Pensapedia:Talk page

This page documents an Pensapedia guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss your idea on the talk page.

Not to be confused with user pages.

There are two types of discussion pages, more commonly called talk pages — standard talk pages, which are used to discuss an article, a template, a category, etc., and user talk pages, which are used to communicate with other users or leave them messages. Every page has an associated talk page, except pages in the Special: namespace. If there has never been any text on a talk page, the link to the talk page from the article, category, etc., will be red. You can still discuss the page — you will just be the first person to edit the respective talk page.

Article talk pages are provided for discussion of the content of articles and the views of reliable published sources. Talk pages are useful such that they may contain information that is not on the article, but such information is often unverified and thus unreliable. Talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views.

Contents

Accessing a talk page

To access a talk page look for a tab or link labeled discussion. These tabs or links will be found at the top of the page.

The name of a standard talk page is "Talk:" plus the article's title. For example, the talk page of the article City of Pensacola is Talk:City of Pensacola. For a page name that has a prefix, "talk" is added to the prefix before the colon. For example, the talk page associated with the user page User:Admin is User talk:Admin. This page is in the Pensapedia: namespace, so the talk page for this page is Pensapedia talk:Talk page. The Main Page is in the main namespace (because it has no prefix), so its talk page is simply Talk:Main Page.

You have new messages

After someone else edits your user talk page, the alert "You have new messages (last change)" is automatically displayed on all pages you view until you view your user talk page.

Using talk pages

You should sign and date your contributions on all talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~), which will yield something like: Username 19:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC).

The "Post a comment" feature (the tab labeled "new section", at the top of a talk page) allows you to start a new section without needing to edit the whole page. The section header becomes the edit summary at the time you save the page, so there is no edit summary box displayed when you use this feature.

Occasionally, talk pages for Pensapedia articles will have one or more templates (such as {{talkheader}}) placed at the top of the page with guidelines for editing the page. Templates of this nature are usually for the benefit of new users or ISP editors (anons) who may be unfamiliar with talk page guidelines, and frequently appear only on articles that are either subject to intense criticism due to their content or articles where the subject material is new or growing due to recent events (e.g. upcoming sporting events, ongoing weather and game related articles, recently deceased persons, etc).

Formatting

Start a new section to discuss a new topic. Start new topics at the bottom of the page.

For a top-level heading, put it on a separate line surrounded by '=='. Example: == Heading ==

Add comments concerning current discussions below the latest entry in the section where they are relevant, or below the specific comment to which they apply, paying attention to indentation.

The indentation of a comment gives a visual depiction of how a discussion has progressed. It is determined by the number of colons (':') in front of it. If a reply is made to a statement, you should add a colon to the number of colons used in the statement being replied to.