Minecraft Wiki:Talk page guidelines

Talk pages are useful for discussion, but lose their use if they are not used in an organized fashion. Below are some guidelines for using the talk pages.

General

 * 1) Talk pages are only for discussing the related content page. Topics should discuss the content of page as an article. Talk pages should not be used for any of the following:
 * 2) * Suggesting a new feature for Minecraft
 * 3) * Reporting issues with the topic's behavior in Minecraft
 * 4) * Discussing your opinion on the topic's existence or usage in Minecraft
 * 5) * Acting as a tutorial, tutorial content should instead exist on the Tutorials sub pages.
 * 6) * Acting as a content page or a proposed page or page rewrite. Content pages should be in a content namespace, and page proposals should be made in either in the Minecraft Wiki sandbox or a personal sandbox, and then may be linked to discuss.
 * 7) When replying to a topic, keep to the same topic as the initial topic. If the topic does not cover what you want to say, consider starting a new topic on the page. If replying to multiple topics at the same time, answer each topic within its own topic, rather than placing all replies in one place.
 * 8) Don't edit other user's comments, except to sign unsigned comments or fix formatting.
 * 9) Don't edit archives. They are called archives for a reason. Instead of replying to an archived topic, start a new topic with an optional link to the old one. You should also generally avoid replying to topics with the last post over a year ago, as your solution likely did not exist back then.
 * 10) Follow rule #3 maintaining civil discussions with no harassment, insults, or ad hominem.

User talk pages are exempt from rule 2. User talk pages are also exempt from rule 1, though not following it is discouraged. A users main talk page may be used for direct communication with the user.

Signing
Always sign your posts using. Your signature can be changed in your preferences, provided it fits the following criteria:
 * Links
 * Your signature must contain a link to one of your user pages, user talk pages, or related logs (contributions, etc.). The link must not be a interwiki link.
 * You may not link to another user's page, and other internal links not directly related to your general information should be avoided.
 * Interwiki links are allowed provided they follow the same guidelines as internal links, though they are discouraged.
 * Signatures may not contain a category link.
 * Signatures may contain up to two files, provided they are no taller than 20 pixels.
 * You may not add external links in your signature.
 * Your signature may not contain a template unless it is always substituted. The resulting code must be no more than 250 characters.
 * Display
 * Your signature must display your name, or some variation of it.
 * Do not use large text or formatting in your signature, the signature should have no noticeable effect on the line height.
 * Avoid using font colors that are similar to the background color, and font sizes that are excessively small.
 * Keep signatures concise. Signatures are to identify the user, user pages can be used for long lines of text.

If someone else did not sign their comment, sign it for them using unsigned.

Pinging
Pinging should generally be used for pulling someone into a subject that warrants their attention, which they may not be watching. This means that it doesn't apply to the user's own talk page, as they should be getting notifications there already.

reply should be used when your reply is to multiple people. It is not necessary when your reply is to the previous post, unless you feel they may not be watching the subject and so you wish to alert them to your reply.

Formatting
Along with following rules for usage of talk pages, good talk page formatting is helpful too. On talk pages, topics are denoted using an h2 header, and sub-topics can be denoted using an h3 header.

Always indent your replies to one level after the comment to which you are replying. If a large number of indents are reached, usually around eight, you may add outdent before your comment instead of indenting. When making a proposal, usually all responses are only one indent, and using comment is advised.

For clarity on the editing screen, it is advised to leave a blank line between comments by separate users.

Generally avoid using templates that are not designed for talk pages, as they may change or break at any time without ease of updating them. A list of talk page templates can be found here.

When discussing a category or a file, you should escape it using a colon before the namespace in the link.

Example
Note that only a single line break is used between comments here for compactness

A single topic
Initial topic -User 1
 * Reply -User 2
 * Reply to user 2 -User 3
 * Reply to user 1 -User 4
 * Reply with a link -User 2
 * Reply with a Category:Main -User 3

A subtopic
Initial sub topic post -User 5
 * Reply -User 1

A proposal topic
A proposal -User 1
 * -User 2
 * Reason -User 3
 * Comment on user 3's post -User 4
 * -User 5
 * -User 6