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Edit request from Lightmouse, 31 August 2011

Header templates dominate talk pages. They can be a burden on small screens. A simple improvement would be to eliminate wasted space at left and right. Another line can be recovered by eliminating the redundant duplicated phrase "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Talk header article."

  1. Please maximise the width.
  2. Please delete "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Talk header article."

Lightmouse (talk) 09:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I suspect this may be controversial, so I will ask you to discuss these changes and obtain a consensus first. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying both points are controversial? Lightmouse (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I am not confident that either of your two proposals are uncontroversial. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

What's controversial about eliminating wasted space at the left and right? Where would I go to find out who wants the space? Lightmouse (talk) 16:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: option for maximum width

In response to a suggestion at the village pump, I propose that this template has an option for maximum width (even if the default is smaller). This would allow verbose headers to consume less vertical space. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 11:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't really mind what the width is, but would prefer that all these message boxes have a consistent look. If some pages use full width and others use 80% then it does not look tidy or professional. (By the way I have removed your {{editprotected}} until such time as there is consensus for a change.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that they should all be consistent. That's why I said at the village pump: "The coordination and justification is more than I can solve by myself". If you can tell me who or where this can be resolved, I'd be grateful. Lightmouse (talk) 11:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

To be clear: the proposal by Lightmouse is to widen the template optionally, so that heavy text-loaded templates don't exessicve page length. Currently width:80%, that could be made into width:{{{width|80%}}} or switched 80% - 100%. -DePiep (talk) 15:28, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Custom widths are very bad ideas. They would break the uniform look that people work so hard to get, and would not match up any other banners present on the talk page. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:03, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)The other way around: width is set here, so it should be here. And atop: do you really mean to point to two places of talk? Even omitting the third one, where you were active in this? Why don't you just say right away: discuss everywhere, and let it bog down in the sandy tracks? -DePiep (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Headbomb, you changed your post [1] making me look like a fool. Removing your own edit from a talkpage we do not do. -DePiep (talk) 21:15, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
In what kind of world do you live that one cannot refactor his own comments? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:17, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Hold you arrogace, mister (m/f). I responded to a post you put here. When you delete your post afterwards, my reply reads nonsense. Now you come complaining at my door for that? There is a guidance for that (and note that this is not your own talkpage). -DePiep (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
You are responsible for your own replies. That you chose to ignore the edit conflict is your problem, not mine. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:47, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Don't delete a post, not even your own. You can strike. -DePiep (talk) 22:03, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
That applies to posts that have replies. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
qed. -DePiep (talk) 22:08, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Go take some basic logic classes. I modified my comment before you replied. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

I have a suggestion to improve visibility and access to our dispute resolution processes, partly because newer users sometimes will get frustrated and leave due to edit warring etc. I propose that a link to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution is added below the "Be welcoming" section. Also perhaps there could be an easy way for a user to flag the page as needing outside input, perhaps adding a category such as Category:Pages needing dispute resolution. Not sure, but part of the problem is a lack of eyes on disputes so this may help. Thoughts? Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 04:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

(I've disabled the request. Please wait till you have a consensus before applying.) Personal opinion: a link might be useful but I would oppose any lengthening of this banner as it is already quite large. If you can replace an existing link with this one it might be okay. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Ah, sorry about that. Well, Be polite and avoid personal attacks could be replaced with "Be courteous" with a link to Wp:Etiquette, or to the talk page guidelines. That could work. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 11:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm with Martin/MSGJ on the not making it longer aspect. This template already suffers from major feature creep (full disclosure: I am one of the perpetrators). Which largely leaves us with the question of, "What's more useful in the banner?". I can't really come up with a compelling argument for either case. While WP:Etiquette covers "Be polite" pretty well, having an explicit "Avoid personal attacks" statement could be said to be of benefit for newcomers. All of the pages in question link to each other. I suppose one could say WP:DR is a consequence of the others, so stating the principles (do this) is more useful to the newcomer (they can click to find out how, if they don't already know). Lacking a compelling argument, I tend to fall in favor of the status quo. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 12:16, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I really like the idea of a link to Dispute resolution, but I was going to hold off because I noticed this thread and the worries that the template was already too long. However, I also noticed that the four links on the right-hand bar were essentially all saying the same thing: "Act professionally". The list of four links used to be:

