Template talk:Please leave this line alone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] What is this template

What is this template? And if it is a template why is it only used on one page?

This template contains the text of Wikipedia:Introduction, the first part of a three-step introduction process (the others are Introduction 2 and 3). New editors are encouraged to edit this page to practice editing. When they do so, they see the name of this template and a comment directing them to edit starting on the third line:

{{Please leave this line alone}}

This encourages them to practice in a way that will not modify the instructions, but allow them to see their edits immediately.

However, people often edit the first two lines anyway, whether intentionally or by mistake. Because newcomers are encouraged to edit this page, it is one of the most vandalized pages in Wikipedia; however, using this template makes it easy to restore the page to its preferred state because the new users don't know how to find the template page. The anti-vandal bot, Tawkerbot2 enforces the first two lines.

If vandalism to the top 2 lines remains more than a couple minutes - check to see if Tawkerbot2 is working - if not, please contact the programmer (Joshboddy) or the operator (Tawker) of the bot.
Sandbot's creator (AllyUnion) is on a Wiki Leave of Absence, but his bot, when working correctly, monitors this page every 30 minutes. Please contact him if he is back.

If you have questions about this page please see any of the Cleaning team listed here: Cleaning Department - Dust Removal on Introduction. Or if you want to help, sign up to be a team member! Trödel|talk 17:05, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Margin on Previous edits

Why must the margin above "Previous edits" be so large? It seems unsightly and a waste of space to me. [[User:Rdsmith4|User:Rdsmith4/sig]] 20:12, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm with you. Consider the margin shrunk. --Jeff 23:53, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] What is Previous edit's header for

Just a question: What is the "Previous edits" header for? why is the section there? Acaides 02:56, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The idea is that people experiment with editing at Wikipedia:Introduction 2, where this template appears. Thus their test-edits will appear under the heading "Previous edits" to make it clear that they're just other people's tests. [[User:Rdsmith4|User:Rdsmith4/sig]] 03:29, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- It just seems kind of random, and out of place. Makes the page look messy. Why include a mini-sandbox on this page at all? Acaides 03:39, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Whats the deal w the revert?

User:Rdsmith4 reverted my edit to this page w/o explanation. I just merged Wikipedia:Intro, Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers & Wikipedia:Tutorial, and needed to make changed here in accordance w that. Please don't revert w/o explanation. Sam Spade (talk • contribs) 14:21, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

"For article introduction guidelines, see: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Introduction"

Does having a link to the Manual of Style section on introductions interfere with this page in some way? If it does not, then however few people would be looking, I think it should be readded. Hyacinth 04:17, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It serves only to confuse the hundreds of newbies who blunder across this page every day, and is only of minor assistance to the very few people who look here when they mean to look for the MoS. This page should be kept as simple as possible (see Wikipedia talk:Introduction for previous discussion on the matter). — Dan | Talk 05:37, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What did I do wrong?

I just made 4 small changes to this page, all of which were reverted by User:Trödel, with the message "has been discussed before on the talk page". I see I must have done something invalid, but what was it? I can't see any relevant discussion on this page to any of my changes.

In case it was the first line, my reason was that it says nothing that isn't said in the next few sentences, and just looks ugly to me.

Nickptar 23:11, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki

Is Wikipedia:Introduction or Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers supposed to be the first entry page for newbies? And what exactly is the relationship with Wikipedia:Tutorial? I think there should be a single, friendly starting-point for would-be editors, as well as an "About Wikipedia"-type thing for interested readers. The distinction might be clearer - especially for the Welcome page; it's not clear who exactly it's aimed at. Once it is, the interwiki can be fixed appropriately (eg German would link to de:Wikipedia:Erste Schritte from the Introduction, instead of de:Wikipedia:Willkommen. Rd232 19:44, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] matching divs

Somehow the border extends around the test edits heading and also the test edits where this page is transcluded. The divs seem to match, but I get this on 2 browsers. Someone please fix this. --MarSch 14:21, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I missed one. Fixed it now --MarSch 14:36, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removing subtemplates

I don't understand the need to edit the Introduction templates. First of all such drastic changes should have been proposed on the talk page first. Secondly, these changes should not be made on an active template that is viewed so frequently but used a sandbox, like user sandbox. Third, why these templates need to be reformatted - I have seen some comments on the village pump that they need to be reverted frequently because of vandalism, but I don't know how you can have a page like Wikipedia:Introduction without vandalism unless you protect the page and redirect to an open sandbox.

I personally think that they are very well done and elegant templates that makes editing easier and hides the complicated formatting details. I also think that it is empowering for users to be able to edit the page that explains the power of the wiki to them, and have volunteered to help maintain the Introduciton templates in working order.

