Help:Talk pages

There is a talk page or discussion page attached to every type of wiki page except special pages, forums and blogs.

The most commonly used talk pages are article and user talk pages. They exist for communicating with other users about articles and improving the wiki. Just click the "discussion" or "talk page" link at the top right of any page to find it. This link may be red if talk page hasn't been edited yet.

User talk pages
Registered contributors have a personal talk page where other users can leave messages. Just click the "talk page" link at the top of a user page. If someone leaves a new message on your talk page, you will see a popup at the bottom left of the page that scrolls with you. Click the link in the message (or the userbar link "My talk") to go to your talk page.

There are talk pages for anonymous contributors (IPs) too, but these may not always be useful. As they are linked to IPs, and IPs can change between visits, the messages may not get to the right person. While they are used to try to explain blocking of an IP address and may identify where a user is, they may not be very useful for real communication. This is another good reason to create an account.

Article talk pages
Each page in every namespace (except special pages) has its own talk page which can be used to discuss the contents of the page. Leaving a message here does not create a "new messages" banner in the same way user talk pages do, but anyone with an interest in the page - especially those who see the page on their watchlist or on recent changes - may reply.

Using talk pages
Comments on talk pages can be picked up by Google and other search engines, and are available under a Creative Commons license, so keep that in mind when you write.

It's possible to add a new section to a talk page without opening the whole edit page. Just click the "Leave message" link at the top of the article, or the "Leave a new message" link at the end of the page.

You will be given spaces to enter a title for your new section, and to enter your comment. You can then save, and the comment will be added as a new section at the bottom of the page. This makes it useful for really large discussion pages.

Some other general guidelines for talk pages:


 * Sign your comments by typing " ~ " (four tildes). This will add your name and a timestamp.
 * Usually, you should add comments to the end of the page.
 * When replying to a comment, indent your reply by placing a colon (":") at the beginning of a line. More colons will indent the text further -- use ":::" before a third reply.
 * Keep your comments polite and friendly. It's always best to be civil, even if things get heated.

Archiving talk pages
If any talk page gets too long, you can create an archive by typing /Archive (or any other name you like to use) onto the talk page. You can click the new link (preferably in a new window), copy over the older comments, then remove them from the main talk page.

See Help:Archiving talk pages for more information.