Help:Tutorial (Talk pages)
From Meta Collab
Tutorial Chapters:
[edit] Talk pages
If you want to ask a question about the contents of a page, or you have a concern or comment, you can put a note in the article's talk page. You do that by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Don't worry if the link shows up in red; it's ok to create the talk page if it doesn't already exist.
When you post a new comment, put it at the bottom of the talk page. The exception is that if you're responding to someone else's remarks, put your comment below theirs. You can indent your comment by typing a colon (:) at the beginning of a line.
You should sign your comments by typing ~~~ for just your username, or ~~~~ for your username and a time signature (see the example discussion below). When you save the page, your signature will be inserted automatically. Most of us use time signatures because it makes following discussions much easier.
[edit] User talk pages
Every contributer to the ABRI wiki has a user talk page, on which other contributers can leave messages. If someone has left you a message, you will see a note saying "You have new messages", with a link to your user talk page.
You can reply in either of two ways. One is to put a message on the user talk page of the person you're replying to. The other is to put your reply on your own talk page beneath the original message. Both are acceptable however, be aware that replying on your own talk page runs the risk that your reply won't be seen, if the user doesn't look at your talk page again.
[edit] Discussion Style Guide
Indenting (place a colon ':' at the beginning of a line) can improve the layout of a discussion considerably, making it much easier to read. A standard practice is to indent your reply one more level deep than the person you are replying to. Here is an example of a well-formatted discussion:
Hi. I have a question about this article. I'm pretty sure purple elephants only live in New York! JayRandumWikiUser 02:49, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- Well, last time I was in New York, the elephants I saw were green. — try2BEEhelpful 17:28, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- I think you should find a source for your claims. Living × Skepticism 20:53, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- Okay, these elephant journals agree with me:
- Elephants Monthly
- Elephants World
- — try2BEEhelpful 19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- Okay, these elephant journals agree with me:
- I think you should find a source for your claims. Living × Skepticism 20:53, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- I live in Australia, where the elephants look like kangaroos! The people below agree with my statement: -DontGdayMateMe 17:28, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- ElefantLuvr 01:22, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- AisleVoteOnAnything 05:41, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- alittlebehindthetimes 18:39, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Note that if you want to include a list in your comments as above, add the same number of colons before each bulleted item that the comment has.
Also, signing your message off is done by:
- Writing ~~~ for the name (try2BEEhelpful), or
- Writing ~~~~ for the name and date (try2BEEhelpful 19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)), or
- Writing ~~~~~ for the date only (19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)).
You should usually sign your comments with both name and date in order to assist in the development of discussions and replies.
Continue with the tutorial.
