Contents → Talk pages A talk page is a special page that is devoted to discussion about the contents of its associated subject page. To view the talk page, click on the "Talk" link in the dropdown menu located next to the edit button. When you are viewing the talk page, you can click on the "Back to page" link to go back to the associated page. Talk pages are available for all namespaces.
Talk pages are used for:
- Comments about articles. Positive or negative feedback from readers is always welcome for any article!
- Discussing the validity of an article. Sometimes, a reader or other contributor might have a question about the canonicity of a certain fact described in an article. The talk page can be used to iron out differences of opinion concerning the article's validity.
- Discussing potential changes to an article. Often, it becomes necessary to rewrite an article. The talk page is a useful place to discuss what sort of changes are needed.
However, talk pages are not used simply for general discussion or chat; that's what our discussions feature is for (see What Memory Alpha is not).
User talk[]
Every contributor who registers an account with Memory Alpha has their own user talk page. User talk pages are intended to facilitate communications between archivists (the contributors to Memory Alpha). As such, they have a few extra features to make them more useful.
There is a link to your own user talk page at the bottom left of every page, in the pop-up menu under your profile picture.
If someone edits your user talk page (adding a comment, for example), you will receive a notification, which you can view by clicking on the notifications bell in the bottom left of every page.
Note that user talk pages are public, just like every other page on Memory Alpha. As such, they should not be used for any sort of private communications. They should be treated like all other talk pages.
To access another user's talk page, navigate to their user page and click the "Talk" link, which can be found in the dropdown menu next to the edit button and between the "About" and "Contributions" links below the user's profile. On special pages (such as the recent changes page and the watchlist) and in most users' signatures on talk pages, you can click on the "talk" links that follow the user's name.
Post a comment[]
If you wish to add a comment on a talk page, you have two options.
- If you want to bring up a new topic, click the "add topic" button in the upper right corner of the page. Fill in the "subject" field with a short description of what your topic is. Then, write out your comment in the text box below.
- If you want to add a comment to a discussion that is already in progress, click the edit icon next to that section's header. This will bring you to an edit box. Scroll to the bottom and add your comment.
In either case, please try your best to follow the standards and practices outlined below.
Standards and practices[]
A few general standards apply to all talk pages, simply to keep them reasonably well-organized and easily readable.
- Indent posts for organization. The first contributor to a talk page should have no indentation in the message. The next person starts their message with one colon (:), and the third person uses two colons (::), and so on. If the first person replies to the message again, he or she uses the same indentation for their subsequent messages as for the first message. This method helps distinguish who is saying what.
- Add new posts to the bottom of the section. The further down the contribution is in the thread, the later it was posted. If your comment is in response to something earlier in the thread, then make an indication of such. If an entirely new thread has broken from the original discussion and all comments below that break point, it should be separated into a new topic as a subsection of the prior topic.
- Separate discussion topics. Put each new topic under a separate section header.
- Sign your posts on talk pages. To sign a post, please add four tildes (~~~~) after your comment; the tildes will be replaced with your signature (as set in your preferences) and a timestamp.
- Archive, don't delete. When the talk page has become extremely long or has been inactive for an extended period of time, it's important to not delete talk page content, but to archive it instead.
- If a large amount of time has passed since the last active discussion on the talk page, it may simply be moved to a subpage (with a name such as "archive 1").
- If there are recent discussions on the talk page that are not yet ready to be archived, an administrator should perform the archiving, as a temporary page deletion is required to maintain page history attribution.
- Summarize discussion. When a lengthy discussion has died down and been ignored for several weeks, you might place a summary of the key points at the beginning, as if you were writing an article concerning the discussion. Be sure to cover opposing arguments and present them from an unbiased view. Cover common ground if possible.
- Don't edit others' posts. Aside from correcting indents, broken links, and administrators removing personal attacks, never edit someone else's post in any way. If you are uncertain whether it is acceptable in the circumstances, don't do it. Editing or deleting your own posts can be done at your own discretion, so long as no one has commented on or responded to them.
- Use UTC to tell time. Referring to the time in UTC helps standardize the clocks and ensure that there's no confusion concerning the timing of specific events.
- Provide appropriate references. It is important to indicate what page, user edit, situation, et cetera, you are referring to when using a talk page. This can be done by providing a page or user name, providing a diff link (preferably via Special:Diff), or other applicable means. Try to be as specific and clear as possible.