Unless there is support for this change I plan to revert. Trödel|talk 15:11, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The templates are simply a way of making editing easier, if you want to change the name of the tabs you only have to change them once, not three times. I made it like that when I was first working on the introduction, as I chopped and changed quite a bit at first. I don't see a reason for scrapping it really.

I just reverted the tabular layout changes, for accessibility purposes. Tom- 18:09, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

FYI - I reverted to using the subtemplates a couple of days ago since there was not widespread support for the change Trodel 13:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming

Well, I don't. This should be moved to Template:Introduction1. --MarSch 16:46, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oppose move. I understand the confusion, but this template is something of a unique case. The page on which it is used is for practicing editing for new users. It is more intuitive and efficient to have the "Please leave this line alone" as the template name, rather than having a separate template and an HTML comment below. In my anecdotal experience, having the template at this name has considerably reduced the "vandalism" to that page. Please also see the explanation above. — Knowledge Seeker দ 18:48, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I oppose this change. The purpose of the template is explained on its talk page, and its use has proven very intuitive and effective at Wikipedia:Introduction. — Dan | Talk 17:05, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Oppose I think this should stay as named. Trödel|talk 16:54, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) As KS notes above the vandalism seems to have been reduced even though the increase from ~45 edits per day to ~60 edits per day over the last 3 months. Trödel|talk 02:50, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oppose move: a convincing reason for page move has not been given, in my opinion. Jonathunder 04:08, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)

Oppose move. Furthermore, it's my bot that enforces the headers on the page, and I will also refuse to edit my bot to conform to the new page move. -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:19, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Keep it how it is This link is Broken 04:50, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Voting over.

[edit] Discussion copied from Wikipedia talk:Introduction

I propose renaming the templates used in the intros to their respective Wikipedia equivalents. Thus {{introduction1}} would be used instead of {{warning to not edit this}}. The warning should be in some comment. Because of their strange names the templates were already once listed on tfd. --MarSch 15:51, 22 May 2005 (UTC) Kings and Vagabonds

See Template talk:Please leave this line alone for a discussion of why the templates are named as they are. They were taken of tfd after the issue was explained. Trödel|talk 13:45, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I understand why they are named as they are, but it is silly. Their name should imply their purpose. You can explain the rest in a comment.--MarSch 11:22, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

This template should stay as named - right now I see a 1-1 vote for the move - this is no consensus for change - so it should stay where it is. Trödel|talk 16:55, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I feel that "don't edit this" template is more appropriate. Unless there is more community support to do so, I will not edit my bot. -- AllyUnion (talk) 04:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Even if these templates must be named by a warning without a proper explanation in the comment then they should be numbered. Or could someone explain to me why Template:Don't edit this is Intro1 and Template:Don't edit this either is Intro2 and Template:This should not be edited is Intro3.... But why would you want to warn in the template name if you (could) also warn in a comment? Therefore I propose to replace this page with

{{Introduction1}}<!-- This line generates this page, so please leave it alone. You may test and edit below -->

and move the template which generates it to {{Introduction1}}. Templates should have descriptive names. --MarSch 16:41, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Decision

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. violet/riga (t) 22:03, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Encourage People to Edit the Introduction?

Personally, I think the introduction should remain informative and less interactive. When I viewed the introduction page from the main page (I think I clicked "anyone can edit"), I get some weird topic and absolutely nothing about the Wikipedia.

Normally, I wouldn't see this as any big deal, but this is where people are wanting more information about the Wikipedia, and if the template is missing from the page more often than not from people editing the page, is it really worth it encouraging people edit the introduction page?

I believe, to keep everything simple, encourage editing in the sandbox first and foremost, and take the "test edits..." line out of the Introduction1 template.

I agree and add the argument that this page - as the first that new users might explore should not be an exception to the rule. It may need to be protected, but hiding the source using an oddly named template is confusing. Richard Taylor 01:17, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Cross posted from Introduction talk

You guys are missing the whole purpose of this page, i.e. 1) to let people edit, 2) to show the trust/welcoming nature of the community. Sure this page is vandalized frequently; however, if you review the history (the last time I counted was in April/May time frame), the number of inappropriate edits << (is much less than) the number of total edits. If you are concerned I would ask that you sign up at Cleaning Department - Dust Removal on Introduction and indicate what times you would help watch the page. I can no longer participate as frequently as I would like - but checking this page is about the only thing I do when I login and I am impressed at how rarely it is in an improper state (even though the bot that used to automatically revert the page stopped working in late June/early July). Finally, the use of the template makes vandalising this page permanently much more difficult and makes it much easier for the new users to try out editing without effecting the instructions on the page.

