Talk:Harassment consultation 2015/Ideas/Quick "canned" replies to encourage positive interactions among users

As what regards the predefined answers: Many of the reactions are "templated" in the Czech WM wikis - and on the contrary to your idea using many of them is meant not to be very polite. In fact, massive using of critical/bad-behavior-notification templates is seen as a possible tool of harassment. --Okino (talk) 23:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

English Wikipedia has a similar issue: templated messages are seen, at best, as a coldly impersonal way of communicating. --Carnildo (talk) 02:48, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I like the principle of this idea. Canned responses (or templated messages) work very well for customer support centres, as time-efficient way to respond to large volumes of inquiries and pass on information. It does, however, run the aforementioned risks. What about tweaking it according to our needs? Could certain automations be removed from the process? In other words, a set of templated responses is made available and can still be used, but the poster can edit that content prior to posting it. This can allow for a varying degree of personalisation of the content, perhaps include a personal greeting depending on the editor you address it to and in line the wider culture of their wiki. At the same time you remain informative while removing the distance between you and the other person.Kalliope (WMF) (talk) 09:49, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I like the idea of "canned responses" (template messages) as well myself, if not used excessively and if used sensitively, they are very useful in general. But in this one problem of harassment, they are questionable, because in situations of this kind, the target of harassment rather often feels them annoying. --Okino (talk) 19:00, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes warning templates should "scare editors away"

When I see a person who, by all outward appearances, is editing for the purpose of promotion, disruption, or otherwise hurting the project, I will deliberately use a template that is designed to either say outright or at least imply "your edits so far are unwelcome and have been or will be reverted, and if you keep editing this way you will be blocked. Now either change your behavior or go away." If other editors have already warned them several times then I use very strong warning templates such as this one for spamming and this one for vandalism. Is that harassment? If the editor is simply clueless, it might be, but in the grand scheme of things using strong warning templates is right thing to say in the vast majority of such cases. It's far better to be occasionally wrong in cases like this than to be afraid to send a strong message when circumstances suggest a strong message is needed and the "error rate" is low. Davidwr/talk 20:01, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Those templates are largely accepted by the community as fair warning. If used correctly they do not constitute harassment. If used maliciously, they would. It is the user's responsibility to use them correctly. Deliberate well before using. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:50, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Maybe those templates should have a warning about inappropriate use on their instruction pages. The instructions appear to assume common sense and social competence on the part of the user, which may be overoptimistic. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:56, 21 November 2015 (UTC)