[Olpc-open] welcoming new users on the wiki : help wanted

[Samuel Klein]

== Welcome committee ==

The wiki welcome wagon could use more helpers.  You can always see the
list of new users here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Special:Log/newusers

And you can find a sample welcome message here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Template:blue-welcome

I use this with a subst: command --
   {{subst:blue-welcome}}

This waythat the text, once inserted on someone's talk page, is
permanent -- and so that it automatically includes a name and
timestamp of the person leaving the message.  This way even if the
template changes in the future, the newbie's talk page does not.

You may want to create your own welcome message, or to update the
links on this example, which is used fairly often.
A proper link introducing the support gang, and other wiki gangs,
would be a good addition to the "how to participate" line.


== Welcome / intro links ==
In addition to making good welcome messages, consider updating the
linnks in these four places:

1) the wiki main page.  It has regressed in recent months and needs a
better-linked (and more regularly updated) design.
2) the Participate page
3) the list of open tasks : http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Template:Opentasks
4) the links at the top of Recentchanges :
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/MediaWiki:Recentchangestext
  (leave a comment on the talk page if you can't edit any of these directly)


SJ