Help:Talk Page
A talk page (also known as a discussion page) is a page which editors can use to discuss improvements to an article or other AIO Wiki page.
The talk page associated with an article is named "Talk:Xxx", where "Xxx" is the name of the article. For example, the talk page for discussion of improvements to the article Connie Kendall is named Talk:Connie Kendall. The talk page associated with a page in another namespace is named by adding "talk" after the namespace label; for example, the talk page for Adventures in Odyssey Wiki:About is called Adventures in Odyssey Wiki talk:About.
User pages also have associated talk pages (for example, User talk:Erwin Springer). When another editor needs to contact you, they will usually do this by leaving a message on your talk page. When someone has left you a message that way, you will see an orange information notice the next time you log in or view a page on AIO Wiki.
Where to find talk pages
When viewing an article (or any other non-talk page), a link to the corresponding talk page appears on the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Click this tab to switch to the talk page; you can then view the talk page and its history, and edit it if you want to add a question or comment.
If the "discussion" link is red, it means no talk page has been started yet. Click the red link to begin a talk page for that article. (It is also possible for a talk page to exist while the corresponding non-talk page is a red link; this often occurs in User space, when a user has received talk page messages but has not started a user page yet.)
To go back to the article page from its talk page, use the leftmost tab at the top of the page, labeled "page". For pages other than articles, this tab may say something different, like "user page" or "project page".
Talk page use
Sign your contributions
You should sign and date your contributions on all talk pages. To do this easily, type four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comment, or just click the signature button on the row of buttons above the edit box. This will be automatically converted into a user signature and the date and time. (You can change the form of your signature using your user preferences.)
Sections
To discuss a new topic, start a new section by going to a new line and typing a title like this: == Heading ==, replacing "Heading" with a suitable title for the topic you wish to raise. Place new discussions at the bottom of the page. You can also use the tab labeled "new section", at the top of a talk page, which performs these steps 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. When doing this, keep in mind the advice given below about indentation.
Indentation
Indentation is used to keep talk pages readable. Comments are indented to show whether they are replies to other comments, and if so, which ones.
Comments are indented using one or more initial colons (:). Each colon represents one level of indentation. You will see these colons in the wikitext when editing a talk page, but when viewing the page itself you will see the indents.
The first comment in a section will have no colons before it. 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.
The following is an example of a talk page discussion using indentation. The text typed in the edit box is shown on the left, and the resulting display on the right.
How's the soup? --[[User:John]] :It's great!! --[[User:Jane]] ::I made it myself! --[[User:John]] Let's move the discussion to [[Talk:Soup]]. --[[User:Jane]] :I tend to disagree. --[[User:George]] |
How's the soup? --John Let's move the discussion to Talk:Soup. --Jane
|
Indentations can also be used in slightly more complex ways. 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 preceding the statement you're replying to. In this example, note that Jane and George are both responding to John's comment.
How's the soup? --[[User:John]] :It's great!! --[[User:Jane]] :Not too bad.. --[[User:George]] ::I thought it was a ''little'' bad... --[[User:Sam]] |
How's the soup? --John |
The next example shows a 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:
How's the soup? --[[User:John]] :It's great!! --[[User:Jane]] ::Just ''how'' great was it? --[[User:Elliot]] :::''Really'' great! --[[User:Jane]] :Not too bad.. --[[User:George]] ::I thought it was a ''little'' bad... --[[User:Sam]] |
How's the soup? --John |
Note that if your comment consists of more than one paragraph, you must repeat the colons at the start of each paragraph. An alternative is to type the new paragraph tag <p> in the wikitext instead of starting a new line.
When a long discussion has many indents, the discussion may be awkward to read, particularly on smaller screens. Eventually, for everyone's convenience, a replying editor will "start over" by responding without any colons at all.
You have new messages
After someone else edits your user talk page, the alert below is automatically displayed on all pages until you view your user talk page. If you click "new messages" it will direct you to the bottom of your talk page. If you click "last change" it will show you the last edit done to your talk page.
Subpages and archiving
Sometimes particular topics generate a disproportionate amount of traffic on a talk page. It may be decided to remove discussion of those topics to a subpage of the talk page. To do this, create a page titled "Talk:Xxx/Yyy", where "Talk:Xxx" is the name of the main talk page, and "Yyy" indicates the topic of the subpage. Leave a note at the top of the main talk page linking to any subpages.
On talk pages that generate significant amounts of discussion (like the Town Hall), old discussions are often archived to keep the size of the talk page at a manageable level. This may be done either manually or with the help of a bot. An archive box with links to the discussion archives is normally placed at the top of the current talk page.
- Based on an article from Wikipedia.