Wikipedia:Indentation

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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.
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WP:INDENT

Good Indentation makes prolonged discussions easier to read and understand. It might be helpful to think of discussions as reports with numbered/bulleted sections and subsections where material is not necessarily written in chronological order. Remember to also follow the Talk page guidelines. In these examples the bolded line is the most recently added comment. Long discussions should be split up by level two headings to provide [edit] section links and reduce edit conflicts.

[edit] Indentation guidelines

1. Comments appear beneath the comment they are a reply to:

I think good indentation is extremely helpful--Whosonfirst

Me two--Whatsonsecond
2. If two comments exist in reply to one specific comment, they should be at the same level of indentation with the oldest comment at the top:

I think good indentation is extremely helpful--Whosonfirst

Me two--Whatsonsecond
Me three--Idontknow
3. Any reply to a comment should be placed below that comment at the bottom of the list of that comment's replies. If the comment you are replying to has already been commented on, your reply should should appear before the next comment in that list:

I think good indentation is extremely helpful--Whosonfirst

Me two--Whatsonsecond
I thought you didn't like indentation, Whatsonsecond--Why
Me three--Idontknow
4. A comment that is being added to a list of replies should go at the bottom. This includes any sub-threads which follow the last item in that list; do not separate a comment from its replies:

I think good indentation is extremely helpful--Whosonfirst

Me two--Whatsonsecond
I thought you didn't like indentation, Whatsonsecond--Why
Me three--Idontknow
I thought you didn't like indentation either, Idontknow--Because
I thought that too, Because--Today
Me four--Tomorrow

[edit] See also