I played around with the display and possible wording a little, and I found a way to include a prominent link to the DR page that doesn't expand the template (which I agree is quite length, and - as a passing comment - probably in need of an update: it's been the same since I joined Wikipedia, I think). Here's what I changed it to:

Does that seem okay? AGK [•] 19:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This is done, and I don't really feel strongly enough to oppose, but I'd like to point out that the significantly longer wording causes major wrapping on all but the biggest of screens. Next time please consider that. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 03:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Guidance on position

Could the doc page please include guidance on where this template should be placed relative to WikiProject templates (before or after?). The doc page currently says it should be put, "at the top of the page (above existing conversations)." I just found one Talk page where it was between two WikiProject templates, which can't be right, but I wasn't sure to where I should move it. HairyWombat 05:56, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done. There's no hard-and-fast rule, but it generally goes at the very top. I definitely agree that it would be strange in between two WikiProject banners. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 10:15, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Indentation

When you reply to someone on a talk page your comment should be indented from their comment using colons (':'). I think it would be great if Template:Talk header could cover this too. Hyacinth (talk) 02:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It's referenced through the first "talk page" link that links to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, which in turn talks about it and links first Wikipedia:Indentation and then later also Help:Using talk pages#Indentation.
Maybe the guidelines link itself should be made more explicit. Perhaps a "Follow the guidelines!" link just before "This is not a forum..."? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:36, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

RE: New feature for Template:Talkheader

In connection with New feature for Template:Talkheader I'd like to propose that

search=yes be the default when not specified otherwise. Rationale:

  • I've lost count of the number of talk pages I've visited where I make this change before posting.
  • Including it by default may encourage editors to search discussion archives and potentially avoid duplicated discussions, or at least easily refer to prior discussions in new threads.

Please note that because of the protection (and also the small matter of me having to research how templates work) I wouldn't be able to undertake any consensus change myself. Thanks for reading. -- Trevj (talk) 12:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

  • Weak oppose: Though I think that every talk page with archives must have some search widget, this one is not the only option available. On some pages it is even hard to discover due to cluttered headers (several WikiProjects' templates, GA/FA, AfD history notes etc.). At the same time, there are unarchived talk pages, which shouldn't show this. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 08:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Support but with more sophisticated handling: search bar visibility should follow that of archive bar. If I'm not mistaken, that means the following change:
--- th.orig     Sun Dec 18 10:08:40 2011
+++ th  Sun Dec 18 10:10:58 2011
@@ -69,9 +69,7 @@
 {{#if:{{{noarchive|{{{noarchives|}}}}}}||{{#ifexist:{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive 1|
 <tr><td colspan=4 style="text-align: center; border-top: 1px solid #c0c090; padding: 1px 3px">'''[[Help: Archiving a talk page|Archives]]:''' {{#ifexist:{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive index|[[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive index|Index]],&#32;}}{{#ifexist:{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive A|{{Archive list alpha|nobr=yes|root={{FULLPAGENAME}}}},&#32;|}}{{Archive list|nobr=yes|root={{FULLPAGENAME}}}}</td>
 </tr>
-}}
-}}
-{{#if:{{{search|}}}|
+{{#if:{{{nosearch|}}}||
 <tr><td colspan=4 style="text-align: center; border-top: 1px solid #c0c090; padding: 0"><inputbox>
 type=fulltext
 prefix={{#tag:nowiki|{{FULLPAGENAME}}/}}
@@ -79,6 +77,8 @@
 break=no
 </inputbox></td>
 </tr>
+}}
+}}
 }}
 </table><noinclude>
 {{documentation}}

Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

  • Support - This idea seems reasonable; I seem to find myself annoyed at the lack of a search box for archives quite often. ~~ Hi878 (Come shout at me!) 18:13, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Question - is there any way of telling how many pages include this template, have archives, and have no archive search? What order of magnitude are we looking at here? — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I believe there is no way to get this info. And it isn't really needed as this template is daily added to new articles, so this change might be worth more in terms of future template usage. I would also note that having search box won't harm the pages that currently don't feature archives, as it seems to be an ordinary practice to set up a bot archiving without thinking about accessing previous discussions once they are archived. Since the October 2011 I fixed probably a couple of dozens of such cases (and I'm mostly editing in a fairly narrow field). — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 13:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Fair enough - I thought that might be the answer. Still, it sounds like a good idea, and it's not as if I was opposed to it previously - so support. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 18:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
        • For the future, I would advise dropping something at WP:Database reports. They can usually drag something up for you. --Izno (talk) 21:29, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment Consensus support appears to have been reached and the discussion's been active for >1 month. Is there any chance of this please being closed and implemented by someone some time? Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 11:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
    I've just manually added this for another talk page. Now placing request at WP:VPT. -- Trevj (talk) 14:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Conditional support There are thousands of pages without talk page archives. It would be quite silly to have a search bar on these pages because no archives exist. If this cannot be done, then I oppose this change. While it is a pain going through and manually adding the links to pages with existing talk archives, it would be a much bigger task for pages without talk page archives. The better solution would be to write a bot that adds |search = yes to all talk pages with archives. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 03:03, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
    Yeah that's possible - that's what the {{#ifexist:{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive 1|... does, i.e. it only shows the archive-related stuff if the first archive page exists. See mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions#.23ifexist for how it works. Personally I'm not sure if there's much point doing this if there's only one archive. Perhaps it might be better to only show the search box if, say, Archive 2 exists. Tra (Talk) 06:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
    I agree that it makes much more sense when there's more than one archive. -- Trevj (talk) 21:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
    I would leave the search even for a single page for the sake of consistency: once the search becomes on by default, the habit of searching with this box will phase out other means of searching, so that the lack of search box would be seen as distraction. Though if the consensus would be on avoiding search box in case of single archive page, this template already makes use of "#ifexist", so making the search box show up if there are two or more archives will be mostly a copy-paste job.
    Good point. Another thing I was thinking of was perhaps losing the extra slash in the prefix setting so that the current discussion page is included in the search. That way people wouldn't need to do two searches when looking up an old discussion if they're not sure if it's been archived yet. Tra (Talk) 00:17, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
    Is anyone else getting sick of adding this parameter manually? -- Trevj (talk) 08:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
    Just to clarify, I support the change in principle and if my suggestions are not implemented then that's fine by me (to make it easier to determine a consensus). Tra (Talk) 09:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Further to the above discussions, and with reference to User talk:Tra#Template:Talk header, User talk:Czarkoff/Archive 3#Template:Talk header, could someone with the appropriate rights please consider editing the template? My attempt at implementing this is in the sandbox. It would also be appreciated if people could please take a look at Template talk:Archives#search=yes as default while they're at it. Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 10:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Your sandbox code isn't working correctly. It doesn't hide the search box if you specifically include "|search=no" on a page that has archives. Please correct this problem and check for any other potential issues. Then, ping me on my talk page and I'll make the edit. ‑Scottywong| confer _ 16:27, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Correction: Looks like the |search=no functionality was never supported in the template, so this isn't necessarily an "error". However, if we're going to force the search bar to show up on pages with an archive, I think we should give people an option to turn it off, should they need to for some reason. ‑Scottywong| comment _ 16:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks so much for looking into this. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about templates! Could you possibly suggest another editor who may be able to assist? Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 16:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I kinda need a distraction right now, so I'll have another look at this. I've changed it so that the search box logic is separate from the archive lists. What it does is if /Archive 1 exists or /Archive A exists then the search box shows, otherwise it doesn't. This can then be overridden by specifying |search=yes or |search=no e.g. for pages with non-standard archiving systems. Tra (Talk) 18:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Ok,  Done we're live. Tra (Talk) 18:27, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Thank you -- Trevj (talk) 14:42, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Template:Talk_header_for_guidelines

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Templates&diff=489512831&oldid=489508356 – Is anyone here interested in updating and improving Template:Talk_header_for_guidelines? It's based on the October 2006 version of Template:Talk header, and it hasn't changed much since until recently. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 22:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Italics handling

In Template talk:Talk header/Archive 6#Italic article titles, code was added to this template to handle pages with italic titles. This code, for only the most minor aesthetic gain, currently makes up very nearly 50% of the total codebase of this template. I don't think this is at all necessary, and makes further work on this template more difficult (not to mention adding 2K to the size of every page that transcludes it, when only a tiny number make any use of the option). I'm planning on removing this; if anyone feels strongly enough about the option then it should be re-coded so as to work in a sub-template which would only be called as required, and which would massively simplify this template's overall code. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:12, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

