Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines

IP user talk page

I'd welcome other opinions on this edit.

It seems to me that it's not what the guideline intends at all. But in that, as far as I can tell, IP user talk pages are in namespace 3, the same as the talk pages of registered users, perhaps this needs clarification.

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:185.59.158.22 for some of the background to this. Andrewa (talk) 05:11, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa: It's explicitly prohibited by WP:REMOVED, fourth bullet. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:05, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

So it is! Thank you. Andrewa (talk) 08:24, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

DTTR

I believe we should codify in these guidelines that WP:DTTR is not sufficient grounds to justify removal of a post on a talk page other than your own. Though DTTR is often treated as a policy or guideline, it isn't one, there's an antithetical one called Wikipedia:Do template the regulars, and user warnings are specifically written to not be personal attacks. Thoughts? pbp 14:03, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

WP:DTTR is just an essay, which can be boiled down to "templates often treat the editor as brand new, and provide helpful links - regular editors (should) already know about all the links and what's expected of them, so treating them otherwise isn't the best idea". Regardless of if someone agrees or disagrees with DTTR, it does not give grounds to remove a post from a talk page other than your own -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 14:15, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose See WP:CREEP. While I agree this is a correct reading of existing rules, observe that 3 of us read the existing rules as already frowning on third party talk page reverts of this sort. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:16, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Very old talk pages

On old talk pages, I find some weird layouts.

---

text
reply

---

text
reply

reply

---

etc

What was that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nixinova (talk • contribs) 20:42, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Guidance against interleaving replies

Proposed text for introduction in "Editing others' comments" section:

"Generally you should not break up another editor's comment to reply to individual points. Interleaving comments like this confuses the layout of the page and obscures the original editor's intent, as well as potentially leaving text unsigned."

Version 2 of proposal (19:49, 14 August 2017 (UTC)):

"Generally you should not break up another editor's comment to reply to individual points. Mixing comments like this confuses the layout of the page and obscures the original editor's intent, as well as potentially leaving text unsigned. Instead, place your reply entirely below the original comment. You may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} template to quote a portion of the material in question."

I have encountered a few times situations where to respond to seemingly itemized multiple points an editor interleaves their reply within the post they are replying to, for example as Andrewa did here (I'm inviting them to continue the discussion here out of courtesy). It may be particularly prone to happen when a post has bulleted points which I have seen a couple times and which made a real mess of the talk page. The biggest issue is that it leaves the original post's text broken up and without signatures. If signatures were added after the fact that would, to me, definitely constitute editing another's post and changing what they intended to convey and how they wanted it to look, without improving the clarity of formatting. I think instead the proper convention should be to say something like Regarding X, "Regarding X," whether X is a description or a numbered point in cases where there is one, or Quoted material: with the tq template, and to do this entirely below the post you are replying to. I am proposing that some guidance be added in this regard. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:26, 14 August 2017 (UTC) Edited to correct use of tq template. 19:08, 14 August 2017 (UTC) Updated with Version 2 of proposal. 19:49, 14 August 2017 (UTC) Underlined version 2. 02:06, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

The convention as I have followed it is not to break up existing paragraphs. It is in my experience easily learned and followed, and common elsewhere on the Internet. The indenting makes the authorship plain, and the interleaving makes the logic plain. Respecting others' paragraphs leaves their comments intact.

The proposed addition doesn't really make it clear that this is discouraged, and I'm not convinced it should be.

The convention I have followed is however easily messed up, either accidentally or deliberately, and when this happens it can get very messy.

I'd like a stronger statement on the mixing of colon and asterisk indenting. This is the most common way that the convention gets messed up, in my experience. Andrewa (talk) 01:02, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

No, please do not do that. Consider what might happen if someone wanted to reply to you, and then there was some back-and-forth. That leaves a dreadful mess. Talk pages are not just for the benefit of those currently participating who might know what is going on. In a year, people might want to work out why a particular decision was taken or not taken. Johnuniq (talk) 03:10, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. But the mixing of asterix and colon indenting is depressingly common, and as you say often leaves a dreadful mess... I'll dig up some examples. Sometimes I suspect it is even deliberate rantstyle (I might not give examples of that as it raises behavioural issues) but other times it is, disappointingly, experienced and respected users, to the point I sometimes suspect I'm just being grumpy to criticise it. But if we could avoid it, it would greatly increase the value of the archives, as you say, as well as making it easier IMO to arrive at and assess consensus in the first place. Andrewa (talk) 06:34, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

This edit is a case in point - I fixed three problems there:

1. blank lines, contrary to WP:INDENTGAP (and which incidentally I have also fixed in this edit);
2. signature divorced from post by interspersed comments;
3. markup symbols inconsistent bwtween a post and its reply which caused the enumerated list to restart at 1 instead of continuing with 3.

