Template talk:Talkheader

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Template:Talkheader page.
Archives: Index, 1, 2
Template:Talkheader is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template.

Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases.
Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.
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Contents

[edit] what is the purpose of the Talkheader?

Why would one put it on a talk page? Why would one NOT put it on a talk page? Why not just automatically have it displayed on all talk pages? Kingturtle (talk) 22:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The header gives basic information to new users, like how to sign and the guidelines. I remember an old discussion about why the template should not be put in all talk pages (not all pages need them, just articles in the main space, and only those that may attract a good number of users). And the fact that MediaWiki:Talkpagetext exists is not enough, apparently, to deprecate this template. Check the deletion discussions linked above to read why people think this template is necessary. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 03:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
There has been discussion about doing that, perhaps putting it inside a css block so that experienced editors can turn it off. I know this template really annoys a lot of established users - myself included - so it's a shame that nothing happened. On Wikipedia, things can move extraordinarily quickly (wikidrama) or extraordinarily slowly (inertia, failure to get consensus etc). C'est la vie. My guess is this template won't be around forever....
As for why put it on a talk page and why not, please see the instructions. I think it's very clear that the template should not be added as a default and should only be added when undesirable talk page activity demonstrates that it's needed. --kingboyk (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Talk-Header on Meta-wiki user talkpage

Is it permitted for the talkheader code to be placed on my wikimedia "meta-wiki" user talkpage which would say this, the links i've changed because of it being on the wikimedia site and not wikipedia, but am i allowed to have it on, if so could you leave a message on my user talk via this Link which will lead to my userpage on meta-wiki.SKYNET X7000 (talk) 15:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[template code removed]

The {{talkheader}} template, like everything else on Wikipedia, may be copied and used however you like, provided you comply with the terms of the GFDL. Reusing Wikipedia content has details. • I had to remove your template code from this page, as there was an unclosed element (I couldn't find which) that was grabbing everything else after it (like my comment, here. You can retrieve the code from the page history (click edit to get the source; just don't save). —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 15:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] much less anything else

On the draft, Jake the Editor Man changed "This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject" to "This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject, much less anything else". While I agree with the sentiment, I believe past discussion (here, and at the TfDs) shows a clear consensus for keeping this template as concise as possible, and that addition would make that line long enough to almost always wrap. • I'm also not sure how productive it really would be to put it in, though that's just a comment, not an objection. • If people think I'm off-base in my interpretation of consensus, by all means add it to the draft again, and/or comment here. Thanks! —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please indent replies

Having been looking for a template to post on a messy article talk page frequented by loads of what I assume are IP newbies it's good to find this template. However it's missing a comment about indenting replies, such as Please indent replies using a colon - : Your reply ~~~~ -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmm. I know where you're coming from on that. I've toying around with the draft right now with some ideas for it. My only concern is that there has been a lot of previous desire to keep this template concise and brief, i.e., covering only the bare minimum and letting links do the rest. I'm not sure where indentation falls in that consensus. I suspect it makes the template too wordy. Information overload is a concern. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggesting move of "not a forum" message

If you take a look at the draft page, I moved the "not a forum" line inside the box, where a free line was already available. This way it doesn't heighten the box at all. Please check it out. Note that this line doesn't normally appear anywhere but on article talk pages, so I also added the text explicitly so it would appear on the draft page. Take a look at an article talk page (like Talk:I Am Legend (film) to see how it normally appears right now -- notice the extra line that currently gets created in the topmost section of the template. This change eliminates that extra line. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:26, 1 Feb 2008 (UTC)

FYI: I think (I'm not sure) the reason that line originally got put up in the top section was that the left (white background) section of the template has longer sentences, and thus tends to wrap more and sooner. If you narrow your browser window down to 640x480 pixels, you'll see what I mean. The white box gets unbalanced with text, leaving the middle and right sections with lots of extra whitespace ("tanspace"?). I don't think it really matters much. It might even be the Right Thing for what most people have for screens these days (I dunno). But I figured I'd mention it, for posterity. I also wanted to note that it's a good idea to test changes to this template (and similar templates) at a variety of window sizes. There's lots of different screens out there in the world. Cell phones and giant flat panels are not uncommon extremes. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:52, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alignment

The Talkheader is centrally aligned. Is there an option somehow to left align it?

