Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines

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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The purpose of a page's associated

userspace
) are used for discussion and communication between users, discussion should be directed solely toward the improvement of the encyclopedia.

The names of talk pages associated with articles begin with Talk:. For example, the talk page for the article Australia is named Talk:Australia.

The guidelines below reinforce the prime values of talk pages: communication, courtesy, and consideration. They apply not only to article discussion pages but everywhere editors interact, such as deletion discussions and noticeboards.

Central points

Maintain Wikipedia policy

There is reasonable allowance for speculation, suggestion, and personal knowledge on talk pages, with a view to prompting further investigation, but it is usually a misuse of a talk page to continue to argue any point that has not met policy requirements. Pay particular attention to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, which applies to talk pages as well as to articles: "Editors must take particular care adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page."

Creating talk pages

Talk pages are generally created by clicking a red "Talk" tab and creating the page, like any other page.

Do not create an empty talk page simply so that one will exist for future use. There is no need to add discussion warning templates to every talk page, or even to every talk page that contains a discussion.

How to use article talk pages

  • Communicate: If in doubt, make the extra effort so that other people understand you. Being friendly is a great help. It is always a good idea to explain your views; it is less helpful for you to voice an opinion on something but not explain why you hold it. Explaining why you have a certain opinion helps to demonstrate its validity to others and reach consensus.
  • Stay on topic: Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). Keep discussions focused on how to improve the article. Comments that are plainly irrelevant are subject to archiving or removal.
  • No meta: Extended meta-discussions about editing belong on noticeboards, in Wikipedia-talk, or in User-talk namespaces, not in Article-talk namespace.
  • Be positive: Article talk pages should be used to discuss ways to improve an article; not to criticize, pick apart, or vent about the current status of an article or its subject. This is especially true on the talk pages of biographies of living people. However, if you're not sure how to fix something, feel free to draw attention to this and ask for suggestions.
  • Be polite: Article talk pages are at the end of the day civil discussions between users who have lives outside of Wikipedia, that influences their behaviors and manners. In serious discussions it is key to remain calm, respectful and patient with the other user. If a fallacy (see list of fallacies) is noticed when debating Wikipedia’s general guidelines, remain civil and above all do not use this to anger the other user. Respectful arguments are relaxing!
  • Stay objective: Talk pages are not a place for editors to argue their personal point of view about a controversial issue. They are a place to discuss how the points of view of reliable sources should be included in the article, so that the end result is neutral. The best way to present a case is to find properly referenced material.
  • Deal with facts: The talk page is the ideal place for issues relating to verification, such as asking for help finding sources, discussing conflicts or inconsistencies among sources, and examining the reliability of references. Asking for a verifiable reference supporting a statement is often better than arguing against it.
  • Share material: The talk page can be used to "park" material removed from the article due to verification or other concerns, while references are sought or concerns discussed. New material can be prepared on the talk page until it is ready to be put into the article; this is an especially good idea if the new material (or topic as a whole) is controversial.
  • Discuss edits: The talk page is particularly useful to talk about edits. If one of your edits has been reverted, and you change it back again, it is good practice to leave an explanation on the talk page and a note in the edit summary that you have done so. The talk page is also the place to ask about another editor's changes. If someone questions one of your edits, make sure you reply with a full, helpful rationale.
  • Make proposals: Proposals for improving the article can be put forward for discussion by other editors. Such proposals might include changes to specific points, page moves, mergers or making a section of a long article into a separate article.

Good practices for talk pages

Behavior that is unacceptable

Stay in the top three sections of this pyramid.

Please note that some of the following are of sufficient importance to be official Wikipedia policy. Violations (and especially repeated violations) may lead to the offender being blocked or banned from editing Wikipedia.

