Template talk:Reply to

Colon

Is there an option to remove the colon? Mohamed CJ (talk) 08:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

You probably want the {{user link}} template instead. Kaldari (talk) 21:33, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Advice against overuse

It could get very annoying if people use this every time they post on a talk page. I think it is fair enough to use if a discussion has been dormant for some time, but I would like to add a note in the documentation page, suggesting not to use this in an active discussion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:30, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

At sign

I removed the at sign from this template. I don't think it's needed. I am considering hijacking Template:@, however. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:41, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for undoing your edit without discussion; I didn't see that you'd posted on here (I should have checked here first, really). In light of this, I've undone my own edit. However, I'd still argue that the @ symbol works quite nicely with this template: as I said in my edit summary, "@" has sort of become the universal sign to represent tagging someone else in a discussion (which is what it does here, what with the new notifications system). I'd further add that in a wall of text (as you get in many a talk page) it allows you to quickly see that the statement it precedes is directed at a specific person. Sure, the fact that their name is there does that too, but I'd argue that it allows you to quickly spot something intended for you or someone else. — Richard BB 15:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I like the @ sign. Can we get this back in here? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

My feeling is that the at sign is a bit silly and not needed. We've generally responded to each other without any prefix at all (as we're doing here). A link is now necessary in order to ping a user, but the at sign itself seems like superfluous decoration to me. I also think it's arguably a bit confusing given that "@" doesn't have the same magical properties here as it does on Twitter or Facebook.

All that said, if others disagree and would like to see the symbol re-added to the template, I'm fine with that. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:43, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it's worth noting that another user has now re-added it. — Richard BB 17:49, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the template history, it seems the @ has been in the template since it was originally created by Kaldari.[1] However, it might be useful to have an alternate template for those who don't want to use the @. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:20, 25 June 2013 (UTC)