Help:Talk

Talk pages are a key feature of hitchwiki, offering the ability to discuss articles and other issues with other hitchhikers. 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 (next to where you found the edit button). 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 an example discussion here). 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 contributing hitchhiker has a user talk page on which other hitchhikers can leave messages. This includes people 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; 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.

That was the our short hitchwiki tutorial. We hope you got excited now to start editing some articles, adding your favourite hitchhiking spots and information. If you want to get even deeper into the wiki stuff, check out even more help articles we have to offer.

Click here to see that you can do even more on hitchwiki.

''This article contains text from the Wikipedia article on Talk Pages.