![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The above templates duplicate the function of {{ talkheader}}, for reasons which I don't think are valid any longer. In some cases, they were created because the {{ talkheader}} template at the time had article-space-specific semantics. That has since been corrected, and {{ talkheader}} can be used on any talk page, including templates. In other cases, people propsing alternative forms for {{ talkheader}} actually created separate templates, which were then used a handful of times. Those have universally fallen into disuse, with this "main" template being the clear popular choice. I think these alternatives are suboptimal: We should try and reach concensus on what the talk header should be, not create a bunch of different templates for everybody's personal whim. I propsose that these "legacy templates" be replaced with use of {{ talkheader}}, and then submitted to TfD. I started to do this, and then decided it would be better to check for any dissenting opinions first. So: Objections? Agreement? Suggestions? Comments? -- DragonHawk 21:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I was bold and added a link to a form that makes it easy to add a new comment to a talk page. This is especially useful for long talk pages and better guarantees the format of the new comment section. I'll be happy to discuss to improve it. I hope its inclusion will be accepted. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 17:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There needs to be an extra linespace placed after the first bullet statement that would appear when used on article talk pages. This would make it similar to the spacing between the other bullets. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 19:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I think many of the changes made by
Centrx starting
around here are good. He's right, it isn't a tech manual, and the template does suffer from instruction creep. Minimizing should absolutely be a goal with this. (
Perfection is achived when there is nothing left to take away.) The phrasing of "This is not a forum..." is much better. I didn't like that phrasing before and don't know why I didn't see that alternative. I do have a few concerns, though. One is the use of
click here. Another is the loss of "Place new comments after existing ones (within topic sections)". The parenthetical could probabbly be dropped, but the base ("Place new comments after existing ones") is distinct from the section headings part -- replying to old threads vs starting new ones. I also reiterate my concerns about having one link that takes an action while the rest are information. I feel that violates the
principle of least surprise. It also looses the educational value of the ==Header example==
. Finally, a suggestion on method: Given that this template is protected due to high use, perhaps edits should be proposed here first, discussed, and then implemented. Not everyone who wants to contribute to this template is an admin. --
DragonHawk
21:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
As you may be aware, this MediaWiki message [ MediaWiki:Talkpagetext -- DragonHawk] is transcluded onto all talk pages, but is currently empty. There was some dispute a while ago about whether this template should be deprecated and replaced by that message, but it was agreed that including the whole contents of this template on every page would be too much of a nuisance.
The proposal is alive again, see MediaWiki talk:Talkpagetext#Proposed final version for the suggested version. This version aims to clear up many of the objections that people had to other versions of the message. Comments are welcome. -- bainer ( talk) 07:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I think this talkheader should appear as default at the top of every talk page. Can it also Include, Info about how "Click here to start a new discussion topic" is the same as clicking the "+" button and how : or :: ect... need to be put at the start of your own additions to other people's comments? Alan2here 18:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
It appears that some people (particularly Centrx) want this:
* New discussion topics go at the bottom of the page; click here to start a new topic.
while others (particularly me) want this:
* Place new comments after existing ones. * Click here to start a new discussion topic.
I prefer the later form. The two points are not the same. One deals with starting new topics (threads/sections/etc). The other deals with the ordering of comments (top vs bottom posting). While new topics should go after existing topics, new comments within a topic should also go after existing comments within that topic. I also prefer one point per bullet. People are moe likely to read short bullets; that's why we put them there. The longer bullet is more likely to wrap. I don't want to edit war, so I'd like to see discussion about this. Centrx? Others? -- DragonHawk 18:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
This is a talk page. Please respect the talk page guidelines, and remember to sign your posts using four tildes (~~~~).
Says it all and is on every talk page edit screen. violet/riga (t) 20:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Veracious Rey had changed the color scheme of the template to somewhat bluish; I reverted his change. While I am assume he meant well, I believe the full ramifications for the change do not bode well. • There is a set color scheme for "all" talk page templates. This was agreed upon by concensus a long time ago, and should not be disregarded without some discussuion first. • So, my thoughts on the change: I think the stated goal of "stands out from other talk page templates" is doomed for multiple reasons. (1) There is something to say for consistency for the sake of asthetics (that's why we have a Manual of Style). (2) Not everyone will agree this template deserves to stand out (heck, some think it should be deleted entirely). (3) If the change were to stay, why not have all the other templates change color to stand out, too? So eventually we have a bunch of multi-colored templates, none of which stand out now, but all of which clash. • Obviously, my opinion is clear. :) What do others think? -- DragonHawk 04:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Kind of a meta-talk issue here: This is a widely used template; it gets included on enough pages that it almost qualifies as a "high-risk template", or a kind of pseduo-MediaWiki Message. Thus, any kind of edit war/revert war/etc on this template is harmful. Even frequent edits on such are to be frowned upon, due to server performance impact (or so I understand). The nature of this template attracts those who have a fine eye for detail, so little things may be magnified. Point being: Preference should be given to discussing changes before they get made. We have this nifty talk page feature to do that; let's use it. I have made a note on the template doc page to this effect. Thanks, everyone, and happy wiki'ing! -- DragonHawk 04:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I've created {{ Talkheader/Draft}} as a "working scratchpad" for people to test ideas. This lets everyone edit, but also keeps it includable, so we can test things out. Include the draft by putting the following text in a page:
Case in point: I'm thinking it would be good to have a note on the "big three" article content policies for this talk header. High-profile articles, especially ones on popular culture (movies, people, etc.) tend to attract a lot of people who put their own personal theories and speculations in articles. They mean well, but don't know that WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are requirements. So I've edited the draft; see above. That's pretty close to what I want. I haven't had a chance to get the column width sizing figured out yet. The leftmost column can be shrunk, I think (if anyone knows how, please edit the draft). One of the criteria I am following is to keep the same footprint as the original. This proposed change also: (1) Links to policy and guidelines on the left; (2) Simplifies a few phrases (3) Makes it clearer that next should go after existing text, within existing topics as well as for new topics, and (4) puts a nifty box around the four tildes. What do people think? Comments? Commendations? Condemnations? -- DragonHawk 14:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay. I've copied the proposed changes into the "production" version of the template. There appears to be some problem where "Article policies" box is not being included on article talk pages, even though the other conditional elements are. I'm investigating. If someone see some obvious syntax error which I missed, please fix it and let me know. — DragonHawk ( talk) 23:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
Article policies
|
On 21 Jan 2007, Ned Scott removed this block, with the comment "I know it says discuss first, but holy crap, this isn't a dump-all template for newbies. We do not need -direct- links at every-single-possible-chance. Intro and FAQ are linked, that's enough.". I have put it back and hope to foster further discussion here. To wit: • This template is very much for newbies. It isn't a "dump-all", yes, so we have to agree on what we want included. Let's work on that. I (and others) do feel this box on article policies serves a very useful purpose. There are articles (generally on pop culuture subjects, like movies and books) which attract a lot of speculation and personal opinion. Newbies come and try and defend their favorites (or attack their favorite targets). They honestly do not know that personal opinion does not belong here. This block is an attempt to help counter. Sure, some will still ignore it, but some people do read signposts, if they are present to be read. — DragonHawk ( talk) 18:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
arpol
", which controls the display of this box. Set to "yes" and it will be displayed; set to "no" and it will be hidden; omit the parameter and it uses the default. The default is current to display the box on article talk pages. Of course, now we can edit war over what the default should be. ;) —
DragonHawk (
talk)
22:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
From WP:CREEP:
From Wikipedia:Overlinking:
This, plus the fact that we try to keep the template present but only as large as it needs to be, I don't think it's a good idea to start listing policies in the talk header banner. If a particular article is having problems with new editors violating policy then make another box, like what you see on Talk:List of Lost episodes. At least that way you can provide specific examples instead of generic messages, which is far more likely to be helpful to a new user. Like I've said before, if you want to add these links to the top of every talk page, then that's one thing, but putting them into this banner really isn't the best place to do it. -- Ned Scott 19:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that I've been reverted and this box has been argued for not because it's a good idea, but because people have taken offense to how I've gone about addressing this issue. My apologies, I am in the wrong in that respect. Way too many times I've seen isolated talk pages like this think they have consensus because no one else is watching that specific page. Here I thought watching pages like Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and Wikipedia:Talk page templates were enough, but I didn't think to watch the templates as well. So yes, I was a bit frustrated to find that a new direction was being taken without a lot of input, and that somehow my opinion was not valid because it took me more than 10 days to notice the change. (Keep in mind I'm saying this is how it appeared to me. By now I know that everyone was acting in good faith and did not intend for such a situation)
If it is possible, forgive me and forget my flawed approach to this matter. I should have been more cool headed about it, and have now caused people to be needlessly on edge. If we can, lets look at the simple issue itself.
There already is a strong consensus to show that the talk header itself is not for every talk page, and that the header should be short, sweet, and to the point. Adding those links to the top of talk pages is an debate in-itself, my point is that it's not the job for this template. I know it seems like a "small" addition, but the history of the template shows how those small additions quickly get out of hand. This template should be about the talk page.
