Help:Talk pages

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Talk pages are 100% completely identical to normal pages in how they work. You can use all wikitext markup tricks in talk pages, the software does not handle them differently. The following are the basics:

Create subject headers using ==Subject==. Indent your messages in responding to other editors using colons. Sign off your posts with your signature of ~~~~ as standard. Be sure to notify users using the template {{re|User}}. For example, a fictional conversation between two editors you might find on the Differentials talk page:

==Difference between diffs and normalised==
Hey guys, what should be the advice given about differentials? ~~~~
:{{re|User}} Differentials should be 1-2 diopters below your normalised prescription. We should put this in the lead section of the article. ~~~~
::{{re|OtherUser}} Oh great, many thanks! ~~~~

Will be rendered as (with the heading removed):

Hey guys, what should be the advice given about differentials? User (talk) 13:58, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@User: Differentials should be 1-2 diopters below your normalised prescription. We should put this in the lead section of the article. OtherUser (talk) 14:08, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
@OtherUser: Oh great, many thanks! User (talk) 14:11, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

You can also press the 'Add topic' button so you don't have to type ==Topic title== before your messages.

As you can see, using talk pages is ridiculously easy. Just remember though: anything you can do, Wikipedia can do better Click here for Wikipedia's explanation about talk pages..

Signatures

Signatures can be configured using the Preferences button in the top right. It's better to keep this as simple as possible, and there's literally nothing wrong with the default signature. Definitely check out Wikipedia's page on how to customise signatures if you want to leave your mark a bit more on every talk page you visit. Who doesn't like a colourful talk page?

Again, none of WPs policies apply to signatures, except please do not include images or files in your signatures as they cause unnecessary server load and make talk pages look horrible.

Posts can be signed off with four tildes or three. Four is by definitely what most people should use in most circumstances. Here's the difference:

~~~~

User (talk) 14:08, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

~~~

User (talk)

Forgetting to use signatures will leave everyone confused really quickly, so please make it a habit to include ~~~~ at the end of all your messages on talk pages! :)

Notifying other users

When you reply to a user on any other talk page aside from their own talk page, they won't be notified unless you remember to send a notification template to them. This is super easy to do!!

When responding to people, type the following at the beginning of your message:

{{re|User}}

@User: is how it is displayed. This will send a notification to the user through the notification system.

You can also use {{u|User}}

User is how this one looks, and can be used to mention someone's username without the @ symbol.


Adding symbol messages

You can add loads of funny symbol messages to what you say. Here are some examples.

 Done

Emoji u1f52e.svg Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.

Light bulb iconBFlashing bulbB

Idea:

light bulb New proposal


Face-wink.svg Thanks

See more at EM:Symbol messages.