  • Support The increased bandwidth for such little gain seems unjustified. Casual readers won't notice. And how many editors really care about such stuff? {{DISPLAYTITLE}} can always be used if needed, (like this, to use the example cited in the previous discussion). Sorry to see the hard work lost but the code will always be there in the previous version, should similar functionality be required elsewhere. -- Trevj (talk) 13:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Agreed. On top of that, the desire to italicize anything but mainspace pages confuses me anyway. --Izno (talk) 14:03, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

👍 Like Magioladitis (talk) 08:53, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Implementation question

Hi, Talk:The Legend of Korra contains {{Talk header|noarchive=no}} and the page Talk:The Legend of Korra/Archive 1 exists. If I understand the template and its docs correctly, this means that links to the talk page archives should show up in the header... but they don't. Can anybody tell me what the problem might be?  Sandstein  08:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It looks like it's set up to turn the archives off if the |noarchive= parameter exists, so |noarchive=no will do the same thing as |noarchive=yes. Try removing the parameter completely and see if that works. (We should probably add an exception for |noarchive=no to the template code as well.) — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 09:43, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Okay, that worked. Thanks!  Sandstein  10:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit request 26Jul12

Usually, the punctuation is not "bolded" in a template, so that the punctuation font-size matches within it. There is a version in the sandbox that "unbolds" the few remaining periods, semi-colons, etc. Please update this template. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 21:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

"Usually"? Is this documented anywhere? Things like the question mark in "New to Wikipedia?" being unbolded look very odd to me. Disabling pending further discussion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
IMHO the rule should be that punctuation should follow the boldness of parent construction. Eg. If A, then B or if A, then B, but not if A, then B and if A, then B. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 13:29, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Calm talk pages do not need this template?

The advice on the documentation for this template does not seem to match usage, nor is supportive of readers unfamiliar with Wikipedia mark up and procedures. The Foundation is keen to encourage more users to get involved in feedback on articles, so we should be encouraging advice for how to use the talkpage. The assumption behind "Calm talk pages do not need this template" is that everyone who wishes to communicate knows how to, and that a lack of existing discussion implies nobody wishes to communicate. I think that assumption is misplaced. A lack of discussion may be down to a lack of encouragement and advice on how to communicate, and the Talk header template would provide both that advice and encouragement. I think it should be down to individual judgement as to which talkpages would benefit from using this template. SilkTork ✔Tea time 19:59, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted part of your changes, because Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Creating_talk_pages says not to create talk pages for the sole purpose of adding this template. So at least for one kind of talk page—the "non-existent" kind—it's not really down to individual judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that. It was because it linked to the wrong guideline (I've now corrected that). SilkTork ✔Tea time 12:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Error?

This has always annoyed the hell out of me. My username is Status, so on my talk page, the template says: "This is Status's talk page, where you can send messages and comments to Status." If you didn't see what was wrong with it, let me point it out directly. It should be Status' and not Status's. Is there any way to fix this? Best, Statυs (talk) 22:46, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

In other words, it is proposed to replace:
<th colspan=4 style="border-bottom: 1px solid #c0c090; width: 100%">{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User talk|This is [[{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}}]]'s [[Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines|talk page]], where you can send messages and comments to {{PAGENAME}}.|This is the [[Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines|talk page]] for discussing {{#if:{{{wp|}}}|[[:{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] and anything related to its purposes and tasks|improvements to the [[:{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] {{pagetype}}}}.}}</th>
line with
<th colspan=4 style="border-bottom: 1px solid #c0c090; width: 100%">{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User talk|This is [[{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}}]]'{{#if:{{{s|}}}||s}} [[Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines|talk page]], where you can send messages and comments to {{PAGENAME}}.|This is the [[Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines|talk page]] for discussing {{#if:{{{wp|}}}|[[:{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] and anything related to its purposes and tasks|improvements to the [[:{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}}]] {{pagetype}}}}.}}</th>
And note {{{s}}} usage on doc subpage. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, except that this isn't actually right. The only time in the English language that the trailing S is removed is in the case of plurals. Just because a word ends in S it doesn't mean that it gets the possessive S stripped off. If I have a ball then it is "Chris's ball", not "Chris' ball". And even in the case of plurals, Wikipedia user names are proper nouns referring to a single person, so for instance user:Kittens would have "Kittens's ball" as "Kittens" is just a bundle of letters and not a plural. Disabling pending further discussion, as it isn't at all clear how the encyclopedia is improved by adding features that perpetuate common grammatical errors. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
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