Help:Talk Page
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Contents
What is a Talk Page?
Nearly every page on UtoWiki has a talk page (also known as a discussion page) - look at the tabs above. A talk page is a space for editors to discuss improvements to articles and other pages. Talk pages are named the same as their associated pages, the only difference being that they have "Talk:" before their name.
For example, there is one page called "UtoNet", which contains the article on the the server UtoNet. There is also a page called Talk:UtoNet, where discussion occurs about possible improvements to the article page.
User pages also have associated talk pages (for example, "User talk:Puppy101"). These pages are also intended for discussion, except in this case, the discussion might not relate to an article. When another editor needs to contact you, they will usually do this by leaving a message on your talk page. You will be notified when someone leaves you a message that way, with a notice the next time you log in to Wikipedia. In this case, the alert "You have new messages" is automatically displayed on all pages you view until you view your user talk page.
Everyone has the ability to add a little header to the top of their User talk pages, by typing the code: {{Usertalk}} in the text section of their talk page.
How to ask a question, start a discussion or make a comment?
- Click on the "new section" tab.
How to contribute to a discussion?
- Scroll down to the right discussion, and click [edit]
Important notes
- Article talk pages should not be used by editors as a platform for their personal views, nor for casual conversation. Article talk pages are only to be used for discussing improvements to their associated pages.
- If no one has ever used a particular talk page before, the link to it will appear red. You can still use the page; This just means that you are the first person to use it, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
- You should sign and date your contributions on all talk pages by typing four tildes: (~~~~), which will yield this: Username 19:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC).
Formatting
To discuss a new topic, start a new section by going to a new line and typing a title surrounded by '=='. Example: == Heading ==. When starting a new discussion, place it at the bottom of the page. You can also use the tab labeled "new section", at the top of a talk page, which performs those steps for you automatically.
To respond to a discussion already in progress, add your comment below the last entry in the discussion. If you want to respond to a specific comment, you can place your response directly below it in indentation form.
Indentation
Consistent formatting is essential to maintaining readable talk pages. Indentation helps other readers figure out which comments are replies to other comments, and which are not.
Indents are made using colons (:) at the beginning of the statement. The more colons before a statement, the more that statement will appear indented.
The first comment in a section will have no colons before it, since it is not a response but rather the original statement that started the discussion. The second statement will have one colon in front of it. Each subsequent commenter adds one more colon.
Responding to the comment directly above you
When you reply to a statement, you should use one more colon than the number that appear in the statement you're replying to. For example, if you're replying to a statement that has 2 colons before it, your response should have 3 colons before it.
Responding to a comment above
If you wish to reply to a comment that has already been replied to, place your response below the last response, while still only adding one colon to the number of colons present in the statement you're replying to.
Note that in the example below, Jane and George are both responding to John's comment, so they use the same number of colons. Sam is then replying to George, so he adds one more colon to his comment.
In this example, notice the slightly more complex discussion. Even though Jane has responded to John first, and Elliot responded to Jane, we can still easily see that George's comment is meant to be in response to John's original question:
Code:
1. How's the soup? --[[User:John]] :2. It's great!! --[[User:Jane]] ::3. Just ''how'' great was it? --[[User:Elliot]] :::4. ''Really'' great! --[[User:Jane]] :5. Not too bad.. --[[User:George]] ::6. I thought it was a ''little'' bad... --[[User:Sam]]
Displayed text:
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1. How's the soup? --John
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