Template talk:Talkback/Archive 2

Substing Talkback
After my withdrawn TFD which can be seen here I will move the discussion regarding substing this template here. To see the few first comments please see the TFD. My proposal is to either say that this template should always be substituted or at least that old copys of the template that were posted onto pages a long time ago should be substituted.  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 11:46, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. To see why this template should not be substd, see . Some people prefer not to remove the message, but disable it with - you can't do that to a heap of HTML. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose There would be no benefit to subst'ing it, and in addition to Redrose64's comment, this is most often used on new users' pages where a great deal of formatting would be much more confusing than a simple talkback template. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 16:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Looking at the first 25000 transclusions of the template 7000 are in archives. If it were only on archive pages the template were substituted would this change your opinions?  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 22:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * What would be the benefit? As far as I can see, it would be an unnecessary edit increasing page size. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:51, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The reason templates on talk pages are generally substed in the first place is so that they remain the same as when they were first posted (rather than changing as the template itself does), this allows for accurate archives rather than archives with dynamic content that keeps having alterations to the text e.t.c. Also the number of pages dumped in the job queue each time the template is edited would be shorter by at least 10 or 15 thousand going by 7k instances being on subpages out of 25k  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 23:11, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Ease of use was a primary design goal for this template. Substing it contradicts this. Substing in archives could be done with a bot. The job queue is of no concern, as this template is rarely edited. Compared with templates like navbox, which have millions of transclusion, 25,000 transclusions are peanuts. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 23:32, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed that it should remain as it is on regular talk pages  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 00:15, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Templates on talk pages are not "generally substed". It is true that certain classes of messages (primarily those about pages up for deletion or warnings about behaviour) should be substed: and this is indeed so that they remain the same as when they were first posted. But it's not true of every user talk page template - see for example or  - and I fail to see why it might be necessary with . Is there a serious proposal somewhere to repurpose the template, which would dramatically change its meaning? -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:30, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The only argument I have is to keep the text on the talk page the same as when it was first posted, and  do not get archived the same was as conversations on a talk page,  still does, and although it doesn't get edited that frequently, it does still get edited.  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e !  23:09, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * But unless there was a truly drastic change to it, the message "hey, you have a message" would remain intact. Who cares if the background color changes or if an image is added or something in the future so long as the message remains intact? – Philosopher Let us reason together. 08:40, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

recent edit to List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus
(deleted*)
 * Could somebody delete this or move to appropriate location? 3dimen (talk) 05:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * * Yeah. Easy. Deleted. If you want to see it, check this talk page's history.
 * This comment was unsigned and totally irrelevant to the template. The most charitable interpretation is that the anonymous writer ignored or didn't see or didn't understand the big banner at the top of this page that says "If someone left you a message on your talk page, do not reply here. This is the talkpage about the template, not the talk page of the person who placed the Talkback notice on your page." -- Thnidu (talk) 00:58, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * burned... Vaxine19 (talk) 22:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

A talkback replacement?
What do you guys think about the new replyto template? Hopefully it will make notifying users of discussion replies a lot easier. Kaldari (talk) 19:25, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I hate it. Wikipedia will be here long after Twitter has gone the way of GeoCities, Yahoo! Auctions and AlltheWeb. Why are we making our replytos look like Twitter accounts? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:32, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've never used Twitter, so I'm not sure how that's related. I just copied the syntax that people were already using in talk page discussions. Is there another syntax that could be used that would be both concise and unambiguous? Kaldari (talk) 17:30, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I see that Twitter uses the same syntax. I wonder which came first, Twitter using it or Wikipedia. Kaldari (talk) 17:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia users almost certainly copied it from twitter -- there was no earlier popular "@=reply to the person named" usage. It obviously started with email in 1971 -- username@example.com -- which was tied in to the domain name system; www.example.com. A variation was the 1996 @Home Network which gave you username@home, which looked like an email address but wasn't.

The problem with something like @username is that it is tied to one (often short-lived) commercial entity. Remember AOL keywords?

As for the replyto template, people do use the @, and  is just a way of typing   that needs two extra characters. Not very useful, but no harm in it.

What would be useful would be if  triggered the same notification as   without showing anything on the screen, the same way   shows nothing. I know that this is possible, because the following wikimarkup does exactly that; triggers the notification without displaying anything:    --Guy Macon (talk) 23:55, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI, if you want a shorter version to type, you can use ping instead :) I actually played around with having a 'hidden' parameter for the template, but I was worried that it would confuse people ("The notification said I was mentioned, but I don't see it."). The code for it is in the history. If you think the 'hidden' param is a good idea, let's discuss it on the template talk page and invite more people to comment. Ultimately, the whole pingback issue should be solved by Flow, but that may be a long time from now. Kaldari (talk) 00:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

That's a good point about confusing people. I don't really have strong feelings either way. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Announcing your conversation policy
In the section "Announcing your conversation policy", could we please have a notice template for users who do not wish to send or receive talkback notices? --Guy Macon (talk) 07:59, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Interwiki
Just a thought can changes be made to this so as to make redundant. I have just tried using Twinkle to leave a talkback to a commons user talk page; I did that by saying Other Page and gave the page as ; this should have worked however it did not.  LGA talk  edits   23:35, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting template. Why isn't that template better advertised? I frequently need to leave talkback messages pointing to Commons, and my solution has been to use {{subst:tb}} and then clean up the code afterwards. on Commons already supports interwiki talkbacks by using the "tp=1" parameter, a feature I've been missing on Wikipedia. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Template:Talkback vs. Notifications
In my opinion, Notifications has made Template:Talkback obsolete. Template:Talkback should be modified to pop up a message indicating this, and Twinkle should be modified so as to no longer allow placing of talkback notices. Agree? Disagree? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:11, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think there's a place for both. Notifications only work for registered users, not for IP addresses; and for new-ish registered users I'd prefer to leave a talkback since the orange notification is more obvious. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:22, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose talkback has many uses which aren't catered for by notifications. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I decided to bring this issue for a TfD. I have no tendency for this issue but I agree the template would be turned into orphan. Raymond "Giggs" Ko 08:13, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "turned into orphan"?  08:46, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Auto username
Would it possible to redesign this template so that talkback would point to your username without you having to type it in manually? Or perhaps a second template that subst's this one and adds your username to it? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 19:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Use {{subst:mytalk}}. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:38, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * No point. It takes longer to type  than   -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:54, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You don't wrap "mytalk" with "tb" and some may have even longer usernames. – xeno talk 20:14, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll update documentation to reference mytalk. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 21:19, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to add examples to Template:Mytalk/doc, but I'm failing miserably. Please help. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 November 2014
um hi i was doing any thing to the blue moon thing. i just can up i was trying to edit it. all it was about how some people think wolfs only howl under very rare moons.

Blue wolf &#39;s howl (talk) 06:44, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe you meant to post this someplace else. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 06:48, 5 November 2014 (UTC)