User:MjolnirPants/Talk Page Formatting

Talk page formatting seems to be something many new users struggle with. I've found the usual guides to be quite verbose and dense, difficult to read and intimidating to new users. So I'm writing this so that I will have a useful link to explain talk page paradigms in a quick and simple manner. Each section will have a brief explanation, an example and a peek at the code that produced the example.

Threading
A thread is a series of responses, back and forth between two editors. Indenting is used to identify what one is responding to by indenting one level beyond the comment one is responding to, and adding responses at the bottom of the page. When one wants to respond to something more than a few lines up in the thread, it is best to quote the comment or portion of it that one is responding to (see below).

Indenting is done by preceding a line with a number of colons equal to the number of levels to indent it. So to respond to the first comment in a thread, add one colon. To respond to the second comment, add two colons, and so on and so forth. To add a new paragraph to your response, simply start a new line, with a new set of colons to indent it properly.

Example
This is the first comment.
 * This is the second comment, a response to the first comment.
 * This is the third comment, a response to the second comment.
 * This is the fourth comment, a response to the first comment, again.
 * This is the fifth comment, a response to the fourth comment.
 * This is the sixth comment, a response to the third comment.
 * This is a new response to the first comment.
 * This is a response to the above.
 * This is a counter-response to the above.
 * This is a counter-counter-response.
 * And so on and so forth.
 * This way, threads can be easily identifiable.

This is an outdent, to bring the text blocks back to the left in order to provide more room.

This version uses color coding to help illustrate the flow of each thread and how threads fork off into new threads. Note that the ordinal numbers given in each comment indicate the order in which they were made. Their place in the thread is given by indicating which previous comment they were made in response to.

The color coding order is: First. → Second. → Third. → Fourth. → Fifth. → Sixth. → Seventh. → Eighth.

This is the first comment.
 * This is the second comment, a response to the first comment.
 * This is the third comment, a response to the second comment.
 * This is the fourth comment, a response to the first comment, again.
 * This is the fifth comment, a response to the fourth comment.
 * This is the sixth comment, a response to the third comment.
 * This is a new response to the first comment.
 * This is a response to the above.
 * This is a counter-response to the above.
 * This is a counter-counter-response.
 * And so on and so forth.
 * This way, threads can be easily identifiable.

This is an outdent, to bring the text blocks back to the left in order to provide more room.

Code
Note: This section does not show the code used to highlight the text above.

This is the first comment.























This is an outdent, to bring the text blocks back to the left in order to provide more room.

Quoting
When it is not clear which comment, or which part of a comment one is replying to, it is a good practice to quote the relevant text. Your response should generally be put on the same line as the quote, but sometimes you may want to add an additional line.

Use the Talk quote template to indicate quote. This requires putting the text inside the template.

Example
I think this article should have more coverage of such and such an aspect. I agree, but we need to be careful in choosing reliable sources to support this coverage.

Code
I think this article should have more coverage of such and such an aspect. I agree, but we need to be careful in choosing reliable sources to support this coverage.

Signatures
Signatures are very important. It is considered rude not to sign your comments, even though there is a bot that goes around and adds signatures to unsigned comments. Never sign changes to articles, however you should always sign comments on talk pages at the end of the comment.

Use four tildes (~) to add a signature to your comments.

Note: if you edit this section, you will see that the signature at the top consists of the actual text of the signature with HTML markup, instead of looking exactly the same as the code. This is because signatures are handled differently: they are parsed by Wikipedia's software when you submit your change, not when the page is created for the reader.

Example
This is what I think about this. MjolnirPants  Tell me all about it.  15:53, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Code
This is what I think about this. ~

Editing your own comments
While it is perfectly fine to edit your own comments, keep in mind that people may have already read and replied to what you said initially. If there are replies to the comment you wish to edit, you should strike out the inapplicable text using the HTML strikeout tag, and add in new text immediately after it.

Example
I really want to help improve this article. We should start by deleting this section, because it's so poorly sourced. On second thought, I think there are some good sources to support this section with a lot of editing.

Code
I really want to help improve this article. We should start by deleting this section, because it's so poorly sourced. On second thought, I think there are some good sources to support this section with a lot of editing.

Talk page No No's
These are a few things you should never (or very rarely) do on a talk page.
 * Don't ever, under any circumstances edit another user's comments to change the meaning. If a person says they dislike X and you change it to say that they like X, you could be blocked from editing.
 * Don't insert your own responses in the middle of another user's comments. Even if you want to reply in detail, don't do this. It makes it very difficult to read their comments. Instead, use the quote template to quote the specific parts in order to reply to them.
 * Don't erase or strike out other user's comments unless there is a policy-based reason for doing so. For instance, comments from sockpuppets are routinely erased or stricken out after the fact.
 * Don't attempt to fix another user's mistake of forgetting their signature with four tildes of your own. That will only sign your name to their post.
 * Don't mix and match styles in the same thread. While different people have different ways of doing things, and the same people even do things differently at different times or under different circumstances, it is best to be consistent in a discussion. For instance, if you've outdented every fifth level of response throughout the first day of a discussion, you should not start ignoring that rule two days in because you're tired of typing out the template. Readers of the thread will be left wondering why the outdents stopped, and that can lead to confusion.
 * BE POLITE!!! It's okay to criticize sources, content and even arguments. But don't start describing the flaws in other editors. It's very rare that pointing out that so-and-so has a bias, a conflict of interest or an agenda or that they may be a sockpuppet is going to be acceptable, and the majority of times that it is will be on wiki-space pages where a discussion about that editor or their edits is taking place, such as ANI or AE. If you ever feel that the best point in your favor is that the person arguing against you is an idiot, you should absolutely keep that to yourself.

Final note
This doesn't apply to everyone who will get a link to this page. So feel free to ignore it if you must. Some people feel that having links to help pages thrown at them is insulting, or a dirty arguing trick. I've noticed that many of those people could benefit from knowing the following:


 * I'm not better than you.
 * I didn't make this page to lord over you that I'm a 'better' Wikipedian, but rather to provide a somewhat shorter and more succinct version of Wikipedia's talk page guidelines that's easy to reference, and to copy and paste from. That's it. I promise you that by the time you've read this, I've glanced at it once or twice myself, either to copy something out or to make sure I'm following my own good practices. Also...


 * I'm not out to get you.
 * I'm not a crusader, I'm not pushing an agenda, I'm not trying to suppress your political, theological or social views. Wikipedia has a place for fundamentalists and skeptics, conservatives and liberals, hippies and cowboys, militants and pacifists. Finally...


 * I don't hate you.
 * Some of your edits may have been unacceptable for wikipedia and I may have removed them. Some of your edits may be perfectly fine, but I have removed them because I believed (mistakenly or only in my own opinion) that they were unacceptable. This is neither personal nor part of my agenda. The same applies to any advice I've offered you. If I told you to "tone it the fuck down before you get blocked, for chrissake!" the reason I did so was not to be able to curse at you in a manner that doesn't technically violate policy, but because I'm trying to get through to you that (believe it or not) I don't want you to get blocked. I really don't take my interactions here personally, but I really do believe that Wikipedia has the potential to be one of the greatest endeavors man has ever engaged in. Some editors will occasionally annoy me. Others will frustrate the crap out of me, regularly. If you ever become one of them, you will know, because I will eventually tell that you frustrate the crap out of me, and then I will ignore you after that. If, instead, I linked you to this page, then please understand that I'm just trying to help.