  • No personal attacks. This includes:
    • Insults: Do not make ad hominem attacks, such as calling someone an idiot or a fascist. Instead, explain what is wrong with an edit and how to fix it.
    • Personal threats: For example, threatening people with "admins [you] know" or with having them banned for disagreeing with you. However, explaining to an editor the consequences of violating Wikipedia policies, like being blocked for vandalism, is not considered a threat.
    • Legal threats: Threatening a lawsuit is highly disruptive to Wikipedia for reasons given at the linked page.
    • Posting other editors' personal details: A user who maliciously posts what they believe are the personal details of another user without that user's consent may be blocked for any length of time, including indefinitely.
  • Misrepresentation of other people: The record should accurately show significant exchanges that have taken place and in the correct context. This usually means:
    • Being precise in quoting others.
    • When referencing other people's contributions or edits, use "diffs". The advantage of diffs in referring to a comment is that the diff will always remain the same, even when a talk page gets archived or a comment gets changed
    • Generally, do not alter others' comments, including signatures. Exceptions to this are described in the next section.
  • Do not ask for another's personal details.
  • Do not attempt to impersonate another editor.
  • Do not claim to be an administrator or to have an access level that you do not have. User access levels can always be verified at Special:ListUsers.
  • Do not use the talk page as a forum for discussing the topic, nor as a soapbox for promoting your views. The talk page is for discussing how to improve the article, not venting your feelings about it.

Editing others' comments

It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to

copy edit
others' posts. Doing so can be irritating. The basic rule, with exceptions outlined below, is to not edit or delete others' posts without their permission.

Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page.

Striking out text with <s>...</s> or {{

strike
}} or marking text as deleted with <del>...</del> constitutes a change in meaning. It should be done only by the user who wrote it, or as otherwise provided in this talk page guideline.

Generally, you should not break up another editor's text by interleaving or interpolating your own replies to individual points. This causes confusion with who said what and obscures the original editor's intent.

In your own posts, you may wish to use the {{

Talkquote
}} templates to quote others' posts.

Cautiously editing or removing another editor's comments is sometimes allowed, but normally you should stop if there is any objection. If you make anything more than minor changes, it is good practice to leave a short explanatory note such as "[potential libel removed by ~~~~]".

Examples of appropriately editing others' comments

  • Off-topic posts: Your idea of what is off topic may differ from what others think is off topic, so be sure to err on the side of caution.
  • Moving edits to closed discussions: A discussion which has been closed with the {{subst:Archive}} or similar template is intended to be preserved as-is and should not be edited. Subsequent edits inside of an archive box should not be removed for this sole reason, but may be moved below the box to preserve the integrity of the closed discussion.
  • Attributing unsigned comments: If a comment is unsigned you can find out, from the page history, who posted it and append attribution to it, typically using {{subst:Unsigned}}: {{subst:Unsigned|USER NAME OR IP|DATE AND TIME}}. The date and time parameter is optional.
  • Signature cleanup: If a signature violates the guidelines for signatures, or is an attempt to fake a signature, you may edit the signature to the standard form with correct information —{{subst:User|USERNAME}} TIMESTAMP OF EDIT (UTC) or some even simpler variant. Do not modify the signature on others' posts for any other reason. If the user's signature contains a coding error, ask the user to fix the problem in their preferences (but see "Fixing layout errors", below).
  • Fixing format errors that render material difficult to read. In this case, restrict the edits to formatting changes only and preserve the content as much as possible. Examples include:
    • Fixing indentation levels
    • Removing bullets from discussions that are not consensus polls or requests for comment (RfC)
    • Fixing list markup (to
      screen readers
      , for instance)
    • Using <code>, <nowiki> and other technical markup to fix code samples
    • Providing wikilinks if it helps in better navigation
    • Adding {{Reflist-talk}} so that <ref>...</ref>-type material is emitted immediately instead of at the end of the entire page. {{Sources-talk}} does the same while collapsing the references to reduce vertical scrolling.
  • Fixing layout errors, which could include:
    • Moving a new discussion from the top of a page to the bottom
    • Moving a comment for chronological order within a reply sequence
    • Adding a heading to a comment not having one
    • Repairing accidental damage by one party to another's comments
    • Correcting unclosed markup tags that mess up the entire page's formatting
    • Accurately replacing HTML table code with a wikitable
  • Sectioning
    : If a thread has developed new subjects, it may be desirable to split it into separate discussions with their own headings or subheadings. When a topic is split into two topics, rather than sub-sectioned, it is often useful for there to be a link from the new topic to the original and vice versa. A common way of doing this is noting the change at the [then-]end of the original thread, and adding an unobtrusive note under the new heading, e.g., :<small>This topic was split off from [[#FOOBAR]], above.</small>. Some reformatting may be necessary to maintain the sense of the discussion to date and to preserve attribution. It is essential that splitting does not inadvertently alter the meaning of any comments. Very long discussions may also be divided into sub-sections.
  • IDs: Where sectioning is not appropriate, adding {{Anchor}} or {{Visible anchor}} for deep linking.

