Wikipedia talk:Don't template anyone

Devil's Advocate

While I see the merits of the argument presented here when using templates to notify experienced users of something, I strongly disagree with it as it regards to handling vandalism. Wikipedia is vandalized all the time, and it is simply too time consuming to write a custom message for each offender. Additionally, this may in fact be counterproductive. We don't want vandals to see actual users taking time to stop them. We don't want them to think that they are actually bothering people. That's exactly what an internet troll wants to see. The best is when a bot reverts their edit(s) immediately after and gives them the standard automated warning. It takes the fun out of vandalism, like prank calling an automated hotline. And, if an actual human reverts their edits, let the vandal click 'edit' to write some stupid response, only to see that the user dropped a generic template and moved on. That is in fact the reason why I disagree with the policy (or it is a guideline) that requires that the vandalism templates be substituted.

Lastly, Vandalism-only accounts are not likely to turn into constructive contributors because of a message, personally written or otherwise. The only reason why we warn them is because it is necessary to do so before blocking them. In this case, the templates just insure uniformity across Wikipedia, which I feel is generally a benefit.

With all that said, I completely agree with this essay as far as templates such as {{uw-badprodblp}}, {{uw-copyright-img}}, and all the rest listed at Template messages/User talk namespace/Single-level templates are concerned. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 19:10, 31 January 2020 (UTC) +minor edit Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 19:11, 31 January 2020 (UTC)