For me, this page is important to remain editable, because that says to new users of wikipedia: "Welcome, we trust you, join our community and help us build the a great encyclopedia." (in a way much better than words) Trödel|talk 01:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I do not agree with the page being protected, but I don't think its necessary to have a "Test Edits" heading, as users can use the sandbox for that. --Jatkins 17:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Harshness

This statement seems a bit harsh: "Nonsense and vandalism are usually removed quickly, and their creators banned." That's not really true, since it's only repeated violators who get banned. - dcljr (talk) 22:43, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Yep, I'll add my belated agreement to this, just in case anyone is tempted to make the current phrasing more robust. Remember WP:BITE. ProhibitOnions 12:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tabs

I suggest changing the formatting of the tabs from this (current):

1. Introduction

2. Learn more about editing

3. Explore Wikipedia

to this:

1. Introduction

2. Learn more about editing

3. Explore Wikipedia

and do a similar thing for the other templates used in the introduction. Any objections/suggestions/comments? SeventyThree^(Talk) 14:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] addition re wiki

A recent addition was made:

It uses a special type of website, called a wiki, that makes collaboration easy.

I think this is better placed in the How Can I help section. I think it reads a little awkward at the top. Addtiionally, wikipedia is an encyclopedia - not a wiki. We use wiki software because it has been the most effective in allowing the inexpensive collaborative creation of a encyclopedia, but the mission and purpose of wikipedia is not to be a wiki. In the How can I help? section it helps the potential wikipedian understand that they can help right away and reassures them that they can't really mess up the website. Just my 2¢ Trödel 19:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair point - I moved it up nearer the top to try and establish from the off where the name comes from and that Wikipedia and wiki are not synonymous; but perhaps it's better to keep the opening paragraph concise. --Kwekubo 19:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe we could includes something like - "Because wikipedia is the most popular website that uses openly collabortive software, some refer to it as 'wiki' - however, wiki is the type of software upon which wikipedia runs" - I know too wordy need a more concise way - but you get the idea - Trödel 20:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  - There are also people who talk about "the video editing wikipedia" (I made up the name) when in fact they're referring to a video editing wiki, a Mediawiki-based wiki completely independent from Wikipedia. Even worse, independent Wiki's that call themselves "the whatevertopic Wikipedia"! 200.127.43.152 21:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mentioning banning

I think we should be careful how we mention banning in this template. It was first removed on 9 Nov 2005 by User:Canderson7. And restored with, IMHO, better wording yesterday by User:Zxcvbnm. I think that since no one reversed Canderson7 for 6 months, there is general concensus that we shouldn't "scare-off" new users with threats of being banned. Because repeat offenders are the ones that will be banned and they get plenty of notice through the {{Warn}}ing templates that they will be banned, the only reason I can think of to put it here is to inform new users that we care deeply about the quality of the encyclopedia to the point of banning vandals. Any thoughts? Trödel 15:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing

This template is confusing for new users who might not understand that they're actually editing the page. I was caught off guard when I edited that big page and there's only 2 lines of text?

It's abuse of the template system - naming a template Please leave this line alone so that newbies don't edit it is absurd! There's no reason that the entire page can't be put there and anti-vandal bots monitor the first couple dozen lines instead of the first 2.

--Froth 05:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

While I understand your concern - the point is to allow people to edit without having to scroll through a page and a half of complicated and intimidating wikicode. And it is working well --Trödel 10:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ...but please don't vandalize!

I think this clause should be removed because it just gives a bad idea to prospective editors. If someone wanted to vandalize they won't stop because of this notice like this - in fact, I think it might even fuel vandalism ("Oh, so Wikipedia editors don't want me to vandalize pages? Let's see...") --Zoz (t) 22:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Auto revert

I've been playing around with some of the fascilities that MediaWiki offers and come up with a little trick. To clear Wikipedia:Introduction of vandalism, just click

here

and it should clear up everything. --L e on 2323

19:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tabs like Tutorial

I propose the introduction tabs be revised to be like those at Wikipedia:Tutorial. See examples. [1] [2] [3] This style also is more consistent with Wikipedia:Community Portal and Wikipedia:Colours. Rfrisbie^talk 00:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the proposed changes to the tabbed header. Have a couple of suggestions:

Make the 4 headings 25% width each so they are more consistent.
Change the color scheme slightly so that it is clear when one moves from the introduction to the tutorial tabs.

Great improvement overall to tie it into the tutorial better --Trödel 01:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good; and Rfrisbie's great with color!

