Wikipedia talk:Template index/User talk namespace

Uw-controversial – vague, arbitrary, useless?

 Courtesy link: Template:Uw-controversial

I find this template troubling, to the point where I question the value of having it. The wording seems arbitrary:

[O]ne of your edits may have been a change that some consider controversial. Due to this, your edits may have been reverted.

Controversial edit? What the heck is that? One might think that perhaps it is related to our contentious topics procedures—but no. Reading between the lines, what I hear from this message, is:

I didn't like your edit, so I reverted it. If I knew about guidelines and stuff, I woulda linked one, but, well, you know... So I'm just dropping this template before you revert back, to make it look kinda official, and more like you did something wrong and I called you out on it. (Ha, ha, gotcha!)

Later in the message, it talks about correct information which is an entirely different animal than 'controversial', afaic; maybe what they wanted was {{uw-unsourced1}}, or {{uw-hoax}}, or who knows, really.

There is nothing in the documentation like a When to use section, or maybe better, a When not to use section. Maybe it's just a matter of fixing the documentation to explain what it's really for and when to use it, but as it stands now, it seems entirely arbitrary and subject to unfair or annoying templating and abuse. Personally, I can't imagine using it, because I have no idea what it is about, and it seems to be saying, "I just didn't like it". If you were going to add a policy or guideline link to clarify the message, which one would you pick? If you can't decide, that's a red flag. Mathglot (talk) 09:05, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Will take to Tfd. Mathglot (talk) 09:22, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2025 March 14#Template:Uw-controversial. Mathglot (talk) 09:33, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 12 March 2025

Change:

• This is a generic template for those UW templates that have no level 4.

to

• This is a generic template for UW template series that have no level-4 template. Faster than Thunder (talk | contributions) 00:48, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

   Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 03:22, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

uw-disruptive1 and spelling

I note subst:Uw-disruptive1 uses the British spelling "familiarise." Is there any way to get a parameter to use American spelling ("familiarize") for those of us who are from that country and prefer to use American English? 1995hoo (talk) 15:51, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Is this for the benefit of the sender of the message, or its recipient? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:26, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

I suppose the sender. If I send a message to someone, I dislike being forced to use British spellings. 1995hoo (talk) 19:58, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

If the recipient is British, might they dislike being forced to read American spellings? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:01, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Ehhh, you know what, I experimented with it on my sandbox page and realized there's a workaround: You just post the template, then click "Edit" again and correct the spelling. Perhaps not ideal, but does the job. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to try that before posting the topic here, although I do note many templates do have a parameter allowing the user to set the spelling, so it's not really clear why British spelling is being forced on users here. Whatever. Given that there's a workaround, I don't see any reason to pursue it further, so if someone wants to archive this section, please do. 1995hoo (talk) 13:41, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Template:Uw-selfrevert-helpful

I've seen users self-revert editing tests when the test edits are actually helpful, such as adding valuable information. This notice would let them know that their edit is constructive and tolerated:

Welcome to Wikipedia. I noticed that you recently reverted one of your recent test edits, even though the edit was actually constructive. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to the encyclopedia. If you would like to make test edits, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Faster than Thunder (talk | contributions) 18:54, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

What would be the benefit of that rather than just writing a single sentence saying that you think their edit was a good one and worth keeping? JBW (talk) 00:07, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

uw-coi and uw-paid

I think that the {{uw-coi}} and {{uw-paid}} templates can be improved.

In my experience people who read those templates perceive them as an attack, even if it is clear that they have a COI/are being paid.

I don't think that that is the intention behind the templates, and people don't respond in the way we want them to (e.g. they become defensive or hostile, which is counterproductive).

I have some quick drafts that are less likely to illicit a negative response:

• User:Polygnotus/Templates/FriendlyCOI
• User:Polygnotus/Templates/FriendlyPAID

Feel free to edit them, they are drafts and far from perfect. These are just some quick examples to illustrate my point.

