Wikivoyage:Using talk pages

This page documents a Wikivoyage guideline.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcut:
WV:UTP

Every article on Wikivoyage has an associated talk page for discussing that article. Talk pages are not chat boards or comment areas; they're for coordinating editorial decisions, suggesting new material that should be considered, and generally collaborating on making a great article.

If you have new information for an article, by all means plunge forward and edit that page. But if there are multiple people working on an article, it can help to use the talk page to divide up tasks and hammer out differences.

Talk page formatting

You can get to the talk page for an article by clicking on the discussion tab when reading an article.

You edit talk pages just like editing any other page in Wikivoyage; see how to edit a page for instructions. When using talk pages, add new paragraphs at the bottom of the page.

If there are already conversations going on on that page, it can help to add a new heading. You can either click on the [ + ] button next to the "edit" tab if it's there, or create the heading manually like this:

==Names in Chinese==

...so that there's a visual distinction between topics of discussion.

You should sign your posts on talk pages, so people know who they're talking to. Just enter four tildes at the end of your comments ("~~~~"), and it will turn into a signature with your user name, time and date.

Responses to other people's talk should be indented. You can use a colon (":") at the beginning of a paragraph to indent that paragraph. Responses to responses should be indented twice (two colons); responses to responses to responses get indented three times, and so on.

User talk pages

The discussion page for a user page is special; it's called a user talk page. You can use user talk pages to leave someone in particular a personal message. Don't forget that they're publicly accessible, and anyone can read them. Try to keep discussions about a particular article on that article's talk page, too.

Travellers' pub

If you have something to discuss about Wikivoyage as a whole, the Travellers' pub or the Arrivals lounge is a good place to put your comments.

Requests for comment

If you think an issue needs more attention, you can add it to the requests for comment page to get more attention on it.

Etiquette

There are some points of etiquette in using talk pages that have built up over the years. Here are a few:

Unlike everything else in Wikivoyage, it's considered bad form to change someone else's posts on a talk page – even to correct spelling or grammar.
It's usually perfectly OK, though, to change something you wrote on a talk page, for any reason, unless somebody has answered or it is about a stalled discussion. However, if other users have answered to your posting, see below.
If, in the heat of the moment, you said something you regret, go ahead and change that.
And, forgive and forget when someone changes a nasty comment to something more civil and productive.
It is impolite to remove a comment if someone has responded to it. It makes them look ridiculous. Make the change obvious, such as in "~~happy~~ [unhappy]" or "[deleted]".
In general, conversations aren't deleted from talk pages but are instead archived when they are old or no longer relevant. To archive discussions simply create a new page such as 'User talk:Page/Archive' and copy the old discussions to it.
It's best to wait until the page has grown quite long before archiving, and such archives should always be clearly linked from the principal talk page, so that everything is easy to find. Avoid archiving discussions on destination and policy article talk pages. Archives should not be edited.
Reply to a discussion on the talk page where it started, to avoid talk fragmentation.
Avoid abuse of user talk pages either by labeling or personally attacking the user or their edits.

Rants

If you must rant, there are endless venues to do so on the internet. Off-topic rants on talk pages will usually be reverted. However, constructive rants (such as making a list of issues with an article), would not usually get reverted.