User:Ritchie333/Don't template the retirees
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 | This page in a nutshell: When using automated tools such as Twinkle to notify an editor, consider first if you have an effective audience |
Sometimes people decide they've contributed all they can to Wikipedia and retire. It happens. Sometimes we plead for them to return, but nobody's obliged to edit here, so if they want to retire, you should respect their wishes.
With that in mind, I often despair when I look at talk pages of retired editors, which are frequently turned into graveyards of template spam. Tools such as Twinkle make it easy and convenient to inform the creator of an article when they want to raise an issue with it, usually to start a deletion debate. However, for long-standing articles, the creator has moved on, and there may well be far more interested parties in helping out - the best person to get help on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is probably not 62.60.58.79 (talk · contribs).
The "notify author" box on these tools is optional, which means you really should only enable it if you think it will be useful. Otherwise, you run the risk of slapping a honking big template (of which my opinions are reasonably well known these days) on a user who will never read it. A complete waste of time.
Twinkle and related tools are useful for repetitive tasks that are easy to screw up, but they will never be a substitute for good judgement and thought.