What do y'all think? Polygnotus (talk) 02:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: I agree 100% with what you say about the existing templates. They are seriously in need of major rewriting. I haven't yet studied your draft replacements, because I'm out of time, but I'll try to remember to come back to them and have a look. JBW (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I like the overall idea. The new drafts definitely need more links. We shouldn't assume, for example, that new editors know what a talk page is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:16, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 26 March 2025

the Username Hard Blocked template has the phrase "Wikipedia's username policy", whereas the Vandalism and Username block template has the phrase "our" instead of "Wikipedia's username policy". Could somebody please change this from "our" to "Wikipedia's username policy" for consistency? Thanks.

Diff:

−

of our username policy

+

of Wikipedia's username policy

YourGodIsHere32 (talk) 22:15, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

YourGodIsHere32,  Done. Thanks for including the {{textdiff}}, that makes the request clear. P.S., if you make another request, there is no need to bold the entire message. Mathglot (talk) 22:29, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Uw-tdel1 and Uw-tdel2

At Template:Uw-tdel1 and Template:Uw-tdel2, there needs to be a line that says maintenance templates should not be removed if there is an active discussion about the issue on the talk page. That's one of the main reasons not to remove a maintenance template per WP:WNTRMT, but the uw templates give the opposite impression. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:58, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm not seeing that either template (currently) mentions the Talk page? DonIago (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'd like to remedy. Right now they imply that everything about the maintenance tags is done unilaterally. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 17:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I guess I'm not really sure what your concern is. Perhaps you could propose alternate wording that would address your concern? DonIago (talk) 17:25, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 7 April 2025

Replace "It's been removed and archived in the page history for now" with "Your edit has been reverted for now" Cyber the tiger🐯 (talk) 22:41, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

 Question: Why? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:48, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit template-protected}} template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:33, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Adding a warning template for multiple issues at once

Recently I've seen several instances where I thought it would be necessary to warn a user for several rule violations at once, e.g. for adding original research and not maintaining a neutral point of view in the same edit. Anyone else think this may be useful? Gommeh (talk/contribs) 15:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I'll defer to other editors on this, but I think there may be an argument that if you're going to give an editor multiple warnings at the same time that perhaps it would be better to write a single message that encapsulates the issues rather than (arguably somewhat rudely) dropping a bunch of different warnings on them. DonIago (talk) 17:39, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. I did some thinking and thought it might end up looking something like this:

{{uw-multiple|Article name here|warning type 1|warning type 2|etc...|}}

I would have no idea how to code a template like that though. Gommeh (talk/contribs) 17:43, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand me. How would that translate into a single coherent message, especially when the warnings are likely to be different with each use of the template? DonIago (talk) 17:46, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding me - you assumed that what I put above would mean something among the lines of copying the text of a warning template such as {{uw-vandalism1}} into a new template. What I am suggesting is something more like this: "Your edit at (insert article here) appears to have multiple issues: (bullet point list of suspected violations here)". Admittedly I'm not sure how you could implement the warning system here.

So {{uw-multiple|Example article|You added content that does not appear constructive and is suspected of being [[WP:VANDALISM|vandalism]].|You [[WP:REMOVAL|deleted content]] without adequately explaining why in your edit summary.}} would turn out something like this:

Hello. One or more of your recent contributions to Example article appears to have multiple issues:

• You added content that does not appear constructive and is suspected of being vandalism.
• You deleted content without adequately explaining why in your edit summary.

Of course the warnings can be as detailed as need be. My goal is to be able to concisely warn a user about an edit they made that violates multiple policies at once.

Gommeh (talk/contribs) 17:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

It seems to me that for that to work we'd need alternate versions of each of the existing warning messages that could then be used for bundling purposes (which also means editors might have concerns about the wording of each message). Not an impossible task, but possibly an unappetizing one, especially when in my experience I'm usually able to find a warning that I feel addresses my primary concerns with an editor's revision and then add supplemental text as needed if there are additional concerns I wish to note. Considering that it's arguable whether leaving templated warnings for people tends to have a net positive effect in any case, maybe it's best to continue to require editors to use a more personal touch if they want to leave a more complicated notice. DonIago (talk) 19:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 9 April 2025

Description of suggested change: Change the icon to the orange round one seen in Template:Uw-2.

Diff:

−

[[File:Ambox warning pn.svg|30px|link=]]

+

[[File:Information orange.svg|25px|alt=Information icon]]

Cyber the tiger🐯 (talk) 18:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)