Just fyi, it was very briefly discussed, but only on scattered user-talkpages. Possibly the bold change would have been ok, if we'd mentioned that concurrent with the change? :) --Quiddity 02:05, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah - sorry for jumping so fast - I usually revert first on these 3 pages because sometimes some weird stuff has happened where people didn't realize the implications of the changes - when I checked who had done it - I'll revert it back - I do like blue better than yellow - though yellow has that stop and pay attention conotation to it. --Trödel 02:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Back to the proposed changes... (1) I'm not a big fan of empty tab space, so I went with the design at the top of each page – variable width with fixed padding. A compromise (which I don't like all that much either but I can live with) would be to pick the widest tab width needed and use it for all of them. (2) There's been some informal efforts to tie in similar high-level pages with the use of color palettes (e.g., H210 variants for "novices") at Wikipedia:Community Portal#Help and Resources, Help:Contents, and Wikipedia:Tutorial. These pages would fit with that group. There's even been some talk of merging these with the tutorial. That's why I added the new tab. If it's too confusing we always could take it back off.

Introduction

Learn_more_about_editing

A yellow shade along the same lines could look something like this. Rfrisbie^talk 02:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
p.s. "&.nbsp;" doesn't seem to work correctly on talk pages. :-(?) Rfrisbie^talk 02:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I used a % width on each of the templates - does that look good to you? Not sure what color to use - The yellow in blue looks a little off to me - and am not sure how it will look on 256 color video modes - see User:Trödel/Color chart (8-bit) for the 256 color palette - we can use better colors than what is on there - but they will be mapped to the closest one so it is useful to check what it will look like. --Trödel 02:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

p.s. not sure why " " doesn't work on the talk page - it should be the same everywhere. (?) is right --Trödel 02:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I've seen it before, but these tab codes don't display the same on talk pages as main pages. Given a choice, I still like the originals better. I'll leave it to others to putz with them now. I use palettes at Wikipedia talk:Colours and User:Rfrisbie/Palettes for revising layouts. Rfrisbie^talk 03:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the 25% tabs, and the blue. Could go with a different (lighter) hue of blue maybe? --Quiddity 03:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's two directions off the current H210 S15 V95. Rfrisbie^talk 03:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

H180 S15 V95	H190 S15 V95	H200 S15 V95	H210 S15 V95	H220 S15 V95	H230 S15 V95	H240 S15 V95	H270 S15 V95

The border changes are losing the original effect of a "current" page with no underline, plus a missing end line. Pick a color. Rfrisbie^talk 03:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you're referring to re losing the orginal effect - if you notice the right tabs are bleeding over just a bit - can't remember how that got fixed last time. The blue is kind of growing on me - lets just leave it for now. --Trödel 03:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

On this page I see a white gap on the right side. It looked fine before. On the other two pages, the "missing" underline always should be at the "current page" tab. It stays at "Introduction." Rfrisbie^talk 03:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I think some of our differences might be because of our browsers, I use IE6. Building horizontal lines seems to be problematic. Rfrisbie^talk 03:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Could be different browsers - I think I fixed the border issue. I'm can't remember why transclusion was removed last year - but it seems like there was a good reason - maybe it would be better to use a single table instead of a div's everywhere? --Trödel 04:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Divs definitely screw up compound lines on my browser. Tables work better for me. Rfrisbie^talk 04:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

If you want to go with 25% (really slightly smaller) tabs, I would prefer to adjust the subpages and go back to transclusions. Did the original tabs baseline border run over the right edge? It didn't for me. If it was okay then I can adjust the spacers so, hopefully, it looks correct for everyone. Rfrisbie^talk 03:55, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Now all the tabs line up for me! :-) Rfrisbie^talk 04:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it is a problem with the older version of Firefox only version 1.5 renders it correctly, but 1.0 does not --Trödel 12:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Re: merge with tutorial -- I've been wondering about merging a few of the "welcome" type pages, but don't have time to organize such a thing. I did make a list though...

They seem to break down into browsing vs. editing groups:

and

I like having the contrast of simple/friendly vs complex/complete (eg intro vs tutorial), But I think it would be good to reduce the above list from 8 items down to 3 or 4 items.

Anyway, maybe someone else will feel like tackling that. ;) --Quiddity 03:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

LOL - well not by me tonight --Trödel 03:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Explore & Wikipedia:Start, Wikipedia:First steps & the tutorial and Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers & the introduction would seem like good candidates for merging. I'm happy to do it if there is support. I'm not sure what to do about Wikipedia:Second steps. -- Gareth Aus 09:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Go for it. Rfrisbie^talk 11:41, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget stuff at Category:Wikipedia basic information :-) Rfrisbie^talk

I also agree with Gareth's suggestion. Too many of these pages with the same topic are floating around. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I made that list primarily from Category:Wikipedia basic information and Wikipedia:About (which needs updating in many places). --Quiddity 19:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I've marked Wikipedia:Second steps as historical and removed it from the category, though perhaps it should be redirected to Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia instead? Wasnt sure.