Mixing the three styles (asterisk, colon and hash) is not a problem per se, the problem is when people mix them incorrectly. The general principle should be that if you reply to somebody, copy the markup from the start of their post, whatever combination of symbols that might be; and add one symbol (of any type) to the right hand end. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:01, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree that the protocol proposed in the above post copy the markup from the start of their post, whatever combination of symbols that might be; and add one symbol (of any type) to the right hand end would work extremely well if followed consistently. But we need to deal with bold edits by inexperienced editors as well as considered edits by old hands, and as even the old hands often depart from the relatively simple current rule of Generally colons and asterisks should not be mixed for no obvious reason, there's reason to be very afraid of a new and more complex rule. I think on balance it would be worth a try. Andrewa (talk) 13:16, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

You know, Wikipedia possesses specific tools which allows one to reply to a specific section or paragraph of an other contributor's post. For instance, the template {{Talkquote}} allows one to quote the specific part of the post one wishes to reply to, complete with signature and linked timestamp, within one's own post below which one can then post one's own reply.Tvx1 17:21, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Certainly... at the expense only of brevity. But that can also raise objections, in my experience. Andrewa (talk) 22:39, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

• Support Although long posts can be troubling in themselves, interrupting their flow to reply to a specific point takes any shortcoming with the fact its a long post and multiplies that by 10. So don't do that please. In the discussion I noticed two related and somewhat side issues to which I reply as follows -

Re A) on messy format.... see WP:SOFIXIT. These guidelines already encourage stand-alone edits that only clean up formatting problems. I usually do not do that with regulars unless I get their permission first. But for newbies, don't hesitate, just do it, and give them a friendly how-to-do-better-formatting note.

Re B) on replying point-by-point.... hopefully my comment here shows how I do this. If the long post does not include numbers or letters so you can reply that way, just give the point you want to reply to a letter or number and say what you wish after the longwinded editor's signature.

In closing, I think the suggestion to not insert comments in the middle is a good one, but I don't care for the word "interweave". My brain stopped cold, I had to think, it was an obstacle. Better to just use simple third grade language, something only a bit more refined than "Don't butt in line". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps "Mixing comments" rather than "Interleaving comments"? And how about some additional guidance like: "Instead, place your reply entirely below the original comment." and perhaps "You may wish to use the Talk quotation template to quote a portion of the material in question." I agree that keeping it simple would be good but maybe some clear advice on what to do in addition to what not to do would help. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Positive guidance, rather than negative, is greatly to be preferred. It is both far more likely to be effective and adheres to the spirit of wp:AGF. Andrewa (talk) 19:45, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't think those are side issues at all...

A) I would welcome strengthening the relevant guidelines to make that a bit clearer. In particular, In general... is vague. If the proposed more elaborate guideline (which is growing on me) is adopted, I hope the phrasing will be more to the point than that.

B) Yes, that works in cases like this. Another technique which I have employed is to start a new subsection on a particularly important point that is raised. I've received some criticism in the past for doing this, but generally from those who did not wish to hear what was said (at the risk of violating wp:AGF... sometimes the assumption wears a bit thin). Andrewa (talk) 19:45, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Andrewa, as far as your A) on this this proposal maybe it should simply be "You should not" rather than "Generally". I wasn't sure if consensus would be behind a strong statement but it seems to be heading that direction. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:58, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