If not perhaps extend this template to have that option or create another template TalkheaderLeft and TalkheaderRight? ChessCreator (talk) 17:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much all the WP:talk page templates are center-aligned. I don't think I've ever seen one left-aligned. That said, I think you should be able to customize your user CSS to declare class "standard-talk" to have style "text-align: left" to see what you want for yourself. See Help:User style for details on that. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please see my proposed change at VPR

I propose integrating an archive list into the talkheader template, the same way the Village pump header template does. See the discussion at village pump proposals (try to keep discussion centralized). Thanks. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:14, 23 Mar 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

I don't think this is a particularly controversial edit, so unless there's some objection, please replace the current template code with the code at User:Equazcion/sandbox3. This will just place archive links in the template, if any archives exist under the current page. If no archive pages exist, nothing will change. Thanks. See here for an example of what the integrated archive links will look like. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:08, 24 Mar 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion here

OK, I have no problem with it per se, but it should be made as an opt-in, as per most template changes, so we don't have drastic changes cross-wiki. Also, for pages with extensive archives, it should be able to be turned off. -- Avi (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the opt-in part. I think it should be automatic. I stupidly didn't test this from article space, hence the display issue. Once it's tested there I think it should be implemented by default, but the opt-out option is a good idea. Equazcion •✗/C • 22:38, 24 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I fixed the problem, and added the opt-out functionality. I created Talk:Test article as a temporary demonstration. The noarchive parameter will hide the archive list. Let me know what you think. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:09, 24 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I'm heading out now. I'm sorry for the trouble I caused via my stupidity -- I don't know what possessed me to assume this would work based only on a test in userspace. My apologies especially to Fuhghettaboutit, for making him implement my erroneous code. I rushed to get this implemented because I didn't think there would be much interest in discussing it, but if there is then great. Please let me know your thoughts/suggestions/etc. I still do think this should be implemented across-the-board rather than having to comb through miles of article talk pages to add a parameter. But of course that's up for discussion. Thanks again. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:24, 24 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Nothing to be sorry about. You had good intentions; I had good intentions; we were both a bit rash; the ultimate result was no harm done I don't think, and it got more eyes on the issue.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I've created a temporary template in the template namespace: {{talkheader4}} (talkheaders 2 and 3 are redirects). I've begun placing this on a few talk pages that have lots of archive pages, to make for an adequate test. I figure this will be a good trial run, and eventually when the decision is made whether or not to implement the changes, we'll just redirect talkheader4 to the original talkheader. Take a look at some of the pages in this list to see what the changes look like live. I welcome any input. Equazcion •✗/C • 03:05, 25 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Regarding opt-in vs. opt-out, unless there is good reason, I believe we try to make as minimal visible changes as possible when changing templates. This template must be on hundreds of thousands of pages, to change them all in one fell swoop is not appropriate, in my opinion. -- Avi (talk) 03:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we can test this adequately enough prior to implementing it, enough that we can be certain it won't cause trouble across-the-board -- especially now that I'm doing the live testing via talkheader4. But I'm of course open to implementing this via an opt-in parameter, if that's what everyone else wants to do. And thanks for your remarks, Fuhghettaboutit :) Equazcion •✗/C • 03:14, 25 Mar 2008 (UTC)
77,394 at the last count. I like the archive display in general; what will happen, however, when Talk:Adolf Hitler gets a couple more archives? Will it wrap? Or overflow? Happy‑melon 13:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
It should wrap. You can narrow your browser window to see what that'll look like. Equazcion •✗/C • 14:11, 25 Mar 2008 (UTC)
This improvement is the sort of thing that can take a lot of effort to get right (which is why extensive testing is a good idea, of course), but which will have large savings in editor time, eventually. (Not having to add a new archive to an archive box, in itself, is a major savings.) I for one want to express my appreciation for the proposed change; simplification (in terms of what editors need to know and do, even at the cost of more complexity within a template) is almost always (in my opinion) a good thing. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

(<-)I saw you tested it on Talk:Circumcision as well, looks pretty good. -- Avi (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks. I've got talkheader4 on about 10 pages, you can see them via whatlinkshere. Equazcion •✗/C • 11:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC-4)

Another reason opt-out is important is that there are certain pages where archives are aggregated by topic, and not chronology, so it would be confusing to have to alternate indexing schema on the same page. -- Avi (talk) 15:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Well the entire archive portion of the template only shows up if the archives use the standard "Archive #" naming convention. If they use any other names, no links show up at all, so whatever linking templates already in use on the page would continue to function as the sole archive link index. Equazcion •✗/C • 11:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC-4)

