Template talk:Talk header/Archive 6

Malfunction
The template is malfunctioning on Talk:Do You Want More?!!!??!. I assume it doesn't like that ridiculous string of parentheses, but don't know how to fix the template. Ucucha 17:23, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I believe I fixed it after some hacking.  Please revert and discuss if this causes a problem.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  01:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You did, but you created a problem at some other pages (for example Talk:American and British English spelling differences, Talk:Alternate history), which linked to Alternate+history etc. For some reason it did not affect other pages with spaces in the title, like Talk:Arab–Israeli conflict, which might have to do with the fact that they had |search=yes. I have reverted your edit for now, as it probably broke more than it fixed; we'd better test stuff in the sandbox first. Perhaps will work? Ucucha 01:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I did test it in the sandbox, but obviously did not test it enough. I believe the #tag trick will work, rather than the urlencode, which was causing the problem.  Will try again, but will test with a few more pages.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  02:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, perhaps even better, I just changed the sandbox to use , , , ... There was already some of this in the template. It fixes the problem of the !! being viewed as table header separators.  I will do some testing, and if there are no objections/problems I can make the change to the template. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  02:56, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It appears the sandbox version works. I will make the change if there are no objections in the next 12 hours or so. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  03:09, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I tested it on a couple of pages and it appears to work well. Thanks! Ucucha 03:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Great, I updated the template, let me know if there is a problem. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 01:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Instructions for replying to a comment
Using the colon for a reply to a comment makes talk pages much more readable. Are we able to add an instruction about this? For example: Something similar was present in previous versions of this template, but was removed due to concerns over how consice the template was (I assume reviewing the archives). --Boy.pockets (talk) 12:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * When replying to an existing comment use a colon for indentation.

Suggestion regarding the Biography of Living persons statement on article talk pages
I have initiated a conversation about a suggested change to the way we display the BLP banner on article talk pages at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons. Please take some time and leave a comment about this suggestion. --Kumioko (talk) 20:19, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

"This template should be used only when needed. There is no need to add this template to every talk page."

 * Why not? Erpert (let's talk about it) 05:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * At the insistence of editors who consider it to be clutter. These days this seems to be a less common complaint, probably because the template now contains so many useful features that it's handy on most active talk pages. That said, adding it to a previously-empty talk page is still a bit unnecessary. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Some pages haven't had a comment for years. No reason to have instructions to them. Moreover, we have hundreds of experienced users that know how to add comments in talk pages. Why they should read the instructions over and over again? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:28, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Based on a recent conversation on my talk page I thought I would add my 2 cents here as well. I understand the "guideline" with regards to the placement of the Talk header template and I routinely add this to pages without it as a minor edit when Im there doing other things. My primary problem I have with the guideline against general placement of it on article talk pages is that without the talk header newbys and non-reguler editors don't have anything on the page that tells them the rules about talk page behavior or how to sign. And there can be no mistaking that the rules about talk page behavior are very different from mainspace editing. In the case of the MOH recipient articles which I edit heavily I have found that by putting the talk page header on the article talk page it greatly reduces the number of unsigned messages and cuts down on the excess cruft messages that people leave behind (this was my grandpa and I love him, I met him a couple of times and hes a cool guy, hes a great hero, god save the queen, etc).  On a minor aspect it also makes the talk page structure consistent making it easier to make automated updates with AWB (when I don'thave a milliion variations of structure it limits the amount of code I need to come up with) and other tools, its easier to identify problems (when I don't have to cull through 50 different variations of talk page structure). In reviewing the history of the changes over the last couple of hours most of the information found in the current documentation date back from the beginning of WP, before we started placing Wikiproject banners, archive logs, portal/dyk and other comments and after reading it through several times there are several points that should probably be rewritten, expanded and/or updated. But thats another topic. In my opinion the placement of the talk page header template is similar to adding an infobox, persondata, portal or a hat note to a mainspace article. Is it "needed" arguably not. Is it useful and beneficial to have it, I argue that it certainly is, not for the few thousand active editors or the few hundred editors that sproadically update things as the urge strikes them but for the millions of readers and infrequent visitors who know little about WP's inner workings, culture or formatting guidelines. I also wanted to add that in my opinion the higher an article is in the assessment process and the more developed it is, the more necessary to have the Talk header template. If its a GA class or better in my opinion it should have it. --Kumioko (talk) 17:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If there is no sign that the editors at a page actually need to be told this, then you should assume a little more good faith by not spamming unnecessary reminders of the rules at them. The minute you see a chatty, unsigned, or otherwise obviously confused comment on a page, then you can add the template (if you want).  Before then -- especially if there are actually zero comments on the talk page, or if you have to create the talk page for the purpose of telling people how to use the talk page -- it is inappropriate.
 * There is a real cost to spamming this template everywhere: The more often editors see it, the less they pay attention to it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