I must state that I cannot stand when an editor breaks up my comment to reply to individual parts. Any time that it is done, I either put my comment back the way it was or copy and paste my signature for each part of the broken up comment to make sure that others are not confused by who is commenting. And I ask the editor not to break up my comment like that again. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:33, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose this proposal. (Placing this here, because the mess below is farcical and I decline to waste two hours trying to figure out some other place to put it.) The short version is: We have WP:REFACTOR for a reason. The long version: It's occasionally better to split up a long, muddled post that requires detailed answers to numerous unconnected questions/observations, into a series of separate points, sometimes even separate sections. This doesn't happen frequently, but there's nothing wrong with it when it does. Many of us have been doing it now and again for years, and rarely with any objection. The only trick is to copy-paste the original attribution to each of the now-separate bits so it remains clear who posted the original material. This comes up so infrequently, and more to the point is so unobjectionable when it does come up and is done sanely, that trying to add a rule about it is WP:CREEP. Especially when the "problem" identified is actually rare, random noobs doing it in a boneheaded way, for WP:POINTy reasons, and editwarring over it, not experienced editors in doing it in a sensible way, and letting it drop if they're reverted. This proposal is a throw-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater approach. The rule proposed is simply wrong anyway, in that it defies accepted practice. The last thing we need is some kind of "'Tis forbidden to make talk pages actually make sense" rule, just to protect the interests of people who are unreasonably proprietary about the exact formatting of their posts. See also WP:NOT#BLOG and WP:OWN policies: you do not own the talk pages here, not even your own user talk page. So, consider this !vote a "Not just no, but hell no." Every time I see someone lose their shit about a refactor that actually made sense, I want to slap them for riding a WP:NOTHERE hobby horse, until they come to their senses, climb down, and get back to doing something constructive and collaborative instead of lubing up and stroking their own ego. (Usually, I make omphaloskepsis references instead thinly-veiled ones to masturbation, about matters like this, but "how dare you touch my precious post" conniption fits really cross the distasteful self-pleasuring-in-public line, and they really need to stop being treated by the community as if they're consistent with a collaborative editing project. They definitely are not.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Modifying comments already replied to

This edit rather surprised me... wouldn't it be better to raise it as a new post, with a heads-up? Andrewa (talk) 01:11, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

It's got a time stamp. Perhaps should have been underlined if it is not clear by the time stamp that it was a change. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:03, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it complies perfectly with the guideline on modifying your own comments (WP:REDACT) as far as I can see. But it seems to me far more confusing than my edit [1] which inspired this whole section. I think the indenting there makes the signatory of the original post quite transparent, but I concede there are other views on this. But I can't see how this edit can fail to tangle the logic of the discussion. The text to which I was replying is no longer there to see, you need to go into the page history to find it. How can that possibly be helpful? And yet it seemingly conforms to guidelines. Should it? Andrewa (talk) 04:10, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, without software to manage talk page comments all we have are manually implemented guidelines. If users are to be able to edit their posts I think strike and insert work well enough, as well as the instruction to add a new timestamp when you've done it. On some forums where users can edit their posts the custom is to do something like "Edit: I did so and so" at the end of the edited post which I think is less clear than our strike/underscore method, but we also include a suggestion to offer an explanation if necessary in brackets. Or are you proposing that users not be able to edit posts once they are replied to? This is always an issue in forums; what it appears someone responded to may actually have been edited. Without strongly discouraging or prohibiting edits I don't see a way around it. My thinking was that it would be useful in that particular situation if the proposal were updated at the top which I believe I've seen done in other surveys. Maybe it would be useful to have clear guidance on that specific circumstance - what if you want to add another option to a survey. To me at the top makes sense as long as it is clearly marked as an edit with a time stamp. It also makes sense to include a "Survey" and "Threaded discussion" section which I wish I'd done to keep the two separate. Then any updates to the survey or !votes on it can be kept in the same area. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:22, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Strike does not have appropriate semantics, see HTML5 documentation: The s element is not appropriate when indicating document edits; to mark a span of text as having been removed from a document, use the del element.; and underscore does not have any associated semantics. For accessibility reasons, we should be using <del>...</del> and <ins>...</ins> respectively, see HTML5 documentation. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:38, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

There is no issue at all in modifying comments already replied to, unless it would invalidate something in a later comment. Even then, it's not problematic unless the change isn't annotated some way. There are many ways to do that, e.g. with <s>...</s> (or <del>...</del>) and <ins>...</ins> markup, or by adding a [bracketed editorial change], or adding a note at the end of the post about changes and when/why they were made, or adding a reply to a post that indicates you changed the original comment (or proposal or whatever it was) in response to the objection that someone raised, or ... insert several other variations here. WP:ENC is not served in any way, at all, by trying to legislate exactly which of these methods people must use or whether they're permitted to use any at all. WP:NOT#FORUM and doesn't need any forum rules or forum moderators dictating posting style to people.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Version 2

Proposal:

"Generally you should not break up another editor's comment to reply to individual points. Mixing comments like this confuses the layout of the page and obscures the original editor's intent, as well as potentially leaving text unsigned. Instead, place your reply entirely below the original comment. You may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} template to quote a portion of the material in question."

