As noted above, Wikipedia has two types of user talk pages—standard talk pages, such as article talk pages, and user talk pages. The two have similar formatting, but very different purposes.
Why post a message on another editor’s user talk page? One common reason is to issue a warning for vandalism or spam (Issuing Warnings). But you can also use user talk pages to ask a question (“How did you do that?”), to thank someone, to ask someone for help with an article, to make a suggestion, to point out an interesting page or posting to someone you’ve worked with before, and so on. The more involved an editor is with Wikipedia, the more likely it is that her user talk page has a lot of different postings.
When you post to a user talk page, you have the same two basic options discussed earlier in this chapter: Post to an existing section, or start a new section. Almost always, unless you’ve posted very recently, you’ll post to a new section, using the “new section” tab. There’s often only one post per section, either because no reply is needed, or because of the way Wikipedia editors normally interact via user talk pages, as discussed in the next section.
Just as with article talk pages, you should use indentation to make it easier for other editors to see who said what, if the conversation goes beyond a single post. And while you can split sections or change headings for clarity, those types of thing are rare on user talk pages (as on article talk pages).
When you post to a user talk page, it generates an alert for that user, as shown in Figure 8-3.
Figure 8-3. You see this “You have new messages (last change)” alert after someone edits your user talk page. If you’re a registered editor, you need to be logged in to see this alert. You see it only when you open a new page or refresh a page you’re viewing.
The alert isn’t instantaneous: For a registered user, the user must be logged in and must change or refresh a Wikipedia page. Editors using an IP address don’t have to log in, of course, to see such a message, but they have to visit a new page or refresh a page to see it.
Contrary to what you might expect, if a user (let’s say AvId) posts to a user page (let’s say User talk:BeYonC), Wikipedia etiquette dictates that BeYonC should not reply on the same page. Rather, BeYonC should post her reply on the User talk:AvId page. The rationale is that her reply will result in an alert to AvId, who will then post on BeYonC’s user talk page; that will alert BeYonC that there’s something new on her user talk page. If she needs to reply, she’ll post again on AvId’s user talk page (creating a new alert), and so on.
One odd result of this scheme is that half of a two-way conversation occurs on one user talk page with the other half on the other user talk page. In the case of a running conversation, a third editor, viewing only one side of the conversation, can get confused. (But that’s not normally a problem, since most user talk pages are boring to anyone other than the editor herself.)
Some editors (typically administrators, who get a lot of messages) don’t follow this norm. You should always take a quick look at the top of a user talk page before posting there, to see if there’s a note saying that the editor will respond on his own user talk page, and similarly that if the editor posted to your user talk page, you should reply there. This approach has the advantage of keeping the conversation all in one place, and the disadvantage that only one of the two editors involved gets the automated alert about a change to his user talk page. You may need to figure out a way to check back periodically to see if the conversation has been continued. (Chapter 6, on monitoring pages, discusses Wikipedia-based alternatives for monitoring pages. Or you can, of course, just put a sticky note on your monitor. A proposed new talk page system, Liquid Threads, discussed on Posting to an Existing Article Talk Page, may solve this problem.)
Occasionally a discussion on a user talk page turns into a conversation about what should or shouldn’t be the content of a specific article. Such discussion belongs on an article talk page, not a user page. If this happens on your user talk page, move the discussion to the corresponding article talk page.
There’s a fairly standard process for moving text from one discussion page to another:
In edit mode, copy the section heading and all text in the section to the clipboard.
On the target page (in this case, the article talk page), go into edit mode (generally in a new section, via the “+” tab) and paste the information from the clipboard. Make any deletions you want (in this case, some of the initial comments may not pertain to the article).
Just below the heading, add a note at the top of the section, such as Moved from [[User talk:Name of User]] (in italics). Save the edit.
On the originating talk page, delete all the text that you just pasted to the article talk page. Add a note with a link to where the discussion was moved to, like: Moved discussion to [[Talk: Elephantiasis#Do elephants get this disease?]]. (This wikilink goes directly to a talk page section, because of the “#” sign and the section title following it.)