I also struckout the pages above that have been merged & redirected. --Quiddity 02:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I seems to me that Help:Contents/Getting started is the logical "home page" for all other introductory pages. That might be the best place to work out who's on first, etc. Rfrisbie^talk 04:22, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Maybe we should move this conversation to its talkpage (either now or eventually)?

I added Wikipedia:Reference pages to the list of browsing centered pages. It somewhat overlaps, though I've been trying to keep that page as short as possible, whilst still being completist. I'm mostly happy with the current content, though it could use a little visual tweaking.

I also removed "Wikipedia:Look it up (linked from Wikipedia:Searching)" from the above list - there is a seperate merge/overhaul proposal for those being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Searching#Merge with Wikipedia:Look it up, which I invite you all to contribute to :) --Quiddity 05:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transclusions vs. Substitutions

I wonder why transclusions are perfectly fine at the Wikipedia:Community Portal and every other portal, but for some reason, they're not okay here. I'd like to see some discussion on this. Rfrisbie^talk 12:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I went back and read some stuff on that - it had to do with using syntax like

headertpl:
<code>{{{headertpl/{{{1}}} }}}</code>

headertpl/1:
<code>formatting and text for page Introduction 1</code>

headertpl/2:
<code>formatting and text for page Introduction 2</code>

headertpl/3:
<code>formatting and text for page Introduction 3</code>

plus the argument that there shouldn't be a template that is used on just one page.

I think transcluding subpages will resolve that issue so go for it. --Trödel 13:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, although I admit I don't see the issue from the example. Portal pages have a one-to-one correspondence with sections. In this case, the tabs for each page were built using four common elements at their respective /Header subpages. If one-to-one still is an issue for someone, the building blocks also can be used on each page. That still would make each page "cleaner" and any tabs changes easier. I'll wait a while to see if anyone objects before I redo any transclusions. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 13:35, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't either - as I opposed the removal of transclusion but was not in the majority :) --Trödel 14:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Farsi link

{{Editprotected}} there is a link to Farsi version of this page. Adiing this link would be enough fa:ویکی‌پدیا:آشنایی.

Ammar 11:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. Note as this page is only semi-protected you will be able to make the change yourself once the account is four days old. --ais523 11:37, 23 October 2006 (U T C)

[edit] Cleaning up some sentences

How about making the most linked to article a little better to read?

Lots of people are constantly improving Wikipedia... > Lots of people constantly improve Wikipedia...

...all of which are recorded on article histories and recent changes. > ...all of which Wikipedia records on article histories and recent changes.

Inappropriate changes are usually removed quickly, and repeat offenders can be blocked from editing. > Users or bots remove inappropriate changes quickly, and Wikipedia can block repeat offenders.

Find something that can be improved... > Find something improvable

Anything can be fixed or improved later. > Anyone can fix or improve your change later. 147.174.224.99 19:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the tenses make sense as is; everything is ongoing, etc. —Centrx→talk • 05:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right, I guess. For the most part, Wikipedia loves passive voice. 67.35.241.52 20:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Centrx here. In general, I like to use the passive voice when I deliberately want to gloss over the identity of the the actual actor (such as software X as programmed by Y and configured "just so" by Z). What is so wrong with the use of the passive voice to indicate that the additions, changes, improvements, removals, and recording of the same are happening all the time? Much of the detail of who or what is accomplishing the removals and what is accomplishing the recording is not necessary to this article, but would be necessary for proper use of the active voice. — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 15:31, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging this talk page with Wikipedia talk:Introduction?

Since Wikipedia:Introduction basically is only a transclusion of this page, there is no real difference in contributions to the talk pages, and a lot of overlap. Because most people who post here want to change the introduction, I propose changing this page to a redirect to Wikipedia talk:Introduction. — Sebastian 21:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem I see with your proposal is that it removes the current and important distinction between the discussions of this template and the Introduction by established editors here and the discussions of the Introduction by first-time editors on Wikipedia talk:Introduction. — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 15:19, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. There is indeed a distinction between these two types of messages, and there aren't many of the established editors, and half of them are by me. :-] — Sebastian 05:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk sandbox

Please add the shortcut WT:SAND to the saved version of the talk sandbox header. --Random832 19:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

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