1) Replaces "interleaving" with "mixing" per NewsAndEventsGuy's concern. 2) Adds a brief description of what to do in addition to what not to do. 3) A question from Andrewa is whether this should start with "Generally you should not" or stronger wording like "You should not". I thought the stronger wording may not cover every possible situation which is why I started with "Generally". 4) I felt that only a brief mention of the quote template that is most often used would be best and we should avoid putting a detailed style guide for replying in the "Editing others' comments section", but conceivably we could start a new section about quoting/replying. It could for example cover numbering or lettering points (if that's not obvious) and {{Talkquote}} (a different template from {{Talk quotation}}). That is more than I wanted to get into originally and even if that were added I think a statement in the "Editing others' comments section" against splitting another editor's post would still be appropriate. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:09, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

It's rearranging deckchairs. The more we look at the guideline the worse it gets, see #Modifying comments already replied to. Total rewrite required, incorporating the "add one of anything to the right" suggestion for more sophisticated users, and a far simpler protocol for beginners, example-based. And I still think that a brief interspersed comment is helpful on occasions, but I will of course go with the consensus on this. Andrewa (talk) 04:19, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

There may be some issues with this page as far as providing enough detail but I think the main places to address that are Help:Using talk pages and Wikipedia:Indentation (and any other topic specific locations). Providing examples and detailed style guides here would totally change the nature of the page. It is supposed to be dos and don'ts more than detailed instructions. We can make sure the reader is pointed in the right direction for more information. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:00, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

This proposal is a very welcome clarification. But I'm concerned that it is sufficiently severe in its impact as to require wider discussion. As it stands it seeks to ban or at least discourage what is a very common and IMO clear and helpful convention, one that is long in use far beyond Wikipedia. But this is a convention that I acknowledge is poorly documented on Wikipedia and often ignored here, leading to some very messy talk pages. Andrewa (talk) 17:30, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose this just as much as the original, for the same reasons. Andrewa's "seeks to ban or at least discourage what is a very common and IMO clear and helpful convention, one that is long in use far beyond Wikipedia" is spot on. The fact that some talk pages are message is a) a problem of us not having good software for doing talk page (and meta:Flow is hardly an improvement), b) easily fixed by refactoring – the very tool which is occasionally abused to make a mess is the same tool that enables us to clean it up (and to do many other useful things).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Anchors (Version 3?)

@Andrewa, DIYeditor, NewsAndEventsGuy, Tvx1, Redrose64, and Johnuniq: In replying to or commenting on points in preceding comments, I have occasionally inserted anchors in those comments and linked to them. This way there is no need to quote in full the point I am responding to. More than that, when the discussion is already long and complex, with many replies-to-replies-to-replies-..., a reader can find the point being replied to without a potentially long and distracting search: for example, aXXXX this reference to Andrewa's comment about the "dreadful mess" that can result from mixing asterisk and colon listing. And unlike interleaving, anchors do not affect the display at all, but are visible only in edit mode.

I guess I'm making a proposal for a better (imho) way of replying to specific comments without interleaving or necessarily quoting, so I'm adding "Version 3" to my section header. I'm not ready to turn this into a guideline proposal, so I invite you all to please have a go at it (thus the question mark).

Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 18:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Thnidu, I have never used anchors in that way but can't see any reason not to. I instead use a diff to refer to the comment to which I am replying, but generally quote the relevant text in italics as well.

There are many acceptable ways of structuring a discussion.

I have been involved in Internet discussions since before public ISPs were available in Australia (we used permanent dialups to form APANA that's redlink and shouldn't be, see http://www.apana.org.au/ I see it still exists, and before that there was FidoNet which also still exists of course), and was frankly astounded that the interleaving that provoked this discussion caused anyone any stress or confusion at all. My belief was (and is) that this convention is still the most common and easily followed method of structuring a complex discussion on the Internet generally. Many if not most email clients provide it automatically.

But some do have problems with it obviously. So the questions are (1) is there a better way and (2) can and should our guidelines be improved (one way or the other depending on the answer to (1)).

