MEpedia:Discussion and collaboration

Discussion, or talk, pages are a forum for contributors to discuss changes if they need advice on an edit they are considering, or if they have concerns about a change that's been made. Every MEpedia article has a discussion page, as does each contributor. These discussion pages are the main form of communication within MEpedia.

You may also occasionally email another user at Special:EmailUser, but that should only be done sparingly. In the interest of discussion transparency, users are encouraged to avoid using this email feature. Users can disable this feature in their preferences in order to avoid receiving any emails from users. (You may also block emails from specific users at Special:Mute, but this feature may not yet be available.)

Where to start a discussion

 * Article’s discussion page. If you have a question or comment about a particular MEpedia article, it is often best to leave your question or comment on that article’s discussion page, even if your question will be directed to a particular contributor. Others who have the page on their watchlist may have valuable input to contribute.  Other contributors can also be explicitly invited to a new discussion.

"Note: While contributors who do not have an MEpedia account do not have user pages, they do have a discussion page associated with their IP address and you may leave them a message there. Bear in mind that if their IP address changes, they may not see your message to the old IP's discussion page. (This is a good reason to create an account!)"
 * User’s discussion page. If you have a question or comment for a specific contributor that's not limited to one article, it is best to leave your question or comment on that contributor's User Discussion page. Be sure that you are adding it to their User Discussion page (e.g. User talk:Pyrrhus) rather than editing their User Page (e.g. User:Pyrrhus).


 * Discussion Forum / Help desk. Contributor availability can vary significantly, so if you need help quickly, you can also start your discussion at the Discussion Forum / Help Desk and get input from the contributor(s) available to reply to you soonest.


 * Admins. If you need input or assistance that requires Administrator rights, you can find a list of editors with those permissions at Special:ListUsers/sysop.

How to use a discussion page
To use a discussion page, click the "Discussion" tab at the top left of the page.


 * If no one has discussed anything on the page before, you will see a blank page. Click the “Add topic” tab to start the first discussion.
 * If the discussion page already exists, you'll see the preceding discussions. Check to see if your question has been addressed!
 * To respond to a discussion under way, add your comment below the comment you wish to reply to.
 * To start a new discussion, click the "Add topic" tab: this opens a new discussion at the bottom of the page.
 * Note: If you start a new discussion manually, please make sure to add your new topic at the bottom of the page to keep discussion in chronological order.

Discussion formatting 101
Writing in a discussion page uses the source editor and so requires certain symbols called "wikitext". Don't worry: a few formatting tricks and you'll be on your way!


 * Discussions are threaded using colons (":") to indent each new line. If you're responding to an existing discussion, indent your comment by adding one colon more than the number used in the comment you're replying to (i.e. the first comment won't be indented; but the second comment will use one colon, then if you're the third person to comment, use two colons). If you start a second paragraph, make sure to indent that as well. This indentation keeps the conversation thread readable.


 * If you don't use a colon (":") to start a new line, you can start a new line with "  ".  If you don't have a colon or "   " at the beginning of the new line, it may show up as a continuation of the last paragraph, not as a new paragraph.

"Note: If you're commenting on the discussion page associated with a contributor's user page, there's no need to leave this link; they will get a ‘new message’ notification automatically."
 * To invite another contributor to join the discussion, you can link to that contributor’s page by putting "User:" in front of the contributor's name, and placing that inside double brackets "" "" . For example, Inviting contributor User:Pyrrhus to the discussion.  Depending on the contributor's notification settings, this generally sends them an alert.  When deciding whom to invite to the discussion, you can find out who has recently edited the page by clicking on "View History" at the top of the page being discussed.


 * Always end your comment with four tilde characters " ~ ", which signs your name and a timestamp to the comment. Alternatively, you may be able to just click the 'Signature' button above the editing window, if the button is visible.

Save the page and you're done!

Discussion etiquette
On the discussion pages for MEpedia entries or other users' pages, exercise caution before editing, reformatting, or deleting others' comments. Generally no one will take offense to basic help making sure a discussion is properly threaded and new topics are added chronologically, but when in doubt, defer to the way the original contributor presented their comment. (Unambiguous vandalism excepted.)

On your own user talk page, you are generally free to organize or delete material as you like.

How to collaborate with other editors
This section describes best practices for collaboration between editors.

Learn more

 * MediaWiki’s discussion page help.