You can't force someone to read policy and guidelines in every talk template. There are much better ways to address issues where people are not aware of policies, so why not explore that instead? Don't get locked into the idea that only one thing will work. -- Ned Scott 05:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
small-talk
box to the standard-talk
{{
talkheader}} will work. Thoughts? Suggestions? Anyone? —
DragonHawk (
talk)
02:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
|
Some people (including myself) have objected to the use of " Click here". What's happened so far is that someone will change it one way, someone else will change it back, time will pass, repeat. This talk posting is an attempt to foster actual discussion. • The article on " Click here" (CH) has all the usual criticisms; consider them incoporated here by reference. • Many of the objections to CH do not apply to this case. For example, the link in question is totally useless when printed. • The link in question performs an action, and the use of CH helps to make that clearer. • "Everybody" understands what CH means at this point. In contrast, the target audiance of this template might well not understand what "Follow this link" means. • As you can see, I'm on the fence on this one. What do others think? — DragonHawk ( talk) 01:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
How about "You may start a new topic." That makes the link text equal to exactly what it does ("start a new topic"), which hopefully preserves the notion that this link causes an action. "You may" retains the idea that it is optional, while being less pretentious than "Optionally". And it still keeps the wording short and sweet. — DragonHawk ( talk) 13:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I can see people are clearly trying hard to improve this template, but what was wrong with this version? I'm sorry, but this template is getting uglier and uglier by the day. The grey background on "click here" is rather obnoxious, and the box around the tildes is just too much. Think simple. A newcomer doesn't need flashy boxes, colors, backgrounds, and the like. Simple instructions and hints. Please. AuburnPilot talk 06:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
We had some people object that there were too many different colors in the template. The current draft seems to be more conservative in the use of color. It uses the same standard color scheme for talk boxes on the outside, with each of the "blocks" inside with a white background. I personally find that a good solution, since it keeps the use of color in a minimalist vein, while still separating each block and helping the major points stand out. Do others agree? — DragonHawk ( talk) 04:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
The current draft has changed color schemes again. For a while it had the brownish background all around, with the three "sub-boxes" with white backgrounds as blocks inside it. Now it has a large lower area with a white background, and the other two sub-boxes are contained within that, with brownish backgrounds. (For the record, I haven't been the one initiating any of these changes.) The current draft at least matches the current "real" template. I don't really have a preference for any particular one, but could we all please pick one color/layout scheme and stick to it, and not just endlessly tweak the template back and forth between our personal favorites? :) — DragonHawk ( talk) 12:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking it might be better to link to Wikipedia:Questions instead of Wikipedia:FAQ. The FAQ is directed mainly at answering people's questions about Wikipedia. At the same time, many newcomers end up trying to use an article talk page to ask questions about the article subject. I think that WP:Q does a better job of serving both needs -- it has links to the FAQ, but also the ref desk. I've updated the draft to see what it would look like. I added "get answers" to include another keyword. Thoughts? — DragonHawk ( talk) 06:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
|
Centrx has taken out the line which stated " Follow policy and respect talk page guidelines", with the comment "It is quite for people not to go read all the dozens of policies before editing, let alone commenting in a discussion; see also WP:IAR; & Talk guidelines link already in MediaWiki:Talkpagetext)". I disagree with this change. • I'm familar with WP:IAR. Note that IAR says "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them." I don't see how providing informative links will prevent anyone from doing anything. As the essay WP:SIR notes, in order to ignore a rule, one has to be aware of it. Someone who does not know "the rules" is ignorant of them, not ignoring them. • This template is targeted at newcomers to Wikipedia. These people are often unaware that Wikipedia does not work like the web site discussion forums or user-feedback-pages they are familar with. These people frequently get tripped up around policy. Giving them a pointer in the right direction would be quite useful. • MediaWiki:Talkpagetext only displays when editing a talk page. As noted by someone else on this talk page, it is useful to provide guidance at other stages as well. • Please, let's try and work things out here first, and avoid an edit storm on a busy template. Thanks. — DragonHawk ( talk) 13:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:CREEP and Wikipedia:Overlinking comes to mind with the addition of the policy links. Please, I beg of you all, lets keep this template's job simple. What's next, asking him to fix the leak in the kitchen? Jam lots of links in, lose a lot of focus. If you want a template on the top of every talk page that has those links, ok, but make it a different template. -- Ned Scott 06:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I would be bold but for all the warnings everywhere about discussing changes to this template on the talk page. Anyone care if I changed the wording to make it clearer that new comments go at the BOTTOM of a talk page; not the top where newbies inevitably want to put them? ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) problem solving 16:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be good if the text in the template were set to 80% in order to make the template take up much less space at the top of the talk page. Here's what it would look like:
Is this acceptable? ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihon joe 19:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's the box at 90%:
Thoughts? ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihon joe 23:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's the box at 90% with the tildes at 100%:
Thoughts? ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihon joe 00:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
The instuctions are "This template should be used only when needed. Acculturation can't be forced, and it can be overdone. If the message is on every talk page, its impact will be reduced" which isn't very helpful. I consider it a very useful template and use it a lot. Since I've been asked not to use it so frequently as per the guidelines I was wondering if anyone would like to throw in some advice on when it should be used. Also do we have any evidence to support the last statement? I'd have thought the more often someone saw it the more likely it would be to sink in - no smoking signs are plastered all over trains for example presumably working on the idea that one might catch someone's eye and get it to sink in. As I say I considere this one of the most useful templates and don't really want to have to stop using it because I don't really know when to post it without it suddenly stopping being effective (a call which must be purely subjective) but I'd rather stop than spoil the template for everyone else. ( Emperor 23:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC))
Somebody needs to go into the template's page and say this template should only be used for such and such because right now it says it can be used on any talk page. Which is probably what leads to confusion. People shouldn't read about the template on the teamplate's page and then assume they have to go the talk page to learn about how to use it. Especially when it is supposed to explain how to use it on the template's page. Harvey100 08:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I personally like the current version and think it should stay the way it is but I'm wondering how other editors would feel about creating a bot that would place this at the top of every article's talk pages. Quadzilla99 03:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Please refrain from creating talk pages containing only this template and no discussion. It is disruptive and misleading to readers of an article who mistakenly believe that meaningful discussion exists on the talk page (due to the "discussion" link being blue rather than red, only to be sorely disappointed one pageload later. If you feel that the information conveyed by this template is essential to every single talk page, everywhere, you may consider adding its contents to MediaWiki:Talkpagetext, where it would appear automatically for any user editing a talk page. — freak( talk) 09:28, Jan. 24, 2007 (UTC)
How about we just loose the text coloring entirely? Check out this draft to see what it would look like. It appears that introducing non-standard colors into this template just leads to people tweaking it constantly (over time) to be more what they like. Colors vary too much from display to display, and person to person, for us to ever make everybody happy. At the same time, the plain-old-bold text looks fine to me. Enough with the color tweaking, I say! :-) — DragonHawk ( talk) 03:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I archived the talk page as there was a lull and it was 100+ kbs. Please feel free to look through the archives and refactor any old discussions you feel are not completed or need to be addressed. Quadzilla99 17:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Here is a refactoring of some former discussions done by myself User:Quadzilla99:
Feel free to refactor some your self or re-raise old issues.