I have had experience before with people objecting to this convention, but previously it has always been in the context of the low-level disruption I call ranting... for example, some users will punctuate a long post with p HTML tags or with no paragraph breaks at all. Either tactic prevents interleaving, and in my opinion should be discouraged for exactly that reason. Andrewa (talk) 22:48, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

You would not be astounded that many editors find interleaving to be disruptive if you had observed discussions where they were common, and where it was necessary to refute the interleaved comments. If people cannot make their point in a digestible manner they should not comment. A comment has to be made in a way that replies to the comment could reasonably occur. Further, discussions are not just for the benefit of the current participants; future editors may need to review old discussions to see why certain conclusions were reached. Johnuniq (talk) 23:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Strongly agree with most of this.

The attempt to personalise this discussion (read the link, and discuss the contribution not the contributor please) is just plain ridiculous, as you would know had you bothered to do any check of my edit history. Enough of that please.

And I'm afraid I remain astounded. Refutation of the interleaved comments is exactly what the convention makes easy and transparent, and easy for others to follow later. Of course there comes a point where indentation is excessive, but for the first two or three indents it works very well. If it goes beyond that, probably best to start a new subsection, IMO... or outdent sometimes works well, sometimes not.

But for the rest, good points all, and I think they support the proper use of interleaved comments in Wikipedia, for the same reasons as it is standard practice elsewhere. Andrewa (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa and Johnuniq: How do you even find relevant comments in a long and heavily interleaved discussion? Especially if they're not “addressed” with {{ping}} (or one of its numerous aliases), or with simple linked mention as in {{u|Susannah Q. User}}.

In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times, and from time to time users even use this to advantage. But is there any doubt what I'm replying to here? Does it make the above post look unsigned, or this one? I don't think so. But then I'm an old hand at this, since long before Wikipedia.

So I propose to add a brief description of this anchoring method, explicitly stating that this is not a guideline but an available alternative to interleaving. If there are no strong objections I will do so. Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 18:30, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I have no objection at all, provided it is not claimed that this is a preferred method. But I still have doubts that interleaving should be in any way discouraged. See this two-part reply as an example of a case in which I think it works well. How would you make the logic clearer? Is it necessary to do so?

But we do I think need to update the guidelines to give some help to new hands who have not seen it done previously. In particular, it's not standard practice on mobile devices AFAIK. There may even be an argument to discourage it for the benefit of mobile users, I'm not one so I would not know.

On conventional web browsers it works well IMO, if properly done. Here we're now five levels deep (perhaps we should recommend a limit to the depth of indenting), so pushing the limits, but it still works well on my browser.

Thnidu, pinging as requested. But I'm surprised that is necessary... do you use watchlist and contributions? Andrewa (talk) 22:15, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, Andrewa. Yes, I do use them. The trouble is that on some pages that have many unrelated discussions going simultaneously, like the Teahouse, I get too many notifications about edits on topics I'm not interested in. This page is not such, but the habit stuck with me. Also, as I believe I mentioned above, navigating such a long discussion as this on a smartphone creates other difficulties. --Thnidu (talk) 23:02, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Making the articles available to mobile users is definitely a good thing. I am yet to be convinced that mobile editing of articles or discussions is a good thing overall. It has obvious advantages but there seem to be some drawbacks to it. Andrewa (talk) 02:47, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa: Edits like this are precisely the problem we are trying to avoid. Without knowledge of that specific edit diff, can anybody tell from the above thread that the paragraph beginning "In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times" was not written by Thnidu (talk · contribs)? It's misattribution, plain and simple. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:25, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

QED. EEng 14:08, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

This is the heart of the matter, and apologies if I offended anyone by this post, but I did so as an example, and it's proving to be a good one.

Yes, I think that the indentation makes it quite obvious that the paragraph in question was written by me and not by Thnidu. I can't see how anyone can miss it, in fact. But obviously you have difficulty following the thread, so we need to do something. If there's consensus that interleaving is to be discouraged, then of course I'll abide by that decision. But I think it's the wrong way to go.

Strongly disagree that it is misattribution. That is over the top. There is no intent to mislead, and the convention I'm using is clear and unambiguous. The problem is just that some people apparently have difficulty in following it. Andrewa (talk) 14:18, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

(Thnidu here.) Between the 2 paragraphs of one of my comments, andrewa inserted a paragraph including the question

But is there any doubt what I'm replying to here? Does it make the above post look unsigned, or this one? I don't think so. But then I'm an old hand at this, since long before Wikipedia.