There are a few editors that keep adding Talk header in every possible page. Sometimes they create pages only to put the Talk header. Is something we can do for that? I can give specific examples. One idea was to remove talk header from all pages that have solely WikiProject banners. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good idea. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 12:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that at least one of the editors that this statement identifies so Ill make an additional comment about my thoughts on the matter for the record. I still think the context of only using after a problem has been identified is being reactive instead of proactive. Perhaps placing the talk heheader is rather akin to putting the cart before the horse as the saying goes but by the time we place the banner out there there now the, damage has already been done so theres no point in putting it out there at all. Thereby, we don't need the banner at all, or maybe thats the point everyone is trying to get at. And the argument that the more they see it the more they ignore it doesnt fly either. Thats not how the the brain functions when memorizing things. When people study they have to look at something several times to remember it. Not just a few times and I still think that this, Talk:Hudson Van Etten looks better than this Talk:Peter Kappesser or this Talk:Mitchell W. Stout. But since I seem to be the only one that holds this opinion (or at least the only one that wants to comment on it) then I will stop. But here is a parting thought. If we start to treat the talk pages with some care and actually apply some of the same policy, structure and logic that we employ to the general articles then perhaps people will stop making the inappropriate comments, spam, troll behavior etc on the talk pages. Rather than thinking of the talk header as spam maybe we should consider it more like a tool that we can use to educate our junior editors and general readers about the behavior that is acceptable on talk pages. And rather than have the attitude that the more they see something the more apt they are to ignore it (which also seems like a lack of good faith by the way), maybe we should take the attitude that the more I can educate them and the more often they see something the more apt they are to listen and actually understand what we are trying to say. ESPECIALLY, on the talk pages of sensitive articles like BLP's. Maybe if the readers actually knew the general location to go for the thousands of rules that are employed in WP they would be inclined (at least some) to take a peek. After all WP has been going for several years now and the vandals seem to be increasing, not decreasing and the bigger WP gets the more we need to take a proactive approach at dealing with the various issues that continue to be a problem. BLP's are case in point. The problem got so bad WP in general got a lot of bad press and hot water to the point they had to tighten up policy and change some of the rules to be more appropriate in how we handle these articles. Also, with all the wikiprojects we have in place if the htalk page is empty then in all likelihood its because its missing a WP Banner and probably needs assessment. --Kumioko (talk) 12:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * @Kumioko: If the community wanted this talk header on every single talk page, we could simply modify MediaWiki:Talkpagetext or add it as a Pagenotice. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 12:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well most of the community just flat out doesnt care about talk pages. Thats good info though Xeno, to be honest I wasnt aware of MediaWiki:Talkpagetext. As it is though they should modify the color scheme so it stands out more. It blends into the background too much and is easy to miss. Question though, why didnt they do that with the talk page banner that identifies the article as a BLP? It seems like logic could be created that would be able to know that a page was a BLP and employ the banner that way rather than having to edit several templates per article. Maybe something like MediaWiki:Talkpagetextblp with the MediaWiki:Talkpagetext statement plus the BLP banner directly under that, but with a different color scheme so it stands out (not trying to change topics though so Ill get back on track here). Not really familiar with page notices either I admit but after reviewing them for a moment they dont seem to get used all that much either. --Kumioko (talk) 13:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting idea - If article is in Category:Living people, display blp as pagenotice. Would need a, I'm sure. – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 13:20, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's very good. I agree. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

About BLP's: We have blp and now blp talk header. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, In regards to that I think it would be better to stick with the existing Talk header (rather than a separate one for BLP's) and add the existing BLP banner as a parameter to the talk header (like we do for the WPbannershell template). Only in the case of Talk header with BLP the BLP banner would be on the very top of the page. The first thing the editor sees when the page comes up. --Kumioko (talk) 13:17, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Replying to both the last two threads: I think nixing talkheader is fine on any talk pages which don't have any actual comments is fine. I'm also pretty sure that blp talk header is redundant considering that any transclusion will require a BLP project banner as well anyway. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 23:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I understand: "Add it to every page" equal "put it in editnotice". -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Weird black border when adding disclaimer
Hey, I've noticed that when you add  for user talk pages, two things happen. First, both boxes get a hairline black border which isn't used by either template individually and is rather unsightly. Second, all of the text in the disclaimer box becomes bold for some reason (it isn't in the original template). I'm suspecting both of these things are minor bugs so I'm bringing it to your attention so you can fix this. Thanks.  elektrik SHOOS  05:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Edit request for dlsclaimer template
The border color for the disclaimer should be changed to.

