Forum:Proposal: Template Standardization Policy

Hello all, many remember a blog I made about templates and use of personal ones, I was speaking with Bovell and Callofduty4 (among a few others) earlier on IRC about the use of unprofessional and sometimes plain useless personal or otherwise custom templates. Thus I have come to the conclusion I should propose the standardization of certain templates, namely: Although I cannot at the moment think of other templates that might need be included, there may be some. As it is, these templates are official warning or welcome templates, that are impressions of us (the community) as a whole. It is my proposal that somewhat strict regulation be instituted of said templates, such that they once more become templates (rather than nearly every user having his or her own personal message). My idea is that the two warning templates be restricted to the basic ones ( and  ) as well as the official Recent Changes Patroller warning  or those of any other official group, with provisions for the usage of personal messages so long as they do not vary greatly in the message given, and maintain a professional styling and tone. Regarding welcome templates, most of the welcome templates are plain silly, and many do not contain enough information. Here are some guidelines I believe could be implemented:
 * Vandalism warning template
 * Bad edit warning template (this does not seem to be as widely customized, though standardization would protect it from such)
 * Welcome template
 * Links to
 * Help Desk
 * War Room
 * Policies
 * IRC page
 * User Manual
 * Manual of Style
 * Admin list page (or a full list of admins, with a summary of the new user hilite system)
 * as well as include basic summaries

I do not wish to restrict a user's freedom to express himself, but our standard welcome templates are enough for now, and could do with very few improvements. If you are a part of the NUW group, feel free to use one of the standard welcomes, or the Black Ops welcome. We can be expressive, but when it comes to welcoming users, Why do we feel the need to have our very own, unique message?. There are now so many personalized "templates" (though now they derive that only from the namespace) that users no longer may receive a different message depending on user, but will receive a different message depending on who welcomes them.
 * Summarize a basic welcome.
 * Look and sound professional

I hope we can all agree that there should at least be some regulation to the warning templates, as to the welcome templates, that's debatable. (PS: There will be a standardization policy implemented for the NUW usergroup effective soon.) Darthkenobi0(talk) 06:11, August 22, 2010 (UTC)