Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:31, 3 August 2009

This is NOT the page for posting questions about using Misplaced Pages or for posting random comments. See WP:QUESTIONS for help about using Misplaced Pages.

YOU MIGHT BE ON THE WRONG PAGE.This page is not meant for general questions, nor discussions about specific articles. This page is only for discussions about the Misplaced Pages page Help:Talk pages. To discuss an article, please use that article's talk page. To ask for help with using and editing Misplaced Pages, use our Teahouse. Alternatively, see our FAQ.

Question about other Talk pages I've seen

Why do I see stuff in discussions talking about things like minor grammatical errors in an article, and people asking if someone can correct those? Couldn't that person just have easily have corrected the mistakes themselves? Is that bad to automatically correct stuff we see wrong with articles, or are we supposed to discuss things first?Amnion (talk) 02:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not at all bad. Typos and grammar can and should be fixed right away of course, and being BOLD and edit without prior discussion is an integral part of editing here.
I know of three reasons for such talk page requests:

• The article is semi-protected and the user is editing anonymously or his account is too new to edit those
• The user doesn't dare to edit articles and rather asks experienced users to take care of it
• The user doesn't know or isn't sure how it should be worded instead

Amalthea 16:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Accessing a Talk page – Experience of a beginner

"To access a talk page look for a tab or link labelled discussion, or discuss this page. These tabs or links will be found either at the top of the page or on the left hand side (near edit this page). Users using the Classic skin will see "Discuss this page" instead."

What this paragraph means is:

When you want to write a comment about an article on the page, you have to use a Talk page. To find a Talk page, you won't find one by looking for a label (or tab) labelled Talk page. Instead, you have to look for a tab called, confusingly, Discussion. The Discussion tab is on the top of the page that you are looking at, probably to the left of a tab called Edit this page (if there is one). Click on the Discussion tab. The page that you see on the screen is called a skin, with a particular layout. There is one layout called a classic skin. On a classic skin layout, the tab for the Talk page is called Discuss this page. To open the Talk page, click on the Discuss this page tab.

This is just one paragraph, but typical of the difficulties of most of the explanations given.

Is there anywhere in Misplaced Pages that explains how to use it at the level of a novice?Michael Harpur Edwards (talk) 15:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure: H:TMM. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines needs to be moved up

The top of the article says it is a guideline, but I couldn't find the info I wanted til got to the See also section way at the bottom and the link to the Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines. It would be helpful if it could be more up on top, something like "See also: etc." Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk)

Second time I've come here for advice and low and behold, only found what I wanted by seeing my old message! I guess I should just be bold and do it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This page in a nutshell

Added "This page in a nutshell". Iceblock (talk) 14:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Just updated it a bit, think it's ok if not revert and I'll discuss here... LeeVJ (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

==Indent specificity==pottstown is cool!

The present guidelines on how to indent comments properly are not very helpful, for they are vague and they actively encourage talk page commenters to leave a mess for somebody else to come along and clean up. They say, inter alia:

The first comment in a section will have no colons in front of its paragraphs; the second will have one colon in front of each paragraph; and each subsequent commenter will add one more colon. When a long discussion has many indents (many colons before each paragraph), the discussion may be awkward to read, particularly for people with smaller computer screens. Eventually, for everyone's convenience, an editor will remove all the colons from his or her next reply, usually briefly noting the formatting change. Replies to that comment are formatted as if it were the first comment in a new discussion.

This is really not very helpful. What means a "long" discussion? What means "many" indents? And why are we cavalierly assuming that "for everyone's convenience" an editor will act to clean up the mess? Beyond a level-four indentation (four colons preceeding text), the text block grows distorted: unreasonably narrow and unreasonably long. There is also a reference to editors "usually" making note of the indentation reset, which is about as silly and pointless as a buzzer to warn you that your stereo is turned on. If the indentation is reset, it's immediately obvious. No comment to the effect of "Look, look, I reset the indentation!" is necessary.