In the past, it was standard practice to "summarize" talk page comments, but this practice has fallen out of use. On regular wikis with no "talk" tab, the summary would end up as the final page content. Wikipedia has separate tabs for article content and discussion pages. Refactoring and archiving are still appropriate, but should be done with courtesy and reversed on protest.

Editing own comments

So long as no one has yet responded to your comment, it's accepted and common practice that you may continue to edit your remarks for a short while to correct mistakes, add links or otherwise improve them. If you've accidentally posted to the wrong page or section or if you've simply changed your mind, it's been only a short while and no one has yet responded, you may remove your comment entirely.

But if anyone has already replied to or quoted your original comment, changing your comment may deprive any replies of their original context, and this should be avoided. Once others have replied, or even if no one's replied but it's been more than a short while, if you wish to change or delete your comment, it is commonly best practice to indicate your changes. An exception to this rule may be permitted if there is only one reply and it invokes

WP:MUTUAL
.

  • Any deleted text should be marked with <del>...</del>, which renders in most browsers as struck-through text, e.g., deleted.
  • Any inserted text should be marked with <ins>...</ins>, which renders in most browsers as underlined text, e.g., inserted.
  • Inserting text without deleting any text is ambiguous, since some editors use underscore for emphasis (despite guidance to use italics). For example: "You commented in April after the previous discussion." Is that insertion, or emphasis? This problem can be avoided by deleting one word and then re-inserting it, as:
    You <del>commented</del> <ins>commented in April</ins> after the previous discussion.
    Thus: "You commented commented in April after the previous discussion."
  • Best practice is to add a new timestamp, e.g., <ins>; edited ~~~~~</ins>, using five tildes, after the original timestamp at the end of your post.
  • To add an explanation of your change, you may add a new comment immediately below your original or elsewhere in discussion as may be most appropriate; insert a comment in square brackets, e.g., "the default width is 100px 120px [the default changed last month]", or use [[WP:CURRENTSECTION#New section|<sup>[corrected]</sup>]] to insert a superscript note, e.g. [corrected], linking to a later subsection for a detailed explanation.

Non-compliance

Persistently formatting your comments on a talk page in a non-compliant manner, after friendly notification by other editors, is a mild form of disruption. After you have been alerted to specific aspects of these guidelines (such as indentation, sectioning, and signatures), you are expected to make a reasonable effort to follow those conventions. Other editors may simply ignore additional posts that flagrantly disregard the talk page formatting standards. You can also expect to have your mis-formatted posts

refactored
to comply.

Disputes

If you have a disagreement or a problem with someone's behavior, please read Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

Closing discussions

Closing a discussion means summarizing the results, and identifying any consensus that has been achieved. A rule of thumb is that discussions should be kept open at least a week before closing, although there are some exceptions to this.

Any uninvolved editor may write a closing statement for most discussions, not just admins. However, if the discussion is particularly contentious or the results are especially unclear, then a request specifically for a closing statement from an uninvolved administrator may be preferable.