Redrose64 responded

Without knowledge of that specific edit diff, can anybody tell from the above thread that the paragraph beginning "In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times" was not written by Thnidu (talk · contribs)?

To which I will add: Yes, as a matter of fact, it does leave the preceding paragraph (not "post", since your [​andrewa​] paragraph interrupted my post) not just "look" unsigned but be unsigned, since your interposition separated that paragraph from my signature. And your paragraph there is also unsigned, since the reader must scroll five paragraphs down to find your signature. You could have avoided the latter problem by typing four tildes after your interruption, but the "un-signing" of my first paragraph would be much harder to fix, if at all doable. And we certainly couldn't rely on new users, who often neglect to sign their own posts, to handle such complications.

As you say, you're an old hand at this, and that's part of the reason for our differences here. In such conversations finding the correct attributions is not a simple task at all. To make an analogy, being an experienced driver does not qualify one to teach driving, and one reason is that there are so many actions that by now are reflexive and unconscious to the "old hand" that they need to learn that the novice needs to consciously learn the stimuli (e.g., car a short distance in front suddenly hits the brakes) and responses (brake immediately but not hard at first, while checking side view, mirror and corner-of-eye direct, to see if it's safe to swerve that way; if not, check other side while braking harder). --Thnidu (talk) 16:24, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

You say that Yes, as a matter of fact, it does leave the preceding paragraph (not "post", since your... paragraph interrupted my post) not just "look" unsigned but be unsigned, since your interposition separated that paragraph from my signature. And your paragraph there is also unsigned, since the reader must scroll five paragraphs down to find your signature.

That is true if but only if we ignore the indenting and interleaving convention, correct?

Or conversely, if we do not ignore the convention, that statement is quite simply false, is it not? The signatures are intact provided the convention is understood to apply here.

Agree with many of the points made in that post. But some of them are splitting hairs and ignoring the issue. We have had this convention for many years. You (and others) want to change it. That's the issue. And there may be a case.

But it seems to me that it would be much easier to discuss this and seek consensus on this if we followed the convention for now. I am refraining from doing so, reluctantly but at your implicit request. It seems to me for example that this series of edits let to an impenetrable mess and the points you make there could have been far better presented, and more easily answered, by using the indenting convention with interleaving.

I have problems with this recent edit (not by you) too, but perhaps that's enough for now. Andrewa (talk) 00:14, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

How many experienced editors have disagreed with the views you have expressed on this page, and how many have agreed (put me down in the former group)? Your "recent edit" link shows Redrose64 reverting a change to their comment—why would you "have problems" with basic common sense? That is indeed enough for now, and actually it is enough forever at Wikipedia. Please do not refactor other people's comments to suit your style, and definitely do not break-up other people's comments with interleaving that the community has rejected. Johnuniq (talk) 03:41, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa: You have problems with my recent edit to my slightly-less recent post when all I did was restore my intended version to how it had been as I had left it in my immediately-previous edit to this page? Get out of here.

There is an indenting convention, but occasionally people will use one symbol (colon or otherwise) too many (or one too few), perhaps as a simple typo. Sometimes, in a post having three (or more) indented paragraphs they will indent one of the intermediate paragraphs to one level deeper than the rest, again perhaps it's a typo, or perhaps it's to emphasise it. Maybe they want to indicate that it has been copied from elsewhere: not everybody uses (or is aware of) tags like <blockquote>...</blockquote> or templates like {{tq}}. It might be an example of proposed wording for some guideline or other, there are at lease three such instances on this page alone. So the extra indent level of one paragraph will not necessarily indicate that the particular paragraph was added by somebody other than the person who added the ones above and below. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:15, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree that when the convention is not followed it causes problems. Disagree that this is a problem with the convention. Andrewa (talk) 15:21, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

In fact this edit above may be a classical example. It appears by the content to be replying to me, but by the indentation it appears to be replying to the post immediately above it. Probably it is simply indented one level too many. But best not to fix it now that I've replied to it.

That's not necessarily the fault of the convention. But perhaps the convention can be made clearer (either by simplifying it or documenting it more clearly or both) so that such mistakes can be reduced. Andrewa (talk) 02:44, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa: You're darned right it was a reply to you. It should have been obvious from my use of the phrase "You have problems with my recent edit" which was a straight person-reversal of your phrase "I have problems with this recent edit", and since that was an edit that I had made, I am clearly the person involved. Don't claim that you didn't know that.