I propose refining the indentation guidelines as follows:

If there are no colons before the first characters of the paragraphs you're responding to, you use one. If one, you use two. If two, you use three. If three, you use four. If four, you reset the indentation by using none. When you edit the page, arrange your text like this:

Comment text from an editor
:Comment text from a second editor
::Comment text from a third editor
:::Comment text from a fourth editor
::::Comment text from a fifth editor
Comment text from a sixth editor
:Comment text from a seventh editor
::And so on
:::And so forth
::::et cetera
Lather, rinse, repeat

—Scheinwerfermann ·_C02:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• "Many indents" = however many seem like a lot to the editors participating in the discussion.
• "long discussion" = however long long seems long to the editors participating in the discussion.
• It's not necessary to define either of the above. Would it really help if the guideline said it happened in discussions that are specifically 50 lines or more? These are just descriptions of what generally happens during discussions, and what is a convenient way of keeping them readable no matter how long they get.
• "Eventually, for everyone's convenience, an editor will remove all the colons from his or her next reply, usually briefly noting the formatting change." -- This doesn't mean an editor will take it upon themselves to clean up other people's comments. It means that in someone's next response, after a comment with a lot of indents, an editor may simply leave out all indents, the same as you've illustrated for the responses that come after the 4-colon lines. Your example is pretty much the same as the instructions that are on the page now.
• "...editors 'usually' making note of the indentation reset, which is...silly and pointless...it's immediately obvious. No comment...is necessary." -- A comment is necessary to let everyone know that the person responding with no indent does indeed still intend his comment to be a response to the previous comment, rather than the beginning of a new discussion. And yes, people do usually make a note that they're doing that, using "←" or "(outdent)" or "(resetting indent)" before their response. Equazcion •✗/C • 13:28, 7 Feb 2009 (UTC)

H'mm. I appreciate and respect your substantial contributions to protocol and guidelines, so I'm kind of disappointed that your response here is essentially circular: I perceive and identify a potential problem, and you reply by stating what I identified as a potential problem. Obviously you don't perceive a need for greater specificity in talk page guidelines, and that's fine; it's just that your tone comes across as rather more condescending and dismissive than you might've intended.

I do not feel the guidelines are adequate as they stand; let me have another try at explaining why: You're right that they don't explicitly call for an editor to come in and clean up the mess, but in practice the only alternative is letting the conversation grow unreadable, and that frequently occurs. When the editors participating in a discussion simply increment the colon count ad infinitem, not caring much about its readability because they've been keeping the hierarchy in mind from the start, that makes it unnecessarily difficult for others to join in the discussion without raising points and asking questions that have already been covered (but are sufficiently difficult to read due to the high-level indenting that they just get skipped). Most discussion participants welcome participation from more than just the first arbitrary number of editors who see and respond to the initial post, so it seems sensible for guidelines to suggest a maximum indent level before reset. On the other hand, I agree with your implication that there's no call for unnecessarily prescriptive talk page protocols. That's why I'm here; guidelines are not rules and they certainly aren't laws. They serve as a friendly nudge toward behaviour that benefits the whole community, not as a paddle with which to spank those who prefer to proceed otherwise. —Scheinwerfermann ·_C23:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

If you simply think the guideline should specify a maximum number of indents before "resetting" to no indents on the next reply, as it seems to me, I suppose that's a possibility, as long at it were worded as a mere suggestion -- but I doubt it would make much of a difference in practice. Besides, the examples in the guideline seem to suggest a max of 3 or 4 colons. When you encounter a discussion that you feel has gotten too messy with indents, you could take it upon yourself to clean it up. I've done that before. I'd hesitate to add in such a suggestion to the guideline though, since anyone taking it upon themselves to do that would need to be very careful to preserve others' comments, including their intended threading structure. This is aimed towards beginners who might not be able to do such a great job at that, and might end up stepping on some toes messing with other people's comments. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:08, 8 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Terrific, it looks as if our agreement outweighs our disagreement: yes, I am advocating primarily for a guideline/suggestion per se on the max number of colons. You're right that it likely won't have anything like a magic-wand effect of immediately eliminating 5th- and higher-order indents, but well-written guidelines suggesting good practice tend to percolate through the community and eventually influence behaviour. One other point I didn't mention is that when the colon count grows beyond four, it grows increasingly difficult to count them so as to add one more. I've done a great deal of hierarchy cleanup on various talk pages myself, and you're right; even for an experienced editor with a good grasp on the discussion underway, it is challenging to do so without introducing threading errors — I agree with you that we should not explicitly encourage editors to do such cleanup. —Scheinwerfermann ·_C00:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure which number to choose, as any choice would be pretty much arbitrary. On counting colons, I usually don't even bother. I just copy the previous line's colons to the clipboard, paste them on a new line, then type one more. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:43, 8 Feb 2009 (UTC)

