Wikipedia talk:Talk page formatting
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This is an interesting idea, but all too few editors even follow the existing practice... not sure that this would help. -- Visviva 01:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
- I see. Let's practice this method as we find it better than the existing practices and suggest it to others. Well, we can't change the whole world of Wikipedia overnight, but with time, it will survive (and outlive other practices) if it is the fittest.
--ADTC 12:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
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- I have seen some pages that already use this method (sorry, can't cite an example offhand). But I like the idea, and it is great to suggest it to others. Talk pages are more informal than articles, so they are more flexible in presentation. I don't think it is the sort of thing we want to press too hard. --Blainster 02:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
OK. Perhaps this would most wisely tagged as {{essay}}, then? :-) -- Visviva 03:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
- So what's this {{essay}}? How does it differ from policy? --ADTC 08:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
- See WP:POL for details. Basically, you cannot enforce a specific kind of formatting onto other users. If everybody thought this was a good idea, everybody would already be doing it this way - hence it follows that not everybody thinks this is the best way of formatting. (Radiant) 14:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
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- Radiant!'s comment above illustrates one problem with this; the two indents look perfectly natural, but as Radiant! is the fourth person to join the conversation the proposal would make the comment a three-colon indent. (This comment has a four-colon indent, as I'm the fifth unique person to comment here.) In situations with lots of users involved it would really get out of hand (at least it's possible to reset the margins with the current system). The proposal also makes it difficult to figure out what someone is replying to; it's hard under this proposal to back up and reply to an earlier comment. --ais523 17:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Radiant! I can't even get people to leave the discussion on a single user talk page...most people (slight majority in my experience) like to bounce back and forth, leaving each new message on the other's talk page. That really messes up readability—if you can just get people to agree to keep the discussion in one place that would be a step forward. But I doubt even that's achievable. —Doug Bell talk 06:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
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- See WP:POL for details. Basically, you cannot enforce a specific kind of formatting onto other users. If everybody thought this was a good idea, everybody would already be doing it this way - hence it follows that not everybody thinks this is the best way of formatting. (Radiant) 14:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Some other thoughts
One advantage of the proposed method is that an edit link is available for each individual dialogue. Instead of editing an entire section of the talk page (which can get very large), one can easily edit only the relevant dialogue. If discussions are split up into distinct and exact dialogues, there would likely not be more than 3 or 4 participants in each, so the indenting wouldn't get too out of hand. Responding to a comment that already has responses could be very difficult, though, as ais523 pointed out. —PurpleRAIN 20:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