Now, it is clear to several people here that you are getting tedious: therefore, it is time for you to WP:DROPTHESTICK. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:07, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you're getting at in the first paragraph. Yes, I understood it as a reply to me, and my post did refer to your edit, explicitly, I can't see where I claimed not to know that. It's just the indenting that is wrong, and I wondered whether that might even be deliberate, to prove a point. Was it? (Redundant signature added to allow interleaving.) Andrewa (talk) 19:55, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

As to the second paragraph, see #Where to 2. Andrewa (talk) 19:55, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa: I'm fed up with trying to explain things to you. You seem quite unable to link a reply back to its question. Or are you being deliberately difficult, pretending not to understand in the hope that I will switch to using interleaved replies? It ain't gonna work, feller. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:15, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm certainly not trying to be disruptive, and if you think I am then the place to raise it is on my user talk page, not here.

And I'm finding it a bit frustrating too. You seem to see a problem with this edit. But what exactly is the problem?

Yes, I did add a redundant signature as an experiment, to see whether you or anyone else would like to try interleaving. Was there any harm in that? And, with this redundant signature in place, would there have been any harm in interleaving? I'm not really surprised you didn't, but I think it would have done you no harm to try it.

But I'm not being deliberately difficult, pretending not to understand. I'm assuming good faith on your part and think you should do the same for me.

And I still do not understand what you're getting at in the first paragraph, and you seem to have made no attempt to explain. You said You're darned right it was a reply to you. It should have been obvious from my use of the phrase "You have problems with my recent edit" which was a straight person-reversal of your phrase "I have problems with this recent edit", and since that was an edit that I had made, I am clearly the person involved. Don't claim that you didn't know that. In reverse order, I did know that, and made no claim not to. Yes, it was clearly an edit you had made, and it was your reply to me, and I said that too, and so your indenting was incorrect. Wasn't it? We all make mistakes. Let's get back to the issues. Andrewa (talk) 01:53, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Four subsections, four sub-subsections, and 70K have been invested in this. Care to go for 70K more? EEng 02:13, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Plenty of us use the anchor method. There is no rule against it, there is no need for a rule to use it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Current guidelines

From above: Please do not refactor other people's comments to suit your style, and definitely do not break-up other people's comments with interleaving that the community has rejected. [2]

I have no intention of doing any of that, I still think that a brief interspersed comment is helpful on occasions, but I will of course go with the consensus on this. [3] But there are several suppositions there that I want to question.

The main one is that as far as I can see the guidelines do not currently ban interleaving, so I think it's over the top to claim the the community has rejected it. But agree that the editors involved in this discussion, apart from myself, are strongly of the opinion that it should be banned completely. I suggest therefore that an RfC should be raised with a specific proposal to do so. I think this discussion has probably gone as far as it can.

I will probably oppose this RfC, depending exactly what it says and what arguments are advanced. But if it succeeds then as said above I'll abide by it of course. I may find it difficult to walk the line between allowing others to ignore this new consensus and being pointy in enforcing a ruling I don't agree with! But cross that bridge when we come to it. Hopefully we can reach a strong consensus, that will help a lot. Andrewa (talk) 20:19, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

How about if you stop wasting everyone's time and drop this? EEng 20:23, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree this has gone about as far as it can. Disagree it was a waste of time, and there are still a few things to tidy up, see below. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

I was wrong about it having gone about as far as it can, you have now significantly changed or clarified your position below as to the changes you would like to current guidelines, and perhaps we can also make progress with the question of what they currently say, see #Where to 2 below. Andrewa (talk) 19:28, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

This recent "my way or the highway" change to the wording in the actual guideline should be reverted if it hasn't been already.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Where to now

There's obviously no desire above to test consensus on this at an RfC. There's a clear majority wanting to ban interleaving completely, but this is not the same thing as a consensus. It's not a head count, despite a recent edit summary suggesting one.

The argument seems to be that they just don't like it. Claims that this well-established convention misrepresents the original post and/or violates existing guidelines are unsubstantiated, IMO.

But obviously, these editors can boldly change the guideline and under the 3RR I can't singlehandedly stop them... and so I won't even revert once. I may support others who do, and cross that bridge when we come to it.

It would be good to clarify the guideline, but obviously I don't think that we should change it to ban interleaving. Rather it should be explicitly permitted, and some restrictions considered to control its abuse, and the abuse of indenting in general, particularly to accommodate mobile users. That's just my view of course.

