Wikipedia talk:Please do not bite the newcomers

Background: This page was created in 2003, and the guideline header was added in 2005.

The proposed rewrite can be found here: Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers/rewrite. Please refrain from making significant changes to the rewrite while the RfC is ongoing.

See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Rewriting WP:BITE

1. Do not accept the rewrite as guideline; this page does not need to be rewritten.
2. Do not accept the rewrite as guideline; the rewrite needs more work to replace the current text.
3. Accept the rewrite as guideline, but add the template {{under discussion}}
4. Accept the rewrite as guideline, and do not add the template {{under discussion}}

Ca ^{talk to me!} 11:31, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging idea lab participants @Chaotic Enby @Folly Mox @Aaron Liu Ca ^{talk to me!} 11:33, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 3, definitely an improvement on the current guideline! And we can move to option 4 once the VP discussion concludes. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:38, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 2 The source for newcomers are responsible for adding the majority of lasting content is from 2006 and is 18 years old now. Additionally, that study only looked at content in two articles. Please find a more current and comprehensive study to support this point, or remove this point from the page. RudolfRed (talk) 19:18, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Do you think this issue is too severe for the rewrite to become a guideline, or do you think there are other problem points? I don't disagree with you: I'd imagine this detail could be removed with discussion after it's been made into a guideline. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:14, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  It should be fixed first, since it is a key part of the lede. RudolfRed (talk) 18:48, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  That's fair. Ca ^{talk to me!} 05:37, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  All of these points are mentioned in the footnote already. I don’t see the problem with having an outdated study, especially since editor activity has only declined since 2006. We could stress that it’s not the best. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2; I agree with RudolfRed that the study is far from ideal and should be removed before any other substantial changes are made. ― novov (t c) 08:42, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 I think the old lead is much more concise than the new one, but I think the rest of the rewrite looks good. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:11, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Other way around. The guideline's lead is 152 words; the proposal's is only 114.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:47, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Option 2. Too much material has been lost. While the extant guideline page has blathery cruft in it, this calls for a point-by-point concision edit, not loss of a whole bunch of entire points/principles. If one of those should be excised entirely, each such change would be a major guideline change that should be subject to pro/con discussion about that change. PS: RudolfRed's skepticism about a statistically invalid pseudo-study from ages ago is sensible, but it's already part of the extant guideline, so whether to remove it or not really has nothing to do with the current proposal. That is, if the proposed version is poorer in comparison to the "live" version (and I think it is in some ways) it will not be because part of it in the long-accepted live version wasn't changed/removed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:44, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3 - it looks largely good to me - I've added a minor suggested change on /rewrite's talkpage, but overall it is a lot more condensed and focused than the previous guideline, and has less of a Us Vs Them feel to it. BugGhost🦗👻 15:57, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 3: Looks like an improvement. I have no issues with it. The current page always seemed more like an essay to me because of the excessively long lists and relatively poor formatting. C F A 💬 17:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Option 1/2. Agree with SMcCandlish. I respect the effort but the result fails to match the purpose of the document. The page is a plea to biting experienced editors to stop biting. It is supposed to be a reading material that uses a particular narrative structure, covering certain scenarios, gradually leading you to reflect on your actions and understand that your approach has been harming the project. It isn't supposed to be a set of rules. It must have some emotive and seemingly repetitive verbiage to act as effective persuasive writing. There's no hard-and-fast no-bite formula that can be summed up in a handful of bullets. The guideline isn't about that. It must instill the feeling that being unkind and impatient to new editors is deeply wrong. The biter must feel that it's wrong. The rewrite doesn't do it. The current and recent versions do. It could be "rewritten", but it should happen incrementally.—Alalch E. 13:55, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I would endorse Alalch E.'s statement. It well-addresses some things I was thinking but didn't quite have good wording for (so I just stuck to rather procedural considerations in my own comment).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:22, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  That is definitely a valid vision for the guideline. However, I believe this version fails spectacularly to be persuasive. As I read the guideline I did not come to any new realizations—it just felt haphazardly written. Either way, this guideline needs a rewrite. Since the principle seems pretty obvious (be nice to newcomers), I opted for an informative than a persuasive writing approach, but feel free to propose a rewrite with your vision. Ca ^{talk to me!} 05:07, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]