 | This page documents Bharatpedia behavioral guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to 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. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia, not for expressing personal opinions on a subject or editor. |
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The purpose of a talk page (accessible via the "Talk" tab) is to provide space for editors to discuss editing that page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject. While talk pages in other namespaces (such as user talk pages) may be used for broader discussion and communication between editors, article talk pages should be used solely for discussing the improvement of that article.
The names of talk pages associated with articles begin with Talk:. For example, the talk page for the article Australia is named Talk:Australia.
The guidelines below reinforce the prime values of talk pages: communication, courtesy, and consideration. They apply not only to article discussion pages but everywhere editors interact, such as deletion discussions and noticeboards.
Central points[edit source]
Maintain Bharatpedia policy[edit source]
There is reasonable allowance for speculation, suggestion, and personal knowledge on talk pages, with a view to prompting further investigation, but it is usually a misuse of a talk page to continue to argue any point that has not met policy requirements. Pay particular attention to Bharatpedia:Biographies of living persons, which applies to talk pages as well as to articles: "Editors must take particular care adding information about living persons to any Bharatpedia page."
Creating talk pages[edit source]
Talk pages are generally created by clicking a red "Talk" tab and creating the page, like any other page.
Do not create an empty talk page simply so that one will exist for future use. There is no need to add discussion warning templates to every talk page, or even to every talk page that contains a discussion.
How to use article talk pages[edit source]
Although this section is specific to article talk pages, many of the general themes apply to all discussion pages that are used for collaboration.
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Good practices for talk pages[edit source]
These guidelines apply specifically to discussion pages which are used for collaboration, which includes just about all talk pages other than user talk pages. The application of these guidelines to user talk pages should be governed by common sense and should not supersede guidelines and policies specific to those pages.
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- Template:Vanchor To sign manually, append four tildes (~~~~), which will turn into your username and a timestamp:, continued and deliberate refusal to sign posts may result in sanctions.}} Template:Tqbm|SIG|SIGS|signature}}
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Behavior that is unacceptable[edit source]
Please note that some of the following are of sufficient importance to be official Bharatpedia policy. Violations (and especially repeated violations) may lead to the offender being blocked or banned from editing Bharatpedia.
- Personal attacks. This includes:
- Insults: Do not make ad hominem attacks, such as calling someone an idiot or a fascist. Instead, explain what is wrong with an edit and how to fix it.
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- Legal threats: Threatening a lawsuit is highly disruptive to Bharatpedia for reasons given at Bharatpedia:No legal threats.
- Posting other editors' personal details: A user who maliciously posts what they believe are the personal details of another user without that user's consent may be blocked for any length of time, including indefinitely.
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- Being precise in quoting others.
- When referencing other people's contributions or edits, use "diffs". The advantage of diffs in referring to a comment is that the diff will always remain the same, even when a talk page gets archived or a comment gets changed.
- Generally, do not alter others' comments, including signatures. Exceptions to this are described in the next section.
- Asking for another's personal details.
- Attempting to impersonate another editor.
- Claiming to be an administrator or to have an access level that you do not have. User access levels can always be verified at Special:ListUsers.
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- Violating the policy on biographies of living persons, particularly through unsourced or poorly sourced information.
Editing others' comments[edit source]
It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to copy edit others' posts. Doing so can be irritating. The basic rule, with exceptions outlined below, is not to edit or remove others' posts without their permission.
Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page. Removing others' comments is prohibited, except on one's own user talk page or if the comments violate scenarios outlined above.
Cautiously editing or removing another editor's comments is sometimes allowed, but normally you should stop if there is any objection. If you make anything more than minor changes, it is good practice to leave a short explanatory note such as "[potential libel removed by ~~~~]".
Examples of appropriately editing others' comments[edit source]
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- Delete: It is common to simply delete gibberish, test edits, harmful or prohibited material (as described above), and comments or discussion clearly about the article's subject itself (as opposed to comments and discussion about the treatment of the subject in the article).
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- Signature cleanup: Template:Vanchor Template:Vanchor
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- Fixing indentation levels
- Removing bullets from discussions that are not consensus polls or requests for comment (RfC)
- Fixing list markup (to avoid disruption of screen readers, for instance)
- Using
<syntaxhighlight>,<code>,<nowiki>and other technical markup to fix code samples - Providing wikilinks if it helps in better navigation
- Adding
{{Reflist-talk}}or{{Sources-talk}}to emit references and notes immediately instead of at the end of the page.
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- Moving a new discussion from the top of a page to the bottom
- Moving a comment for chronological order within a reply sequence
- Correcting unclosed markup tags that mess up the page's formatting
- Accurately replacing HTML table code with a wikitable
- Fixing other lint errors.
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- Template:Vanchor Template:Vanchor You can hide images by adding a colon:
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- Template:Vanchor Users may also remove some content in archiving. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user; this is true whether the removal was manual or automatic, and includes both registered and unregistered users. Note that deleted comments can always be retrieved from the page's history, as user talk pages are almost never deleted (although a courtesy blanking may be requested).
There are certain types of notices that users may not remove from their own talk pages, such as declined unblock requests and speedy deletion tags.
Talk page search[edit source]
You can use the search box below to locate Talk pages. See Help:Searching for more information.
See also[edit source]
- Etiquette (how to be nice)
- Mutual withdrawal (essay regarding a method which two editors can agree to withdraw their recent comments)
- Responding to threats of harm (treat all claims seriously)
- Talk dos and don'ts (summary of policies of guidelines)
- Talk page layout (lead "bannerspace", table of contents, and discussions)
- Talk page templates (how to use the banners)
- Using talk pages (how talk pages work)
- OrphanTalk (find orphaned talk pages)