Quadzilla99 18:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to experiment with important template like this but can sb incorporate the following into the first line: {| class="messagebox {{#ifeq:{{{small|}}}|yes|small|standard}}-talk". For desired effect, see Talk:New York City.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 02:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
A small little change, I just want to change the " Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages" to " Wikipedia:Signatures" to avoid the redirect that comes from the first one. Philip Gronowski Contribs 00:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
[[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|Please sign and date your posts]] → [[Wikipedia:Signatures|Please sign and date your posts]]
Philip Gronowski Contribs 00:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
What if someone just thinks 'who the fuck are you to tell me to be welcoming?' They'll get blocked from editing, I guess...-- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 13:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Talk page templates#Small option discusses providing talk page templates with the option of writing them to the right with a smaller format. This would allow the talk page TOC to be more visible. Could we modify this template to include that option? It seemed to work okay in the sandbox. -- Bejnar 19:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I had a go at trying to get this to work. Check out User:DragonHawk/Temp5 for the template itself, and User:DragonHawk/Temp6 for test cases. I managed to get something that looked half-decent for the small option, but now I'm running into problems with trying to put a conditional around table separators for the "be polite" and "article polices" boxes. We would need it to be a column separator when not small, and a row separator when small. Everything I've tried has been broken in some way. I'm starting to suspect you just can't put a conditional around table separator syntax (it is a pretty hairy case). Ideas are welcome; feel free to edit those pages if you have any ideas. · One other approach would be to brute-force it and have three templates, one for each size variant, and a master with a single conditional including one or the other, but that's a toxic kludge and I'm really hoping to avoid it. — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 02:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I occasionally see editors signing their additions to articles. This could be the result of them following directions: The accompanying template says, in an (unlabeled) demarcated area separate from the (unlabeled) editing-etiquette guidelines and the article-only ones,
The last of those 3 is not unreasonable to construe as guidance global to WP (even tho experienced editors know the questions & answers belong on talk pages, not on articles, nor, really, in summaries). For instance,
doesn't, until you try it out, even vaguely imply that it applies only to talk pages, rather than, say, starting a new section in the accompanying article. (And it inhibits trying it out, since it is far from obvious that that experiment would be easily reversible.) It is possible a few newcomer editors see those 3 unlabeled lines as the most general advice possible abt editing; WP could benefit by giving them a heading such as
or
--
Jerzy•
t
20:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
Article policies
|
In the Article policies block, we should link to just Wikipedia:Attribution instead of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, as these 2 policy's have combined onto Attribution. Gary van der Merwe ( Talk) 11:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Can we please bold the Click here to start a new topic text? // Laughing Man 21:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I would like to request the addition of the ar interwiki link
[[ar:قالب:رأس صفحة نقاش]]
Please note that the Arabic language is written from right to left. Thanks. -- Meno25 14:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} I propose eliminating the "Click here" phrasing in this template, as "click here" is generally improper in web links, as established by the W3C. This is a very common template that can easily be fixed against this. See the template draft for my suggested format. Nihiltres( t. c. s) 00:49, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
This is a minor thing, but one that’s been bugging me. Could we please change:
to
Note the change in apostrophe from straight (') to curly (’), as it should be. Thank you! Max Naylor 10:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} Since I am unable to, can an admin. wiki-link the part where it says: This is not a forum for... Understood? Lord Sesshomaru
{{
editprotected}}
In the bold header text of this template, the words "talk page" link to
Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. This is what I believe to be the cause of the huge amount of random stuff written on
Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines. With "random stuff" I mean everything from the usual spam and weirdness to useful comments by anons that were obviously directed at a specific talk page.