I understand that; however, sometimes the canonically-named archives are wikilinked to the archive boxes in a fashion other than by number, so the opt-out remains a necessary feature, I believe. Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 15:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Certainly the feature should have an opt-out. I would like to see a demonstration on a page which has unusual archive naming, to show that it doesn't produce wierd displays. Is there such an example? Happy‑melon 15:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Unusual archive names will produce no links. I don't have an example of that right now, but I can tell you what would happen is simply that the entire archive line would not be displayed. If I understand Avi's comment, he's concerned about duplicate links to the same numerically-named archives via differing link text, and that is a valid concern. In the interest of avoiding confusion, the opt-out is necessary (and is currently implemented via noarchive=yes). Melon, if you come across a page that has oddly-named archives, feel free to post talkheader4 there to see what'll happen. I don't know of any offhand to test this on. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:56, 28 Mar 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Equazcion, that was my concern and the "noarchive=yes" handles that admirably. -- Avi (talk) 15:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
If we want to test this further, perhaps a bot could be requested to replace {{talkheader}} with {{talkheader4}} on some articles (20? 50? 100?). The talk/discussion pages of the most viewed articles might be a good place to select articles from, since most of those probably have robust archives. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

← Thanks John -- I started using that list to post talkheader4 some more. HappyMelon might like to know that Talk:John McCain has non-standard archive names, and posting there shows that the archive line doesn't show up (which is good). Equazcion •✗/C • 17:47, 29 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I did some creative searching to find the talk pages with the most archives, and it's revealed a bug. It seems the archive list stops at 36. See Talk:George W. Bush and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera. The archive list in this template is actually a separate template that already existed, {{archive list}}. Posting the archive list template alone makes the list go up to 39 and then stop (even though more archives still exist). I'm still trying to figure this one out. If anyone has any ideas let me know. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:10, 30 Mar 2008 (UTC)
This seems to be a problem with the archive list template. talk:Anarchism shows the 36 limit in a separate archive box as well. I've posted a question at the template talk page. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:28, 30 Mar 2008 (UTC)
{{archive list}} is fixed now thanks to User:Tra. Everything seems to work now. See Talk:George W. Bush for a pretty long archive list. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:42, 30 Mar 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reality check

Past experience suggests that using #ifexist to generate a list of subpages might not be a very good idea [1] [2]. — CharlotteWebb 19:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

That's {{archive list}} you're talking about, and it's been rewritten to fix those problems, apparently. Equazcion •✗/C • 20:39, 2 Apr 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't "fix" the problems, just reducing the cost of using "archive list" (expressed as number of #ifexist calls) by a factor of roughly 25 for frequently archived pages. Adding this to talkheader would increase the overall number of uses by a much greater factor. So while fewer ifexist would be made per page-load, more would be made overall. Shrug. Seriously though, how many article talk pages have ever been archived? One percent? Maybe less. Checking for archives should be disabled by default. Or just use prefixindex by default, and allow talk pages to be manually switched to the more sophisticated method in the uncommon situation where more than 3 or 4 archives exist. — CharlotteWebb 21:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
{{archive list}} isn't called in every talkheader. There's a single ifexist to determine if an Archive 1 exists, and if it does, then{{archive list}} is called. This would only add a single new ifexist to all talk headers. To talk pages with archives, it would add the slough of {{archive list}} ifexist's, but presumably they would've already had it due to another archive listing template -- which will presumably be removed once this change is implemented, since this is meant to replace them all. Equazcion •✗/C • 22:34, 2 Apr 2008 (UTC)
I see what you mean, but this is still feature creep for talk pages which due to scarcity of comments have never been, and probably never will be, archived (the vast majority), but I give up. — CharlotteWebb 14:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Feature creep? Never heard that one. If features are beneficial, who cares if there are a lot of them? Anyway: This automatically provides an archive box for pages that would've had one added manually anyway. All other pages without the box would continue not having one, with basically no additional page processing necessary. I don't see the downside, and I have doubts that you do at this point either. Equazcion •✗/C • 15:44, 3 Apr 2008 (UTC)
I agree, and I think this has been in discussion long enough for any serious flaws or opposition to surface. Shall I replace {{talkheader}} with the contents of {{talkheader4}}?? Happy‑melon 14:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I've tested this in every conceivable talk space, and haven't seen any problems. No comments at VPR in the last 3 days. I think it's time. Equazcion •✗/C • 20:32, 8 Apr 2008 (UTC)
Y Done there goes the job queue! Happy‑melon 21:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Documentation

