User warnings are meant to guide good-faith testers and dissuade bad-faith vandals. You may place any of the warning templates listed here on talk pages to warn users against vandalism. You are responsible for making sure that the template's text is suitable to the violation. If the template's tone is not appropriate, do not use the template. The templates are just a shortcut instead of typing. If you cannot find a template that says what you want to say, then just post a message for the user on his or her user talk page.

User warnings are for preventing further vandalism and/or disruptive changing, and not to punish users. If a user stopped vandalizing some time ago, and their change history does not suggest a pattern of frequent vandalism, there is no need to warn or block the user. Likewise, if a user is in the middle of an obviously bad-faith vandalism spree, there is no need to issue the less serious warnings, or even to warn him or her before applying a temporary or a permanent block.

The warning templates are split into two types of warnings: single-issue templates which are one-off messages usually to provide information hints and tips, and multi-level warnings that can be issued with different levels of seriousness which are normally used for changes that do not meet Wikipedia's criteria or policies. When issuing multi-level warnings, use only one warning level at a time. Using several templates with different warning levels at the same time does not serve any purpose, since the user will not have read the less serious warnings before you issued more serious ones.

Wait! If you've never used a certain template before, or have not used it recently, please read it (e.g. with preview) to make sure it actually says what you want to say.

Things to remember

• Always substitute messages by adding "subst:" before the name of the template, so that the message does not change from what the user first saw and perhaps replied to, and
• Give the name and level of the template you have used in your change summary, so that other users know what templates have been used.

Layout

• Warnings should follow the layout below.
• Warnings should be grouped by date under the heading "Warnings". If there have been multiple warnings, add the template ((Uw-vandalism4)) at the top of the Warnings section.
• User warnings and block messages should be placed without line breaks.
• Old warnings may be archived into page history when they are no longer useful. Think about the anonymous user's contribution history when deciding how long to leave warnings visible. When archiving old warnings, put a message on the talk page saying that you are doing so.

==Warnings==
((RepeatVandal))

===July 2024===
# warning
# warning
* block
# warning

===August 2024===
# warning
#: comment about warning
#:: comment
# warning
* block

• Level 1 (General Note) – Assumes good faith. Generally includes "Welcome to Wikipedia" or something similar.
• Level 2 (Caution) – Does not assume whether or not the editor is acting in good faith.
• Level 3 (Warning) – Assumes bad faith; warns editor to stop what they are doing.
• Level 4 (Final Warning) – Assumes bad faith; a strong, final warning to the editor to stop what they are doing.
• Level 4im (Only Warning) – Assumes bad faith; a strong, first and only warning to the editor to stop what they are doing. This should only be used in extreme cases.

• User:Fairfield/WikiProject User Warnings
• Wikipedia:Template substitution
• Wikipedia:Userboxes