The template already includes several links to policies that extend the talk page guidelines. Removing the link will therefore not decrease the value of the template. -- User:Krator ( t c) 17:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I realize the guidelines for usage have already been decided, but I was surprised to see the {{ talkheader}} template removed from an article I watch because it's "only for 'controversial' talk pages". (It happens that the article is about a controversial topic, but this hadn't been expressed on the talk page yet.) This is the first time I'd heard this. Now, I generally only add the tl to articles if someone is attempting to chat about the subject instead of the article, but I think it's welcoming to newbies to see the the talk page parameters right up there at the top, and might help them know what to do right away, rather than have experienced editors and bots sign and refactor their posts for them. I would certainly never remove one if it was already there, that seems like overkill. I know this won't change the guidelines, but I thought I'd express my opinion. In a nutshell: More information on Wikipedia protocol=Always good. Happy editing. Katr67 15:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Please replace "{{/doc}}" by "{{template doc}}". 16@r 09:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} Please align template to left, to be in sync with other talkpage-related templates. Wikinger 19:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Why would one put it on a talk page? Why would one NOT put it on a talk page? Why not just automatically have it displayed on all talk pages? Kingturtle ( talk) 22:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The above templates duplicate the function of {{ talkheader}}, for reasons which I don't think are valid any longer. In some cases, they were created because the {{ talkheader}} template at the time had article-space-specific semantics. That has since been corrected, and {{ talkheader}} can be used on any talk page, including templates. In other cases, people propsing alternative forms for {{ talkheader}} actually created separate templates, which were then used a handful of times. Those have universally fallen into disuse, with this "main" template being the clear popular choice. I think these alternatives are suboptimal: We should try and reach concensus on what the talk header should be, not create a bunch of different templates for everybody's personal whim. I propsose that these "legacy templates" be replaced with use of {{ talkheader}}, and then submitted to TfD. I started to do this, and then decided it would be better to check for any dissenting opinions first. So: Objections? Agreement? Suggestions? Comments? -- DragonHawk 21:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I was bold and added a link to a form that makes it easy to add a new comment to a talk page. This is especially useful for long talk pages and better guarantees the format of the new comment section. I'll be happy to discuss to improve it. I hope its inclusion will be accepted. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 17:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There needs to be an extra linespace placed after the first bullet statement that would appear when used on article talk pages. This would make it similar to the spacing between the other bullets. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 19:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I think many of the changes made by
Centrx starting
around here are good. He's right, it isn't a tech manual, and the template does suffer from instruction creep. Minimizing should absolutely be a goal with this. (
Perfection is achived when there is nothing left to take away.) The phrasing of "This is not a forum..." is much better. I didn't like that phrasing before and don't know why I didn't see that alternative. I do have a few concerns, though. One is the use of
click here. Another is the loss of "Place new comments after existing ones (within topic sections)". The parenthetical could probabbly be dropped, but the base ("Place new comments after existing ones") is distinct from the section headings part -- replying to old threads vs starting new ones. I also reiterate my concerns about having one link that takes an action while the rest are information. I feel that violates the
principle of least surprise. It also looses the educational value of the ==Header example==
. Finally, a suggestion on method: Given that this template is protected due to high use, perhaps edits should be proposed here first, discussed, and then implemented. Not everyone who wants to contribute to this template is an admin. --
DragonHawk
21:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
As you may be aware, this MediaWiki message [ MediaWiki:Talkpagetext -- DragonHawk] is transcluded onto all talk pages, but is currently empty. There was some dispute a while ago about whether this template should be deprecated and replaced by that message, but it was agreed that including the whole contents of this template on every page would be too much of a nuisance.
The proposal is alive again, see MediaWiki talk:Talkpagetext#Proposed final version for the suggested version. This version aims to clear up many of the objections that people had to other versions of the message. Comments are welcome. -- bainer ( talk) 07:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I think this talkheader should appear as default at the top of every talk page. Can it also Include, Info about how "Click here to start a new discussion topic" is the same as clicking the "+" button and how : or :: ect... need to be put at the start of your own additions to other people's comments? Alan2here 18:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
It appears that some people (particularly Centrx) want this:
* New discussion topics go at the bottom of the page; click here to start a new topic.
while others (particularly me) want this:
* Place new comments after existing ones. * Click here to start a new discussion topic.
I prefer the later form. The two points are not the same. One deals with starting new topics (threads/sections/etc). The other deals with the ordering of comments (top vs bottom posting). While new topics should go after existing topics, new comments within a topic should also go after existing comments within that topic. I also prefer one point per bullet. People are moe likely to read short bullets; that's why we put them there. The longer bullet is more likely to wrap. I don't want to edit war, so I'd like to see discussion about this. Centrx? Others? -- DragonHawk 18:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
This is a talk page. Please respect the talk page guidelines, and remember to sign your posts using four tildes (~~~~).