Userpage hasn't used a solid black border in some time, and when it's used it looks unsightly. The color I'm mentioning is the one used in the aforementioned template. All of the text in the disclaimer is also bold for some reason. If there's some way the  can just transclude userpage in its entirety, that would be great, but I'm afraid doing that would break the template entirely. I'm still testing that in the sandbox, but until then the border color should still be changed.  elektrik SHOOS  02:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, after testing in the sandbox, it will work.  elektrik SHOOS  02:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Woah, woah, woah. The whole point in rewriting this template was to standardise it against tmbox. It looks deeply odd having a pink border around both the disclaimer and the rest of the template, as shown on my user talk right now. This should be discussed further; unless there's some previous recent consensus that I'm missing here, I'll be reverting this until it can be established that it's the agreed way forward. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 21:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * As an update, the sandbox now only puts the pink border around the userpage part. To be quite honest I'd rather that userpage used a grey border, but this gives parity without making the rest of the template look weird. If there are no objections I'll sync this in a day or two. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 21:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was only intending to put the pink border around the userpage banner. The one around the talk header was a mistake. Feel free to adjust.  elektrik SHOOS  21:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅. I've also finally gotten round to turning userpage into a proper ombox, and I'll be proposing a code update there (which resolves some more niggles) shortly. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Archives with names
I hid a talk header in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation. This already has an archive box with dates as names, and another editor recently added a search page to it. If I expose this header, the archives will be exposed, but they'll only be numbers. How can I make sure the names survive? DanTD (talk) 14:11, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Currently this header only supports number-based archives. If you want to keep the header but remove the numbers, add the  paramater to the template and this will hide the numbers. (Then use a standard template such as archives in the header.) Hope this helps.  elektrik  SHOOS  01:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Resolving the clutter problem - a simple compromise
I and many other editors completely detest this template. I routinely remove it from any talk page I find it on if that page is not actively attracting hordes of flaming noobs, since those are the only people who benefit from its links (and where needed I replace it with archives or {[tl|archive box}}). I know I'm not alone in this, and this template has been TfD'd more than any other template I know of. Obviously a lot of people hate it. Equally obvious, a lot of people like it for pages that actually need it, and (this is totally unrelated) a lot people like its archive-related features. This template needs an option to hide everything but the archive related features, so that talk pages that do not need a large block of links to policies and guidelines about civility and sourcing and what talk pages are for can use this template's archival features without starting edit wars about page clutter and tagcruft. An alternative would be a new template that had only the archival functions (as well as a y option) and/or porting this template's archive functions like search to the aforementioned archive templates, and replacing this template with one of those on talk pages that are not drowning in heated controversy. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 05:13, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Italic article titles
I wonder what is being done to add the ability to italicize article titles within these templates when appropriate? An example would be Talk:Pinta (ship). the "Pinta" is not in italics at the top of the Talkheader template. &mdash;  Paine  Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  18:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC) <hr width=60%> Okay, I finally got around to experimenting with the code in the SANDBOX. It appears that a way has been found to not only italicize the page title in the Talk header template, the code also:
 * 1) Automatically italicizes the actual Talk page PAGENAME and not the NAMESPACE (so there is no need to use the Italic title template outside the Talk header template),
 * 2) Will not italicize parentheses nor the items within them, like so... Talk:Phylace (moth)... neither within the Talk header template nor in the PAGENAME of the Talk page.

Number one above is illustrated on the TESTCASES page. All of the testcase templates' sandbox versions (except the non-applicable WPs) now have the  parameter within the template. If you remove one, say from the "Plain" version, you'll see that the article title in the Talk header box will no longer be italicized and will appear normally. If you remove all the "italic title=yes" parameters from all the sandbox templates, then the PAGENAME at the top of the page will no longer be italicized. Note: even if just one sandbox template on the Testcases page has the "italic title" parameter set equal to "yes", that will automatically italicize the PAGENAME at the top of the page.

Number two above is illustrated on one of my User subpages: User:Paine Ellsworth/Italic title (italic test). There you will find the PAGENAME at the top to appear like this: User:Paine Ellsworth/Italic title (italic test), and you will also find that it appears that same way within the Talk header box. Please note that the parentheses and all their contents are blocked from italicization. Note also that it does not work on the User talk:Paine Ellsworth/Italic title (italic test), because I did not alter the code for User talk pages.