I'm suggesting four thoughtfully rather than arbitrarily. The cut-paste-plus-one technique certainly works to circumvent the colon-count issue, but it's nice to visualise a world without such hoops to jump through (that's the same world wherein every driver uses his turn indicators every time, and nobody ever tries to use the express lane at the grocery with more than fifteen items, but at least we can try…).

On the issue of ← or other means of calling out the indentation reset: I have certainly seen it, but having participated in a great many discussions (and perused many more), I don't find it to be a standard practice, or even a particularly common one, and I don't do it myself. I really don't think it's necessary or especially helpful; I have very seldom seen indent-reset create difficulty in following the continuity of a thread. Have you? —Scheinwerfermann ·_C01:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Talkpage problem

Could someone take a look at Talk:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and see figure out why the archives aren't showing up right? It's displaying as /Archive 1.00000000000000000000000000000. TJ Spyke 05:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It was a software update problem WP:VPT. Resolved for now. DoubleBlue (talk) 05:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Confusion

This guideline seems confused as to whether it wants to use the term "talk page" to refer to only article talk pages, or to refer to all talk pages. For example, the second sentence which says A talk page is a space for editors to discuss improvements to articles and other pages, is misleading, since user talk pages most definitely have almost nothing to do with improvements to pages in Misplaced Pages, except in the sense that every single posting at Misplaced Pages ultimately has the goal of improving articles.

Or consider this, from the nutshell box:

• What's the meaning of a talk page?

• To let multiple users collaborate on improving an article

Well, not really; a template talk page or a category talk page have nothing to do with improving any particular article, and, as mentioned above, a usee talk page isn't even about improving anything other than perhaps an editor's behavior; it can be used to invite an editor to participate in a WikiProject, to commiserate (failed RfA, vandalism problem), to post an award, etc., none of which directly improves any particular page.

At minimum, this guideline needs to be changed so that sentences like "Talk pages serve as a place for comments about articles, ... " are corrected to read "Article talk pages serve as a place for comments about articles, ... " Unless there are objections to that, I'll be happy to do so unless someone else gets there first (and anyone is welcome to, of course). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Help please

Okay im new here and i need help. i know about the article im creating except for one thing: How do you get the big font that is at the top of every article that states the title or does it come automatically? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Helpfulness (talk • contribs) 21:42, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Please read the banners at the top of this page. -- œ 17:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Editing archives

A recent 3RR report of Fhue (talk · contribs) led me to realize this page and Help:Archiving a talk page have no explicit guidelines about how you shouldn't edit an archive. Long story short, this user was changing the content of a thread that had already been archived from ANI, and got into a revert war over it because he believed that "there is no rule against editing archives". (Also, the ANI archives don't have the usual {{archive}} tag at the top.) Granted, anyone with half a brain should understand that you're not supposed to edit the archives, but it made me think, should a bullet point or something be added here (or at Help:Archiving a talk page) being more explicit about the fact that archives should not be edited? rʨanaɢ /_contribs 05:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I just realized this question would be more appropriate at WT:Talk page guidelines. Reposting there. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 05:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

what are web application software?

what are web application software? tell me about that & what are examples of that? can i made project on that topic?

Did you not read the banners at the top of the page? This is not the place for these kinds of questions. Try the Computing Reference Desk or the WP:Help desk. -- œ 19:35, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Redlinks to useless content.

I think the work "discussion" should be shown in red if it contains only "{{WikiProject Ireland|class=start |importance=low}}{{WPMA}}" things. It causes me to look to discussion page ("what do people think about thins article?") and find out that there are actually no comments.

May be there should be a list of templates that does not cause page to be considered as "existing" one? _Vi (talk) 18:31, 2 August 2009 (UTC)