Add an edit summary saying the same thing as the note, including the wikilink, and save the user talk page.
In some ways you own your user talk page; in some ways you don’t. On the one hand, you don’t have the right to prevent others from posting to it, and you should never modify comments by others, except for indentation and the addition of a section heading. On the other hand, you can delete comments by others at will, as well as to delete entire sections of the page. (Archiving, discussed in the next section, is the preferred way to remove comments from your user talk page, but it’s not mandated.)
You should still avoid editing your own comments except as described at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines (shortcut: WP:TPG).
Editing any existing comments on another editor’s user talk page is absolutely inappropriate. (Even editing your own comments is normally inappropriate, unless you do it very quickly after you initially post.) The only clear exceptions are vandalism involving deletion of content, privacy violations (posting of personal information), and violations of the policy on biographical information (WP:BLP)—feel free to revert those. Otherwise, if you see something that you think is a serious problem—for example, an extreme personal attack—either let the editor handle the matter herself, or bring it to the attention of administrators at Wikipedia:Administrators’ noticeboard/Incidents (shortcut: WP:AN/I), especially if it’s a recurring problem.
Note
Some editors consider personal attacks (say, from a frustrated vandal) a badge of honor—it shows they’re having an impact on problem editors. They therefore keep (and archive) such postings. That’s another reason why you shouldn’t remove content from another editor’s user talk page that you, personally, wouldn’t find acceptable.
Except for vandalism, newsletters, and possibly personal attacks, the recommended approach for removing text from your user talk page is to archive it, not delete it. Usually, you archive a talk page by moving complete sections of comments to subpages. When a subpage starts getting long, start a new archive page.
Note
The standard way to number article talk page archives is simple: Archive 1, Archive 2, and so on. With your user talk page, you can be more flexible if you want. For example, you can call October-December archived sections Archive Q4 2007. Still, there’s little reason not to stick to the basic numbering and save your creativity for other things.
You archive a talk page in two phases: First create the archive page, and then move one or more sections of comments to the archive page. (Once you’ve mastered the technique, you can create an archive page at the same time as you do the archiving.)
On your user talk page, click “edit this page”.
You can go to your user talk page quickly via the “my talk” link, which is at your screen’s upper right, when you’re logged in.
At the top of the page, below any other templates at the top of the page, add an archive box template: {{archive box| [[/Archive 1]] }}.
If the archive box template already existed, and you were adding a second archive page, the template would look like this: {{archive box| [[/Archive 1]] [[/Archive 2]]}}.
Add a brief edit summary, do a quick preview, and then save the page.
You now have a red link to your archive page, with an archive box to set it apart from the rest of the page, as illustrated in Figure 8-4.
In the previous section, you created an archive box on your user talk page. The box you created includes a link to the Archive 1 page. Now it’s time for you to move a section from your user talk page, putting it in storage on that archive page. (If you don’t have an old section on your user talk page that you can archive, then use the “+” tab to create and save a new section—call it, say, Archive test—so that you do have something to archive.)
Open the archive page for editing. If it’s a red link, then simply click that link; if it’s a blue link (meaning that the page exists), then click the link, and then click “edit this page”.
If you’re editing this page for the first time, add the {{talkarchive}} template to the top of the page. This template adds a notice explaining that the page is an archive, and links back to the main talk page.
On your user talk page, click the “edit this page” tab to open the page for editing.
You see the edit box, containing all your talk page’s text, ripe for cutting.
In the edit box, highlight one or more consecutive sections that you want to archive. Cut the sections’ heading and body text.
On Windows or Linux, press Ctrl+X (or right-click, and then choose Cut); on Mac, press ⌘-X (or Control-click, and then choose Cut).
Switch to the archive page; paste the removed sections into the edit box of the archive page (below any other archived sections, if any).
Don’t worry about strict chronological order (for example, sorting sections by when they were first created). The rule is simply that the most recently archived sections are at the bottom.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 as needed.
Add a brief edit summary to each of the two pages, do a quick preview of each, and then save both.