Now, when you look at the code in the sandbox, you'll see the new code begins with: and ends with: so it's easy to find and analyze. This added italics code gives editors the choice to italicize the Talk-page PAGENAME both at the very TOP of the page, as well as within the Talk header template, when necessary. This is necessary for ship names, genera, book titles and other items.

Perhaps someone more adept at the markup can find ways to tweak the italics code and make it more efficient? If there are no objections, then I shall place an Editprotected template in a few days to add this code to the live version. Thank you for your consideration! – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  16:21, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit to italicize article titles
Please install the full code from Template:Talk header/sandbox. This will enable editors to italicize both the article title at the TOP, as in Talk:Niña, as well as within the Talk header box. See the Template:Talk header/testcases page for examples, and more detail can be found in the first part of this section. Thank you very much, and I will be happy to update the Template:Talk header/doc page after this has been implemented. – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  18:56, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks like a good idea. I'm wondering if you could simplify the code by calling italic title instead of duplicating the code here? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:06, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Martin! The code is not completely duplicated.  I had to modify it a bit to keep it from adding the NAMESPACE within the Talk header box.  If you know an easier way to do this, then as you know by now, I'm all ears. –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  18:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To be specific, just calling the Italic title template results in the Talk header text beginning with:

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Talk:Articletitle article.
 * Since we don't want the NAMESPACE ("Talk:") to appear, I had to rm some of the code to produce:

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Articletitle article.
 * – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  06:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that the only difference? If so, perhaps we could modify Template:Italic title and then pass a parameter to it (e.g. no) to stop making the namespace italic. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, let's see, I took out the  in three places.  And there is a   toward the end that I modified to  .  Then one more thing, I took out the   at the very beginning (the rest of the code was embedded within that DISPLAYTITLE: template), so as to get the code to work within the Talk header box and not on the PAGENAME at the top of the page.  I just kept tweaking until I got it to work.  After I got it to italicize correctly within the Talk header box, I added the Italic title template back into the first parser function to get the   parameter to also "autoitalicize" the PAGENAME at the top of the page, as well.  Then I tweaked that until I got it to work on page titles of 50 characters or more when the   parameter is added.  I guess that's the sum total of all the mods I did.  Since I'm not all that familiar with the code, it took me a pretty good while to get it to test right.  So do work your magic, Martin the Man! –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  10:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * PS. I just caught that last part of your previous response. Please note that the NAMESPACE wasn't made italic.  The code was adding the unitalicized NAMESPACE into the Talk header box where it didn't belong.  That's what I had to get rid of.
 * PPS. And I see that I wasn't correct before when I implied that the italic title template could be called. Just calling that template won't work because of the DISPLAYTITLE template that it calls.  I wasn't able to get the code to work inside the Talk header box until I adiosed the DISPLAYTITLE template.
 * I'm sure we could do something clever here ;) But I don't have the time to work it out now, so I've implemented your code in the sandbox. Hope it's working okay? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure about myself, but I'm definitely sure that you could pull off some magic here. Thank you beyond words for your help, and yes, the code works perfectly...
 * Talk:Pinta (ship) – example with non-italicized parenthetical qualifier,
 * Talk:A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus – example of more than 50 characters in the title.
 * The /doc page has been updated, and I go now to bring the testcases page back to normal. You ain't bad for a "admin" << >> –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  15:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Rcats needed
The redirect that resulted from renaming this template from "Talkheader" to "Talk header" has no Rcats. There are two Rcats that need to be added in the following manner: Here is the redirect: Template:Talkheader. I shall use the editprotected template soon, if necessary. &mdash;  Paine  Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  08:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! &mdash;   Paine  Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX  )  07:07, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Anomalocaris, 2 March 2011
Please recast sentences that include the words "click here" to avoid using those words. See Click here for why "click here" is deprecated. —Anomalocaris (talk) 07:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Anomalocaris (talk) 07:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please propose a wording. Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I would recommend just saying To start a new topic and just drop the Click here part. --Kumioko (talk) 14:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

✅. I've made the change but I'm not convinced it is an improvement. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This actually seems like a step backwards. In some instances I can see why the words "click here" is unnecessary, but here it just muddles things by making it unclear why that text is sitting there. Better wording needs to be implemented, or it should just be put back how it was.  elektrik SHOOS  03:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that in that article, the discouraging of the words "click here" are really meant for when only those words are linked by themselves, and when there's descriptive text attached (e.g. "to start a new topic") it's fine.  elektrik SHOOS  03:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've reverted the change. "click here" is needed to distinguish the immediate-action link from the various other information links in the template. Rd232 talk 23:25, 14 May 2011 (UTC)