their talk pages but most of them had one or two nonconstructive or test edits. I placed the welcomes mainly to encourage the nonconstructive new editors (though not obvious vandals) to be constructive.

Since the list was getting long, on January 19, 2016, I moved it to the User:Donner60/Welcomes sub-page to reduce the bytes on my user page. Since the first Welcome sub-page in turn was getting long, I decided to create a second sub-page User:Donner60/Welcomes 2 listing messages starting January 1, 2020. I expect to make no further edits to this page unless an error happens to come to my attention.