Help:Talk pages

From Schoolforge-UK

Contents 1 Talk pages 1.1 Indenting 1.1.1 Plain Indentations 1.1.2 Bullet Points 1.1.3 Numbered Items 1.1.4 Example 2 Experiment

Talk pages

A key feature of MediaWiki is the ability to discuss articles and other issues with others.

If you want to ask a question about an article, or you have a concern or comment, you can put a note in the article's talk page. You do that by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Don't worry if the link shows up red - it's ok to create the talk page if it doesn't already exist.

When you post a new comment, put it at the bottom of the talk page. The exception is that if you're responding to someone else, put your comment below theirs. You can indent your comment by typing (:) at the beginning of a line.

You should sign your comments by typing (~~~) for just your username, or (~~~~) for your user name and a time signature. When you save the page, your signature will be automatically inserted. Most of us use time signatures, because it makes following discussions much easier.

Indenting

Indenting can help the layout of a discussion very much, making it much easier to read. A standard practice is to indent your reply one more level than the person you are replying to.

There is several ways of indenting:

Plain Indentations

The simplest way of indenting is to place a colon (:) in front of your paragraph. The more you place in front of the paragraph, the further indented it will be. for example:

This is aligned all the way to the left
:This is indented slightly
::This is indented more

Is shown as:

This is aligned all the way to the left

This is indented slightly

This is indented more

Bullet Points

You can also indent using bullets, usually used for lists. To INSERT a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph changes the indentation. A brief example:

*First List Item
*Second List Item
**Sub-Second List Item
*Isn't this fun!

Which is shown as:

• First List Item
• Second List Item
  • Sub-Second List Item
• Isn't this fun!

Numbered Items

You can also create numbered lists. for this, use the hash symbol (#). This is usually used for polls and voting. Again, you can affect the indent of the number by the number of #'s you put before your line.

#First Item
#Second Item
##Second Sub?
#Third Item

Is shown as:

1. First Item
2. Second Item
   1. Second Sub?
3. Third Item

Example

Here is an example of a well formatted discussion:

Hi. I have a question about this article. I'm pretty sure purple elephants only live in New York!

Well, last time I was in New York, the elephants I saw were green.

I think you should find a source for your claims.

Okay - these elephant journals agree with me:

• Elephants Monthly
• Elephants World

I live in Australia, where the elephants look like kangaroos! These people agree with my statement:

1. Mr. X
2. Ms. Y
3. Mr. Z

Experiment

Experiment! This time, instead of editing the sandbox, leave a message on the sandbox talk page by clicking "Discuss this page." Remember to sign your user name. You might want to try responding to someone else's post. Remember, you should use "Show preview" to see if your formatting works before you save.