Illogicopedia:Welcoming committee

The Illogicopedia welcoming committee welcomes you to the welcoming committee page! Well, if it didn't, we wouldn't be doing our job correctly.

At present, Illogicopedia is a small to medium sized wiki; it is getting approximately five new users per week. We strongly recommend that you do not use welcoming templates, rather greet new users in a non-robotic manner with a friendly message. For example:

Welcome, friend, to the Illogicopedia. I'm sure you'll like it here - we've got cheesy chocolate bars and suchlike. Just watch out for that Penguin dude stealing the fish. Fnurdletoot.

Here, a modicum of humour/mental instability is used to greet the user so they know what they are letting themselves in for when they join the community. It gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling known as wantedness.

Help, I can't think of anything to write!

Don't worry! Just check out the new user's contributions and drop a comment such as "hey, that's a nice first article - keep up the good work". Alternatively, think of something related to the person's username:

From User talk:I got an username Im cool:

You are indeed cool, you have a username. Or do you? Anyways, welcome to Illogicopedia. Please feel free to go insane here (within reason).

Just think of something slightly random yet relevant.

You can also take inspiration from previous welcome messages, maybe even reply/add extra comments to some of them.

Should all the above fail, consider letting someone else welcome users. Not that we don't need you - it's just that there's more people on the welcoming committee than we are getting new users per week and someone else is bound to be willing to do it anyway.

And you can always come back and welcome them later if you think of something - even if someone else already did it. The more customised welcomes, the better!

Policies and whatnot

You may choose to include a link to the Illogicopedia Commandments, perhaps the single most important policy page. Alternatively, there's a specialist beginner's advice page here. This bit isn't mandatory but it's good to let users know what they're in for.

Vandalism

Remember to assume good faith and give users the benefit of the doubt - even if their first few edits are non-constructive, say something like:

Just a friendly note: blanking pages will generally get you in trouble with admins so, er, if you have to vandalise something do it here. Toodleoo.

If they continue to vandalise, the admins will deal with it: your task is to turn them from a destructive troll into a constructive one. Tough maybe, impossible no - one of our most prevalent administrators began life as a vandal.

Congratulations!

Now you have read this, you are qualified in Illogic greeting. You are free to add your username to the members page and add the appropriate template.

Remember - you are not a salmon.