Help:Messages

Messages appear on the discussion page linked to your user page. This is also known as your "talk page". They are sent by other users, and usually contain advice, questions or comments about recent edits. You will be notified by a banner across the top of new pages when a new edit has been made to your talk page. You may also elect to receive email notifications about these messages.

Talk Page Policies

• Sign your posts: To sign a post, type four tildes (~~~) and they will be replaced with your username, a link to your talk page, and a time stamp, like this: Jarandhel (talk) 01:24, 23 March 2012 (PDT). Even though AnOtherWiki requires a login, we still require that you sign your posts on talk pages. This makes it easier to tell who is talking, for everyone.
• Use indentation to keep the conversation straight: The first contributor is all the way to the left, the next person starts with one colon (:), the next person starts with two colons, etc. This effectively creates a threaded discussion. In short: always indent your reply with one more colon than the person above you used, and position your reply immediately below their signature.
• Separate discussion topics: Put in a headline for each new topic. Coupled with the automatically generated table of contents, this allows others to quickly reach specific discussions.
• Proceed vertically: The further down the contribution, the later it was made. Don't put your discussion, or your reply, above already existing ones in order to emphasize it. Let your words speak for themselves.
• Don't edit other people's (Talk) words: Ever (except for obvious typing errors). Editing or deleting your own words is up to you, though keep in mind that talk page histories are saved and it's always possible to go back and see what someone really said. Don't edit just to try to make yourself look better or win an argument.
• Archive rather than delete: When a talk page's content has become extremely large or the discussion of the issue in hand has simply died down and no one has a reasonable chance of adding to it. Then create a new talk page and archive the old one by moving it to a "subpage", such as "User talk:YourName/Archives 1". Provide a link to your archive in the newly created page.
• No personal attacks: this policy applies to talk pages as well as articles. Don't forget it.

Tips

• If you'd like to have an unchanging header at the top of your talk page even after archiving old discussions, it's recommended that you create a header "subpage", such as "User talk:YourName/Header". On this subpage, put everything you would like to see as a static element on your user talk page. Then, include it in your talk page by putting the template {{User talk:YourName/Header}} as the first item on your talk page. You can even add links to your archives as part of this template, rather than having to edit the page each time.