Wikilawschool:Guide (Discussion)

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Talk pages are a key feature of Wikilawschool, offering the ability to discuss articles and other issues with other Wikilawschoolers. They are not to be used as a chat room, soapbox, battleground or for general discussion of the article topic.

If you have a question, concern or comment related to improving the article put a note in the article's talk page and not in the article itself. You do that by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Do not worry if the link shows up in red; it is all right to create the talk page if it does not already exist.

When you post a new comment, put it at the bottom of the talk page. The exception is, if you are responding to someone else's remarks, put your comment below theirs. You can indent your comment by typing a colon (:) at the beginning of a line.

You should sign your comments by typing ~~~ for just your username, or ~~~~ for your username and a time signature (see the example discussion below). This way, when you save the page, your signature will be inserted automatically. Otherwise your comments, etc., will still appear but without your name. Most of us use time signatures because it makes following discussions much easier. For your convenience, there is a button at the top of the edit box with a signature icon inserts "--~~~~" when pressed.

You can get a username by creating an account (it is 100% free). If you do not have an account, or if you have one but have not logged in, your computer's external IP address is used instead.

User talk pages

Every contributor has a user talk page on which other contributors can leave messages. This includes contributors who have not created an account. If someone has left you a message, you will see a note saying "You have new messages", with a link to your user talk page.

You can reply in either of two ways. One is to put a message on the user talk page of the person you are replying to. The other is to put your reply on your own talk page beneath the original message. Both are common on Wikilawschool; however, be aware that replying on your own talk page runs the risk that your reply won't be seen, if the user does not look at your talk page again. If you choose this approach, it is a good idea to post a notice at the top of your talk page so people know they have to keep an eye on it.

Indenting

Indenting can improve the layout of a discussion considerably, making it much easier to read. A standard practice is to indent your reply one level deeper than the person you are replying to.

There are several ways of indenting in Wikilawschool:

Plain indentations

The simplest way of indenting is to place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example:

This is aligned all the way to the left.

: This is indented slightly.

:: This is indented more.

is shown as:

This is aligned all the way to the left.

This is indented slightly.

This is indented more.

Bullet points

You can also indent using bullets, usually used for lists. To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

A brief example:

* First list item

* Second list item

** Sub-list item under second

* Third list item

Which is shown as:

• First list item
• Second list item
  • Sub-list item under second
• Third list item

Numbered items

You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or octothorpe (#). This is usually used for polls and voting. Again, you can affect the indent of the number by the number of #s you use.

Example:

# First item

# Second item

## Sub-item under second item

# Third item

Shows up as:

1. First item
2. Second item
   1. Sub-item under second item
3. Third item

Example discussion

Here is an example of a well-formatted discussion:

Hi. I have a question about this article. I'm pretty sure Germany has a civil law system! RandumWikiUser 02:49, 10 Dec 2009 (UTC)

I also think soo; Wikicooluser 17:28, 11 Dec 2009 (UTC)

I think you should find a source for your claims. Living × Skepticism 20:53, 11 Dec 2009 (UTC)

Okay, these law journals agree with me:

• Harvard Law Review
• Yale Law Review

Note that if you want to include a list in your comments, add colons before each item, for example:

::: Okay, these law journals agree with me:

::: * ''Harvard Law Review''

::: * ''Yale Law Review''

::: ~~~~

Also, signing your message off is done by:

• Writing ~~~ for the name (Wikicooluser), or
• Writing ~~~~ for the name and date (Wikicooluser 19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)), or
• Writing ~~~~~ for the date only (19:09, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)).

You should usually sign with both name and date, but votes are often signed with names only.