Help:Talk Pages

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Contents 1 Talk Page vs. Article Space 2 Conversations 3 Signatures 4 Adding comments

Every page, even this one, has a tab at the top labeled "discussion". Clicking there will take you to that article's talk page. If the discussion tab is a red link, there is nothing there yet; if blue, there is already some discussion going on there. Click it - if red, you'll go to a blank edit box where you can add your comment. If blue, you'll see the existing commentary; just click the "edit" tab at the top and add your comments to the bottom, or just below whatever you want to respond to. Each User also has his or her own talk page, where you can post a message directly to that person. Note, however, that it is not a "private" message -- everyone can see everything.

Talk Page vs. Article Space

If you have an editorial comment, or a collection of notes not ready for the article, or a list of unchecked references, or anything like that that is unrefined, put it on the talk page. That way, the article is as good as it can be at any given time - even if it just has one sentence.

Suppose the article says:

The house at 1234 W. Monzonite Street was occupied for 34 years by Jim and Jane Doe.

You want to say, "I really don't think Jim and Jane Doe lived there that long, but I'm not sure."

DON'T put a comment like that in the article itself - put it on the talk page. Every user who has edited that page will get a notification on his or her watchlist that you have added something to the Talk Page (likewise, a similar thing appears for a user watching the page if you do make an edit to the actual article) and can respond.

On the other hand, if you know that Jim and Jane only lived there for 5 years, just make the change in the article. The talk pages are for things that need to be discussed. Ideally, when you make a change like that, include the reference that proves the validity of your change.

The talk pages are ways to have lots of back-and-forth, sharing, discussion, even argument, while keeping the article clean. Once agreement is reached, the article can be edited appropriately.

Conversations

To keep things more readable on talk pages, it is customary to indent each different contributor's paragraphs using the colon, like this:

This line is not indented
:Here we have one indent
::This one sets in two tab widths
:::Now we are three in

When you type the above in the edit box, it generates the following display:

This line is not indented

Here we have one indent

This one sets in two tab widths

Now we are three in

This is very useful when you have "conversations" on talk pages (discussion tab at the top of every page), so that you can see exactly who is responding to who. For an example, look at the back-and-forth between Max and Dick on Dick's talk page. It is even more valuable when multiple people are involved in the conversation.

Signatures

Please don't add your name or signature on articles themselves, to keep them encyclopedic. Every edit you make is recorded in the article's history, anyway, giving you the credit or blame, as appropriate. However, please DO sign your name to comments you make on talk pages, whether on article talk pages or the talk pages of individual users.

Rather than just typing your name, please sign using four tildes (the character probably in the upper left of your keyboard), like this: ~~~~. What that does is add your user name complete with a link to your user page, if someone wants to respond to you there, plus a timestamp so we can see when you made your comment. For example, if Dick types the four tildes, it generates this: Dick 09:14, 6 December 2007 (CST)

Adding comments

As mentioned above, you can just "edit" the page or section in the normal manner, to add to existing conversations, or to start something new. There's an additional way to start a new topic: on talk pages, you'll see a little tab with a plus sign (+), in the rank of tabs across the top. That's for starting a new topic, with a new heading. If you click that, it takes you to a blank edit box where you can input a heading and type your comment. You don't have to do it that way, it's just a convenience.