Says it all and is on every talk page edit screen. violet/riga (t) 20:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Veracious Rey had changed the color scheme of the template to somewhat bluish; I reverted his change. While I am assume he meant well, I believe the full ramifications for the change do not bode well. • There is a set color scheme for "all" talk page templates. This was agreed upon by concensus a long time ago, and should not be disregarded without some discussuion first. • So, my thoughts on the change: I think the stated goal of "stands out from other talk page templates" is doomed for multiple reasons. (1) There is something to say for consistency for the sake of asthetics (that's why we have a Manual of Style). (2) Not everyone will agree this template deserves to stand out (heck, some think it should be deleted entirely). (3) If the change were to stay, why not have all the other templates change color to stand out, too? So eventually we have a bunch of multi-colored templates, none of which stand out now, but all of which clash. • Obviously, my opinion is clear. :) What do others think? -- DragonHawk 04:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Kind of a meta-talk issue here: This is a widely used template; it gets included on enough pages that it almost qualifies as a "high-risk template", or a kind of pseduo-MediaWiki Message. Thus, any kind of edit war/revert war/etc on this template is harmful. Even frequent edits on such are to be frowned upon, due to server performance impact (or so I understand). The nature of this template attracts those who have a fine eye for detail, so little things may be magnified. Point being: Preference should be given to discussing changes before they get made. We have this nifty talk page feature to do that; let's use it. I have made a note on the template doc page to this effect. Thanks, everyone, and happy wiki'ing! -- DragonHawk 04:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I've created {{ Talkheader/Draft}} as a "working scratchpad" for people to test ideas. This lets everyone edit, but also keeps it includable, so we can test things out. Include the draft by putting the following text in a page:
Case in point: I'm thinking it would be good to have a note on the "big three" article content policies for this talk header. High-profile articles, especially ones on popular culture (movies, people, etc.) tend to attract a lot of people who put their own personal theories and speculations in articles. They mean well, but don't know that WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are requirements. So I've edited the draft; see above. That's pretty close to what I want. I haven't had a chance to get the column width sizing figured out yet. The leftmost column can be shrunk, I think (if anyone knows how, please edit the draft). One of the criteria I am following is to keep the same footprint as the original. This proposed change also: (1) Links to policy and guidelines on the left; (2) Simplifies a few phrases (3) Makes it clearer that next should go after existing text, within existing topics as well as for new topics, and (4) puts a nifty box around the four tildes. What do people think? Comments? Commendations? Condemnations? -- DragonHawk 14:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay. I've copied the proposed changes into the "production" version of the template. There appears to be some problem where "Article policies" box is not being included on article talk pages, even though the other conditional elements are. I'm investigating. If someone see some obvious syntax error which I missed, please fix it and let me know. — DragonHawk ( talk) 23:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
Article policies
|
On 21 Jan 2007, Ned Scott removed this block, with the comment "I know it says discuss first, but holy crap, this isn't a dump-all template for newbies. We do not need -direct- links at every-single-possible-chance. Intro and FAQ are linked, that's enough.". I have put it back and hope to foster further discussion here. To wit: • This template is very much for newbies. It isn't a "dump-all", yes, so we have to agree on what we want included. Let's work on that. I (and others) do feel this box on article policies serves a very useful purpose. There are articles (generally on pop culuture subjects, like movies and books) which attract a lot of speculation and personal opinion. Newbies come and try and defend their favorites (or attack their favorite targets). They honestly do not know that personal opinion does not belong here. This block is an attempt to help counter. Sure, some will still ignore it, but some people do read signposts, if they are present to be read. — DragonHawk ( talk) 18:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
arpol
", which controls the display of this box. Set to "yes" and it will be displayed; set to "no" and it will be hidden; omit the parameter and it uses the default. The default is current to display the box on article talk pages. Of course, now we can edit war over what the default should be. ;) —
DragonHawk (
talk)
22:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
From WP:CREEP:
From Wikipedia:Overlinking:
This, plus the fact that we try to keep the template present but only as large as it needs to be, I don't think it's a good idea to start listing policies in the talk header banner. If a particular article is having problems with new editors violating policy then make another box, like what you see on Talk:List of Lost episodes. At least that way you can provide specific examples instead of generic messages, which is far more likely to be helpful to a new user. Like I've said before, if you want to add these links to the top of every talk page, then that's one thing, but putting them into this banner really isn't the best place to do it. -- Ned Scott 19:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that I've been reverted and this box has been argued for not because it's a good idea, but because people have taken offense to how I've gone about addressing this issue. My apologies, I am in the wrong in that respect. Way too many times I've seen isolated talk pages like this think they have consensus because no one else is watching that specific page. Here I thought watching pages like Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and Wikipedia:Talk page templates were enough, but I didn't think to watch the templates as well. So yes, I was a bit frustrated to find that a new direction was being taken without a lot of input, and that somehow my opinion was not valid because it took me more than 10 days to notice the change. (Keep in mind I'm saying this is how it appeared to me. By now I know that everyone was acting in good faith and did not intend for such a situation)
If it is possible, forgive me and forget my flawed approach to this matter. I should have been more cool headed about it, and have now caused people to be needlessly on edge. If we can, lets look at the simple issue itself.
There already is a strong consensus to show that the talk header itself is not for every talk page, and that the header should be short, sweet, and to the point. Adding those links to the top of talk pages is an debate in-itself, my point is that it's not the job for this template. I know it seems like a "small" addition, but the history of the template shows how those small additions quickly get out of hand. This template should be about the talk page.