Requesting a close

Any participant in a discussion may request that an uninvolved editor or admin formally close any type of discussion (not just RFCs), if any one or more of the following criteria are true:

  • the consensus remains unclear to the participants,
  • the issue is a contentious one, or
  • there are wiki-wide implications to the decision.

Please do not request a closing statement from an uninvolved editor unless one of these three criteria have been met.

You may request that an uninvolved editor formally close a discussion by placing a note at Wikipedia:Closure requests. Please ensure that any request there seeking a close is neutrally worded, and do not use that board to continue the discussion in question. If you are requesting attention specifically from an admin, then please state that clearly in your request.

Marking a closed discussion

When an issue has been resolved without controversy, this may be marked simply by adding the {{Resolved}} template at the top of the thread, adding a brief statement of how the issue was dealt with. If you took action yourself to resolve the issue you may instead use the {{Done}} template in your own final comment stating what you did. Adding one of these templates will help future readers to spot more quickly those issues that remain unresolved.

When a more complex discussion has been closed, to discourage any further comments you may optionally use the {{Archive top}} and {{Archive bottom}} templates (although some particular types of discussion, such as those which concern whether to delete or rename a page, have their own specialized templates) — {{Archive top}} and {{Archive bottom}} templates should not be used by involved parties to end a discussion over the objections of other editors. For example:

{{Archive top|result=Consensus below is in favor of this proposal. (detailed explanation) ~~~~}}
Discussion text...
{{Archive bottom}}

... which produces:

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Discussion text...

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

If a discussion has been so disruptive or pointless that it is better for editors to waste no further time even looking at it, the alternative templates {{Hidden archive top}} and {{Hidden archive bottom}} can be used instead, to produces a similar "closure box" around it, but collapsed to hide the content, as with off-topic threads. If a particular unconstructive block of an otherwise useful discussion should be hidden, use {{Collapse top}} and {{Collapse bottom}}.

Technical and format standards

Layout

  • Start new topics at the bottom of the page: If you put a post at the top of the page, it is confusing and can easily be overlooked. The latest topic should be the one at the bottom of the page, then the next post will go underneath yours and so on. This makes it easy to see the chronological order of posts. A quick way to do this is to use the "New section" tab next to the "Edit" button on the talk page you are on.
  • Avoid excessive use of color and other font gimmicks: The advice at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility § Color is as applicable to talk pages as it is anywhere else. And your post is not more important than anyone else's, so it should not be in huge, purple text.
  • Separate multiple paragraphs with whitespace: If a single post has several points, it makes it clearer to separate them with a paragraph break (i.e. a blank line). Exception: Do not use blank lines between lines starting with asterisks (*), colons (:), semicolons (;), or number/hash signs (#). (See section below.) An alternative is using the {{
    pb
    }}
    ("paragraph break") template inline in the text without manually linebreaking on either side of it: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.{{pb}}Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation.

Indentation and screen readers

Summary:
WP:LISTGAP
fixes: don't change list type, don't skip indentation levels, no extra spaces between replies.
  • Avoid adding blank lines between any lines that begin with wikitext symbols for lists, because this increases the complexity of the generated HTML code and creates
    screen readers
    . These symbols include:
    • asterisks (*), which make bulleted lists;
    • hash symbols (#), which make numbered lists;
    • semi-colons (;), which make the first half of an HTML association list (rendered as bold-faced text); and
    • colons (:), which make the second half of an HTML association list, but which are popularly used for the resulting visual indentation effect.
  • Thread your post: Use indentation as shown in
    threaded discussions. Normally colons are used, not bullet points (although the latter are commonly used at AfD, CfD
    , etc.).

New topics and headings on talk pages

Links, time, and page name

  • Make links freely: Links to articles are as useful on talk pages as anywhere else, and links to non-existent articles can help get them onto the most-wanted articles list.
  • Use Coordinated Universal Time, when referring to a time, e.g., the time of an edit or page move.
  • When mentioning the name of the page, cite the current name: This applies when a page is moved (i.e. retitled). In such a case, the Talk page is usually also moved. If you continue to use the old name, it will be confusing, especially for new editors to the article.

