Gamepedia Help Wiki:Tutorial/Talk pages

Talk pages are a key feature of Gamepedia, offering the ability to discuss articles and other issues with other Gamepedians. They are not to be used as a chat room, soapbox, battleground but for general discussion of the article topic.

If you have a question, concern or comment related to improving an article put a note in the article's talk page and not in the article itself. You do that by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Do not worry if the link shows up in red; it is all right to create the talk page if it does not already exist.

If you are responding to someone else's remarks, put your comment below theirs. You should indent it properly (see section below). If you are not responding to someone else, but are posting about something new, use the "+" tab at the top right of the talk page to create a new section, which automatically goes at the bottom of the page.

Signing comments
You should always sign your comments by typing  for your username plus a time signature. Then, when you click "Save page", your signature will be inserted automatically. Otherwise your posting will still appear but without your name. (For your convenience, there is a button at the top of the edit box with a signature icon which inserts "--~" when clicked.)

If you do not have a username account, or if you have one but have not logged in, your computer's external IP address will be used instead as your signature, when you type  and save your edit. In such cases, whether or not you sign your comment, your IP address will be recorded (in the page history) as having made the edit. If you do not want your IP address recorded by Gamepedia in this way so that everyone can see it, then you should get a username by.


 * For more information, see Signatures.

User talk pages
Every editor (every person with a username) has a user talk page on which other contributors can leave messages. This includes contributors who have not created an account. If someone has left you a message, you will receive an alert on the notification icon on the Gamepedia toolbar at the top right of the screen (if you are signed in) saying " left a message on your talk page.", with a link to your user talk page.

You can reply in either of two ways. One is to put a message on the user talk page of the person you are replying to. The other is to put your reply on your own talk page beneath the original message. Both are common on Gamepedia; however, be aware that replying on your own talk page runs the risk that your reply won't be seen, if the user does not look at your talk page again. If you intend to use this approach, it is a good idea to post a notice to that effect, at the top of your talk page, so people know they have to keep an eye on the page to see your response, rather than getting your response on their page.

Alternatively, users may choose to use their Profile page for communication, and have their talk pages either reserved for other use or disabled, according to the "User Page Type" setting in the Public Profile section of their Preferences page. If this is the case, please respect the user's wishes and use that feature as a point of contact.

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

There are several ways of indenting on Gamepedia:

Plain indentations
The simplest way of indenting is to place a colon at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example:

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, which are also used for lists. To insert a bullet (when your edit is saved), type an asterisk. Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

A brief example:

Which is shown as:
 * First list item
 * Second list item
 * Sub-list item under second
 * Third list item

Numbered items
You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or "octothorpe". This is usually used for polls and voting, and otherwise is fairly rare. Again, you can affect the indent of the number by the number of s you use.

Example:

Shows up as:
 * First item
 * Second item
 * Sub-item under second item
 * Third item

Example discussion
Here is an example of a well-formatted discussion:

Hi. I have a question about this article. It doesn't say where I can find Mankrik's wife. GamepediaUser 02:49, 10 Oct 2015 (UTC)
 * She's south of the Crossroads. &mdash; Barrens4Evah 17:28, 11 Oct 2015 (UTC)
 * Both these sites say she's at 49, 50:
 * Wowhead
 * WoWDB
 * &mdash; RIP_Olgra 19:09, 12 Oct 2015 (UTC)
 * Mankrik's wife was removed in the Cataclysm expansion. The people below agree that it's a tragedy to have lost such an important character: ChukNoris 17:28, 14 Oct 2015 (UTC)
 * MankriksWife 01:22, 15 Oct 2015 (UTC)
 * ILoveWoW 05:41, 15 Oct 2015 (UTC)
 * metoo 18:39, 27 Nov 2015 (UTC)

Note that if you want to include a list in your comments, add colons before each item, for example:



- Again, signing your message (posting) is done by:
 * Writing ~ for your name and date (GamepediaUser 19:09, 12 Oct 2015 (UTC))

You can add a signature only, or a date only, but this is unusual. Here is how:
 * Writing for the name (GamepediaUser), or
 * Writing for the date only (19:09, 12 Oct 2015 (UTC)).

Votes are often signed with names only.


 * For more information, see Talk pages.

Other project pages
In addition to Talk pages, there are some other categories of behind-the-scenes pages that help Gamepedians communicate with each other, and serve a variety of other roles in building Gamepedia. These different areas are often referred to as namespaces &mdash; as in, "the Talk namespace".

Pages in the Project namespace provide information about the game's wiki and how to use it. Each Gamepedia wiki's Project namespace is named after the game that the wiki is dedicated to. For example, the Project namespace on the Minecraft Wiki is named "Minecraft Wiki".

Content written in a Template page will be displayed in articles that contain the corresponding template reference. For example, the content written in Template:Stub will appear in any article that contains the Stub tag. Take a look at the templates category to see what templates have already been created. You can use the corresponding tags in articles. You can also create new templates.

All of these project pages also have Talk pages of their own.


 * For more information, see Namespaces.

Continue the tutorial with Keep in mind

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