You can't force someone to read policy and guidelines in every talk template. There are much better ways to address issues where people are not aware of policies, so why not explore that instead? Don't get locked into the idea that only one thing will work. -- Ned Scott 05:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
small-talk
box to the standard-talk
{{
talkheader}} will work. Thoughts? Suggestions? Anyone? —
DragonHawk (
talk)
02:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
|
Some people (including myself) have objected to the use of " Click here". What's happened so far is that someone will change it one way, someone else will change it back, time will pass, repeat. This talk posting is an attempt to foster actual discussion. • The article on " Click here" (CH) has all the usual criticisms; consider them incoporated here by reference. • Many of the objections to CH do not apply to this case. For example, the link in question is totally useless when printed. • The link in question performs an action, and the use of CH helps to make that clearer. • "Everybody" understands what CH means at this point. In contrast, the target audiance of this template might well not understand what "Follow this link" means. • As you can see, I'm on the fence on this one. What do others think? — DragonHawk ( talk) 01:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
How about "You may start a new topic." That makes the link text equal to exactly what it does ("start a new topic"), which hopefully preserves the notion that this link causes an action. "You may" retains the idea that it is optional, while being less pretentious than "Optionally". And it still keeps the wording short and sweet. — DragonHawk ( talk) 13:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I can see people are clearly trying hard to improve this template, but what was wrong with this version? I'm sorry, but this template is getting uglier and uglier by the day. The grey background on "click here" is rather obnoxious, and the box around the tildes is just too much. Think simple. A newcomer doesn't need flashy boxes, colors, backgrounds, and the like. Simple instructions and hints. Please. AuburnPilot talk 06:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
We had some people object that there were too many different colors in the template. The current draft seems to be more conservative in the use of color. It uses the same standard color scheme for talk boxes on the outside, with each of the "blocks" inside with a white background. I personally find that a good solution, since it keeps the use of color in a minimalist vein, while still separating each block and helping the major points stand out. Do others agree? — DragonHawk ( talk) 04:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
The current draft has changed color schemes again. For a while it had the brownish background all around, with the three "sub-boxes" with white backgrounds as blocks inside it. Now it has a large lower area with a white background, and the other two sub-boxes are contained within that, with brownish backgrounds. (For the record, I haven't been the one initiating any of these changes.) The current draft at least matches the current "real" template. I don't really have a preference for any particular one, but could we all please pick one color/layout scheme and stick to it, and not just endlessly tweak the template back and forth between our personal favorites? :) — DragonHawk ( talk) 12:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking it might be better to link to Wikipedia:Questions instead of Wikipedia:FAQ. The FAQ is directed mainly at answering people's questions about Wikipedia. At the same time, many newcomers end up trying to use an article talk page to ask questions about the article subject. I think that WP:Q does a better job of serving both needs -- it has links to the FAQ, but also the ref desk. I've updated the draft to see what it would look like. I added "get answers" to include another keyword. Thoughts? — DragonHawk ( talk) 06:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
|
Centrx has taken out the line which stated " Follow policy and respect talk page guidelines", with the comment "It is quite for people not to go read all the dozens of policies before editing, let alone commenting in a discussion; see also WP:IAR; & Talk guidelines link already in MediaWiki:Talkpagetext)". I disagree with this change. • I'm familar with WP:IAR. Note that IAR says "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them." I don't see how providing informative links will prevent anyone from doing anything. As the essay WP:SIR notes, in order to ignore a rule, one has to be aware of it. Someone who does not know "the rules" is ignorant of them, not ignoring them. • This template is targeted at newcomers to Wikipedia. These people are often unaware that Wikipedia does not work like the web site discussion forums or user-feedback-pages they are familar with. These people frequently get tripped up around policy. Giving them a pointer in the right direction would be quite useful. • MediaWiki:Talkpagetext only displays when editing a talk page. As noted by someone else on this talk page, it is useful to provide guidance at other stages as well. • Please, let's try and work things out here first, and avoid an edit storm on a busy template. Thanks. — DragonHawk ( talk) 13:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:CREEP and Wikipedia:Overlinking comes to mind with the addition of the policy links. Please, I beg of you all, lets keep this template's job simple. What's next, asking him to fix the leak in the kitchen? Jam lots of links in, lose a lot of focus. If you want a template on the top of every talk page that has those links, ok, but make it a different template. -- Ned Scott 06:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I would be bold but for all the warnings everywhere about discussing changes to this template on the talk page. Anyone care if I changed the wording to make it clearer that new comments go at the BOTTOM of a talk page; not the top where newbies inevitably want to put them? ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) problem solving 16:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be good if the text in the template were set to 80% in order to make the template take up much less space at the top of the talk page. Here's what it would look like:
Is this acceptable? ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihon joe 19:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's the box at 90%:
Thoughts? ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihon joe 23:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's the box at 90% with the tildes at 100%:
Thoughts? ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihon joe 00:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
The instuctions are "This template should be used only when needed. Acculturation can't be forced, and it can be overdone. If the message is on every talk page, its impact will be reduced" which isn't very helpful. I consider it a very useful template and use it a lot. Since I've been asked not to use it so frequently as per the guidelines I was wondering if anyone would like to throw in some advice on when it should be used. Also do we have any evidence to support the last statement? I'd have thought the more often someone saw it the more likely it would be to sink in - no smoking signs are plastered all over trains for example presumably working on the idea that one might catch someone's eye and get it to sink in. As I say I considere this one of the most useful templates and don't really want to have to stop using it because I don't really know when to post it without it suddenly stopping being effective (a call which must be purely subjective) but I'd rather stop than spoil the template for everyone else. ( Emperor 23:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC))
Somebody needs to go into the template's page and say this template should only be used for such and such because right now it says it can be used on any talk page. Which is probably what leads to confusion. People shouldn't read about the template on the teamplate's page and then assume they have to go the talk page to learn about how to use it. Especially when it is supposed to explain how to use it on the template's page. Harvey100 08:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I personally like the current version and think it should stay the way it is but I'm wondering how other editors would feel about creating a bot that would place this at the top of every article's talk pages. Quadzilla99 03:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Please refrain from creating talk pages containing only this template and no discussion. It is disruptive and misleading to readers of an article who mistakenly believe that meaningful discussion exists on the talk page (due to the "discussion" link being blue rather than red, only to be sorely disappointed one pageload later. If you feel that the information conveyed by this template is essential to every single talk page, everywhere, you may consider adding its contents to MediaWiki:Talkpagetext, where it would appear automatically for any user editing a talk page. — freak( talk) 09:28, Jan. 24, 2007 (UTC)
How about we just loose the text coloring entirely? Check out this draft to see what it would look like. It appears that introducing non-standard colors into this template just leads to people tweaking it constantly (over time) to be more what they like. Colors vary too much from display to display, and person to person, for us to ever make everybody happy. At the same time, the plain-old-bold text looks fine to me. Enough with the color tweaking, I say! :-) — DragonHawk ( talk) 03:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I archived the talk page as there was a lull and it was 100+ kbs. Please feel free to look through the archives and refactor any old discussions you feel are not completed or need to be addressed. Quadzilla99 17:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Here is a refactoring of some former discussions done by myself User:Quadzilla99:
Feel free to refactor some your self or re-raise old issues.