Equazcion, Perhaps you can add a note to the template documentation regarding the recent change. For example in what scenarios will archives be listed, where and how can they be turned off?. I'm currently interested why Talk:Scotland (for example) doesn't have them listed, while Talk:Adolf Hitler does and i've no desire to wade through that spaghetti of template code! Thanks/wangi (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A change to such a widely-used template isn't instantaneous; The change was just made and needs time to propagate through about 80,000 pages. It'll probably be a while before all pages show the change. Talk:Scotland shows the archive list for me currently though. I'll make the necessary additions to the documentation now. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:53, 8 Apr 2008 (UTC)
Done. Let me know if there's anything I left out. Equazcion •✗/C • 22:02, 8 Apr 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that, look complete/wangi (talk) 22:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Namespace/sub-page issues

The namespace #switch produces non-intuitive results when used on a sub-page in "user talk" space, e.g. "This is MaryJo/Sandbox's talk page, where you can send messages and comments to MaryJo/Sandbox". Might want to split these apart with {{SUBPAGENAME}}, {{BASEPAGENAME}} and use them to write something that actually makes sense. — CharlotteWebb 19:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggest adding "consensus" to template

This template has earned the respect of many editors for its calming, policy-based approach to editing and discussing articles. It has saved the day many times. One thing missing, though, is the injunction to editors to work at getting consensus for changes. WP:CON is one of the key behavioral policies. I would suggest adding the following to the template: "Editorial decisions are made by consensus." I could see adding this just below the first line that reads "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the XYZ article." It could be preceded by the word "Note." What do you think? Sunray (talk) 14:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, that didn't get much response yet. WP:CON puts it thus: "Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making." How could we best encourage editors to work towards consensus? What role could this template play in this? Sunray (talk) 23:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
This has large scope for creating confusion. It's easy for editors to get mislead with a single sentence about consensus. Many editors would take the suggested sentence 'Editorial decisions are made by consensus' with it's literal English meaning, and assume that consensus should be gathered before the first edit, instead of reading WP:CON which actually says make the first edit and only get consensus in the case of disagreement. So for this reason I suggest instead using WP:BRD as that would seem less likely to confuse. SunCreator (talk) 22:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, good point. One problem is that BRD is not policy. Perhaps we could use something close to your wording about getting consensus in the case of disagreement. Perhaps this wording:
Note: If there are disagreements, editorial decisions will be made by consensus. Sunray (talk) 05:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
To stress the negative 'disagreements' would in my opinion set the wrong tone on this template. WP:BRD is not a policy, but that's okay, neither is WP:AGF, WP:SIG and WP:NEWBIES which are referred to by this template already. SunCreator (talk) 09:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I should have said "BRD is neither a policy nor a guideline." I meant it is not part of the WP policy base. But I agree that it would be best to not state the negative. However, getting consensus on talk pages is very important. Would you be able to propose an alternative that refers people to WP:CON? Sunray (talk) 22:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately it's not easy to use WP:CON in a nice way. Perhaps just state the nutshell text. "Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making." SunCreator (talk) 11:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I like that. I'm mindful that it is just two of us talking here. How would we get such a change made? Sunray (talk) 15:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to add "consensus" to talkheader

{{editprotected}}

The recommended addition is:

"Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making."

This statement could be added in the top section of the box, just below: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Template:Talkheader page."

- OR -

In the section with the white background, just above the statement: "Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~)."

[edit] Rationale

Many times new editors (and even some that have been around for awhile) are unaware of WP:CON and how it works. It would be helpful in curbing edit wars to be able to refer combatants to the consensus policy in a nutshell (the quote) as a groundrule for talk page discussion. In my experience, this is not a perfect solution since a bunch of editors can gang up to prevent reasonable changes. However, such situations are rarely problematic, and there are other remedies, such as RfC and the dispute resolution process if it does happen.

Because of the importance of consensus for peaceful and productive talk pages, I recommend this addition. Sunray (talk) 20:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

N Not done Consensus deals with the article itself. Talkheader is for advice on how to edit talk pages, and not for advice about how to deal with articles. Although consensus should be reached on the talk page, {{Talkheader}} isn't the right place for a message like this. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 21:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I certainly agree that consensus applies to editorial decisions about the articles. What is the process for making such decisions? Sunray (talk) 21:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
The banner statement at the top of the talkheader states: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the [article or project] page." It seems to me that the means of deciding on those improvements is consensus, per WP:CON. What am I missing here? Sunray (talk) 20:13, 14 June 2008 (UTC)