Tutorial (Talk pages)

Talk pages are a key feature of the STS Roundtable wiki, offering the ability to discuss articles and other issues with other STS Roundtable contributors.

If you wanted to ask a question about an article, or you have a concern or comment, you can put a note in the article's talk page. 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 alright to create the talk page if it does not already exist.

When you post a new comment, put it at the bottom of the talk page. The exception is that if you are responding to someone else's remarks, put your comment below theirs. You can indent your comment by typing a colon (:) at the beginning of a line.

You should sign your comments by typing ~~~ for just your username, or ~~~~ for your username and a time signature (see the example discussion below). This way, when you save the page, your signature will be inserted automatically. Otherwise your comments, etc., will still appear but without your name. Most of us use time signatures because it makes following discussions much easier. For your convenience, there is a button at the top of the edit box with a signature icon which automatically inserts "-~~~~".

User talk pages

Every STS Roundtable wiki user has a user talk page, on which other STS Roundtable wiki users can leave messages. If someone has left you a message, you will see a note saying "You have new messages", 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. Be aware, however, 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 choose this approach, it is a good idea to post a notice at the top of your talk page so people know they have to keep an eye on it.

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 in STS Roundtable:

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:

This is aligned all the way to the left.

: This is indented slightly.

:: This is indented more.

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, usually used for lists. To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

For example:

* First list item

* Second list item

** Sub-list item under second

* Third list item

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. Again, you can affect the indent of the number by the number of #'s you use.

For example:

# First item

# Second item

## Sub-item under second item

# Third item

Shows up as:

1. First item
2. Second item
   1. Sub-item under second item
3. Third item

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

::: Okay, these journals agree with me:

::: * ''STS Monthly''

::: * ''STS World''

::: — [[STS Roundtable:User page|try2BEEhelpful]] 19:09, 12 Dec 2007 (UTC)

Also, signing your message off is done by:

• Writing ~~~ for the name (try2BEEhelpful), or
• Writing ~~~~ for the name and date (try2BEEhelpful 19:09, 12 Dec 2007 (UTC)), or
• Writing ~~~~~ for the date only (19:09, 12 Dec 2007 (UTC)).

You should usually sign with both name and date, but votes are often signed with names only.

Experiment

Experiment! This time, instead of editing a sandbox, leave a message on the talk page by clicking "Discussion". Remember that you can only do this if you are logged in, and remember to sign your user name. You might want to try responding to someone else's post. Remember, you should use "Show preview" to see if your formatting works before you save.