Quadzilla99 18:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to experiment with important template like this but can sb incorporate the following into the first line: {| class="messagebox {{#ifeq:{{{small|}}}|yes|small|standard}}-talk". For desired effect, see Talk:New York City.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 02:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
A small little change, I just want to change the " Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages" to " Wikipedia:Signatures" to avoid the redirect that comes from the first one. Philip Gronowski Contribs 00:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
[[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|Please sign and date your posts]] → [[Wikipedia:Signatures|Please sign and date your posts]]
Philip Gronowski Contribs 00:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
What if someone just thinks 'who the fuck are you to tell me to be welcoming?' They'll get blocked from editing, I guess...-- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 13:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Talk page templates#Small option discusses providing talk page templates with the option of writing them to the right with a smaller format. This would allow the talk page TOC to be more visible. Could we modify this template to include that option? It seemed to work okay in the sandbox. -- Bejnar 19:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I had a go at trying to get this to work. Check out User:DragonHawk/Temp5 for the template itself, and User:DragonHawk/Temp6 for test cases. I managed to get something that looked half-decent for the small option, but now I'm running into problems with trying to put a conditional around table separators for the "be polite" and "article polices" boxes. We would need it to be a column separator when not small, and a row separator when small. Everything I've tried has been broken in some way. I'm starting to suspect you just can't put a conditional around table separator syntax (it is a pretty hairy case). Ideas are welcome; feel free to edit those pages if you have any ideas. · One other approach would be to brute-force it and have three templates, one for each size variant, and a master with a single conditional including one or the other, but that's a toxic kludge and I'm really hoping to avoid it. — DragonHawk ( talk| hist) 02:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I occasionally see editors signing their additions to articles. This could be the result of them following directions: The accompanying template says, in an (unlabeled) demarcated area separate from the (unlabeled) editing-etiquette guidelines and the article-only ones,
The last of those 3 is not unreasonable to construe as guidance global to WP (even tho experienced editors know the questions & answers belong on talk pages, not on articles, nor, really, in summaries). For instance,
doesn't, until you try it out, even vaguely imply that it applies only to talk pages, rather than, say, starting a new section in the accompanying article. (And it inhibits trying it out, since it is far from obvious that that experiment would be easily reversible.) It is possible a few newcomer editors see those 3 unlabeled lines as the most general advice possible abt editing; WP could benefit by giving them a heading such as
or
--
Jerzy•
t
20:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talk header/Archive 2 page. |
Article policies
|
In the Article policies block, we should link to just Wikipedia:Attribution instead of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, as these 2 policy's have combined onto Attribution. Gary van der Merwe ( Talk) 11:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Can we please bold the Click here to start a new topic text? // Laughing Man 21:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I would like to request the addition of the ar interwiki link
[[ar:قالب:رأس صفحة نقاش]]
Please note that the Arabic language is written from right to left. Thanks. -- Meno25 14:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} I propose eliminating the "Click here" phrasing in this template, as "click here" is generally improper in web links, as established by the W3C. This is a very common template that can easily be fixed against this. See the template draft for my suggested format. Nihiltres( t. c. s) 00:49, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
This is a minor thing, but one that’s been bugging me. Could we please change:
to
Note the change in apostrophe from straight (') to curly (’), as it should be. Thank you! Max Naylor 10:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} Since I am unable to, can an admin. wiki-link the part where it says: This is not a forum for... Understood? Lord Sesshomaru
{{
editprotected}}
In the bold header text of this template, the words "talk page" link to
Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. This is what I believe to be the cause of the huge amount of random stuff written on
Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines. With "random stuff" I mean everything from the usual spam and weirdness to useful comments by anons that were obviously directed at a specific talk page.
The template already includes several links to policies that extend the talk page guidelines. Removing the link will therefore not decrease the value of the template. -- User:Krator ( t c) 17:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I realize the guidelines for usage have already been decided, but I was surprised to see the {{ talkheader}} template removed from an article I watch because it's "only for 'controversial' talk pages". (It happens that the article is about a controversial topic, but this hadn't been expressed on the talk page yet.) This is the first time I'd heard this. Now, I generally only add the tl to articles if someone is attempting to chat about the subject instead of the article, but I think it's welcoming to newbies to see the the talk page parameters right up there at the top, and might help them know what to do right away, rather than have experienced editors and bots sign and refactor their posts for them. I would certainly never remove one if it was already there, that seems like overkill. I know this won't change the guidelines, but I thought I'd express my opinion. In a nutshell: More information on Wikipedia protocol=Always good. Happy editing. Katr67 15:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Please replace "{{/doc}}" by "{{template doc}}". 16@r 09:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} Please align template to left, to be in sync with other talkpage-related templates. Wikinger 19:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Why would one put it on a talk page? Why would one NOT put it on a talk page? Why not just automatically have it displayed on all talk pages? Kingturtle ( talk) 22:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)