A talk page is one of several places where you can speak with your fellow editors. They are an older, purely wikitext-based form of Comments, seen on articles, and Message Walls, which are used on user pages. They are primarily used to hash out improvements to a single page or to the community as a whole.
How to leave a message
Article talk page
The link to the talk page is under the Edit dropdown
To get to an article talk page from the article, click the "Edit" button, then find the "Talk" option—usually at the very bottom of the drop-down. Click on it, and you'll be taken to the talk page.
To leave an article talk page message, follow these steps:
- Click "Add topic" (
) to create a new discussion area. - Enter your message in the editor window. At the end of your message, type four tildes ("~~~~"). This will generate a signature with your name when you hit Publish.
- Enter the title of your message in the "Subject/headline" text field near the Publish button. It is optional to add it in that field, and it can instead be added by adding text between pairs of equal signs (== ==). It is however recommended to be added as the first line in the message.
- If needed, it can be helpful to click the Preview button to check your work.
- Click Publish.
- To respond to a talk page message, simply edit that section of the talk page, and indent your reply. You can indent by putting a colon (":") at the front of each line. Be sure to sign your response with ~~~~.
- Article talk pages are often a place to resolve disagreements about an article, so remember to be friendly and civil in all of your interactions there.
User talk page
To get to a user talk page from a user profile, click the "Talk page" tab. To leave a message on the talk page, follow these steps:
- Click the "Leave message" (
) button at the top of the talk page. - Enter your message in the editor window. At the end of your message, type four tildes ("~~~~"). This will generate a signature with your name when you hit Publish.
- Enter the title of your message in the "Subject/headline" text field near the Publish button.
- If needed, it can be helpful to click the Preview button to check your work.
- Click Publish.
- To respond to a talk page message, simply edit that section of the talk page, and indent your reply. You can indent by putting a colon (":") at the front of each line. Be sure to sign your response with ~~~~.
Updating to Comments and Walls
FANDOM has developed features that have improved the conversational experience for articles and user profiles. For articles, we have Comments, allowing users and readers to instantly comment on a page and share their thoughts. For user profiles, we have Message Walls, which offer a more intuitive way to talk with your fellow editors. Walls, for example, are threaded, so they keep dialogues in one place. They also notify all participants when there are updates to a specific conversation, and can let anyone follow a conversation for updates.
We encourage communities to use these features for easier commenting. If they are not already enabled on your community, local administrators can turn them on in WikiFeatures.
Archiving talk pages
How to do it
Archives of talk pages are made when a talk page becomes too long for either the user to easily find a past conversation or for one's web browser to render the talk page fast enough. An archive is simply a subpage of the user talk page where old conversations are stored (e.g. [[User talk:Foo/Archive]]).
To create an archive, simply cut (Ctrl + X) all the old conversations from your talk page from the beginning to the end of it. Then, create a new page in your user talk space (User talk:Foo/Archive 1) and paste (Ctrl + V) the old conversations there. If you already have one archive, create a second archive page (e.g. [[User talk:Foo/Archive 2]]) to avoid having the same issues that cause you to create an archive in the first place affect the archive page itself.
Archiving etiquette
When archiving old discussions, it is customary to leave current, ongoing discussions on the existing Talk page. In some cases, a header text is also preserved. Also, it is good to leave a link near the top of your talk page to the archive so users can easily find previous discussions.
It is recommended that you do not attempt to archive another user's talk page. These are not subject to the recommendations on this page, and each user may choose alternate means of archiving their own talk page, including choosing not to archive at all, but to instead remove old messages. Although, since those messages are other users' contributions, this is generally rude to do and in bad taste, with archival being more polite and considerate of what others say.
When archiving your talk page by moving it, be aware that this causes the newly-created archive to be added to the watchlist of any user who was previously watching your talk page. This could be annoying for people who have no desire to watch your talk archives.
See also
Further help and feedback
- Browse and search other help pages at Help:Contents
- Check Fandom Community Central for sources of further help and support
- Check Contacting Fandom for how to report any errors or unclear steps in this article