Archiving

Large talk pages are difficult to read and load slowly over slow connections. As a rule of thumb, archive closed discussions when a talk page exceeds 75 KB in wikitext or has numerous resolved or stale discussions – see Help:Archiving a talk page. Apart from the exception described in WP:OWNTALK, discussions should be archived, not blanked.

If a thread has been archived prematurely, such as when it is still relevant to current work or was not concluded, unarchive it by copying it back to the talk page from the archive, and deleting it from the archive. Do not unarchive a thread that was effectively closed; instead, start a new discussion and link to the archived prior discussion.

Centralized talk pages

Often, there are a number of related pages that would benefit from one single talk page for discussions. For example, a list article may have grown too large and was split alphabetically. Or there may be a set of templates that are used together or interrelated MediaWiki interface pages.

Before implementing a centralized talk page, consider first gaining consensus for your proposal. The main discussion would usually be on the proposed centralized talk page with notices on the pages to be redirected. Notices may be placed on related pages as needed; for example, a relevant WikiProject page or Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). {{Centralize notice}} may be used to note the proposal.

If consensus is gained, then:

  1. Archive current discussions on all the talk pages to be centralized; see Help:Archiving a talk page
  2. Check each talk page for subpages. These are usually archived discussions, but other subpages are sometimes created, such as drafts or reviews. See Wikipedia:Subpages#Finding subpages.
  3. On the centralized talk page, list the redirected pages. {{Central}} is useful for this.
  4. On the centralized talk page, list all of the archived talk pages. {{
    Archive banner
    }}
    is useful for this.
  5. Redirect each talk page to the desired talk page; see Wikipedia:Redirect. It is recommended that an editnotice be created for the redirected talk pages; see Wikipedia:Editnotice. {{Editnotice central redirected}} is useful for this.
  6. It is recommended that an editnotice be created for the centralized talk page. {{
    Editnotice central
    }}
    is useful for this.
  7. Ensure that involved editors realize that they need to add the centralized talk page to their watchlist.

Examples of centralized talk pages: Talk:List of aircraft, Help talk:Cite errors, Help talk:Footnotes, and MediaWiki talk:Common.css.

User talk pages

User talk pages are subject to the general userpage guidelines on handling inappropriate content (see User pages § Handling inappropriate content).

While the purpose of article talk pages is to discuss the content of articles, the purpose of user talk pages is to draw the attention or discuss the edits of a user. Wikipedia is not a social networking site, and all discussion should ultimately be directed solely toward the improvement of the encyclopedia. User talk pages must serve their primary purpose, which is to make communication and collaboration among editors easier. Editors who refuse to use their talk page for these purposes are violating the spirit of the talk page guidelines, and are not acting collaboratively.

Personal talk page cleanup

The length of user talk pages, and the need for archiving, is left up to each editor's own discretion.

Although archiving is preferred, users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages. Users may also remove some content in archiving. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user; this is true whether the removal was manual or automatic, and includes both registered and unregistered users. Some new users believe they can hide critical comments by deleting them. This is not true: Such comments can always be retrieved from the page history.

There are certain types of notices that users may not remove from their own talk pages, such as declined unblock requests and speedy deletion tags (see User pages § Removal of comments, notices, and warnings for full details).

User talk pages are almost never deleted, although a courtesy blanking may be requested.

Talk page search

You can use the Special:Search box below to locate Talk pages. See Help:Searching for more information.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ To see the "reply" link, you must have the "Enable quick replying" preference enabled. See Wikipedia:Talk pages project § Reply tool for more information.
  2. ^ Even if you don't sign, it is impossible to leave an anonymous comment because your username or IP address is visible in the page history. Per WP:SIGN, continued and deliberate refusal to sign posts may result in sanctions.
  3. ^ URLs of edit histories and revision differences begin with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/, and Wikipedia's robots.txt file disallows /w/.