I will try to avoid interleaving comments in posts made by editors who object to the practice, as I have above (with one exception deliberately used as an example). Perhaps we should set up some sort of register, either opt-in or opt-out, so that editors like me who like the practice can use it without offending those who don't.

Apart from that we may be finished here. If so we can let the discussion archive in due course. Thanks to all who have contributed. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Do not avoid interleaving comments in posts made by editors who object to the practice. Just do not do it, period. If you want, create an infoboxuserbox that only you will use: "This user doesn't mind if you interlard you comments inside his posts." EEng 17:13, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

I was wrong, it seems there may be a lot left to say.

Just do not do it, period. I'm afraid that's a ridiculously sweeping request IMO. For example, if someone interleaves their comments with mine, I think I should feel free to follow their lead, and even that it would be a bit rude not to. Isn't that fair enough? I really think you are overstating both the problem and the solution.

The userbox (you said infobox but I think that's what you mean) is a good idea, although many of us already feel we have too many userboxes and there may be better ways of achieving the same goal.

And yes, if I'm the only one who ever uses it, then you'll have made a point.

An "opt-out" userbox (or something that better achieves the same) that says something along the lines of This user does not use the indenting convention to intersperse their comments between paragraphs of other users' talk page posts, and requests others not to do so too would also be a good idea IMO. Andrewa (talk) 02:11, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

No one should have to opt out to keep others from intruding on the integrity of their posts. If you and some other editor are in a discussion and agree to interleave your comments for some special reason, knock yourself out; I obviously didn't mean to restrict the right of consenting adults to indulge in whatever perverse personal behavior together they want, as long as children aren't exposed to it and you don't frighten the horses. EEng 02:40, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I obviously didn't mean to restrict the right of consenting adults to indulge in whatever perverse personal behavior together they want... That's a welcome clarification of what you actually meant by Just do not do it, period.

And this is progress. As on all talk pages, we are working towards consensus. So can I ask, do we have consensus that a blanket ban on interleaved discussions between consenting adults would be, as I said above, ridiculous? I accept that's not what you meant to say, but it seemed to be to me what you said, and what you and others have suggested above. So it's a very significant step IMO.

No one should have to opt out to keep others from intruding on the integrity of their posts. Agree. But I do not believe that the indenting and interleaving convention is quite that bad. Like your Just do not do it, period that is over the top. At worst, it makes the discussion hard to follow to those who are (for whatever reason) not comfortable using the convention.

And they should be considered, and I've said I'll avoid using the convention to reply to these people, and I am doing so. But give us a break. Wouldn't it be good to give some warning that you're one of these people? Andrewa (talk) 03:54, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm partial to the out-of-the-ordinary!

Sorry, I have to feed the cat, change the water in the fish tank, and brush up on my differential equations before the dominatrix gets here. I hope you work something out. EEng 04:14, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Please could people observe WP:INDENTGAP, at least. This is an accessibility issue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:07, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Very good point, and I have been guilty of forgetting that from time to time. It would be good to incorporate more on accessibility into the talk page guideline IMO, MOS:Accessibility is not often cited and I'm guessing not often read. Andrewa (talk) 11:06, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't see how INDENTGAP applies; I don't notice anyone trying to leave blank lines. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I took it simply as a pre-emptive heads-up... and a useful one. I hope I haven't blundered in that way here, but I have in the past, partly at least for reasons given in #Accessibility below. Andrewa (talk) 20:30, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

@DIYeditor: See this post; blank lines between every paragraph. @Andrewa: No use hoping: the evidence clearly shows that it was you who blundered. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:54, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Ah, thanks. I actually didn't understand the accessibility reasoning or details of INDENTGAP; I had not read it carefully. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:05, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

That was indeed a mistake on my part, and refactoring to remove it was entirely in order. And I have made that mistake before, for reasons set out in #Accessibility. I do make mistakes. I try to learn from them. My definition of an expert is someone who has already made most of their mistakes. That's part of the reason Wikipedia encourages mistakes. Andrewa (talk) 02:07, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

There's definitely no consensus on this, because people can't even agree throughout this sprawling mess what they're talking about, and the proposal (in various conflicting versions) defies over a decade and a half of actual practice, which is to refactor when it seems necessary (and to revert a refactor when one seems boneheaded or WP:POINTy). Talk pages are not magically exempt from normal WP:EDITING and WP:CONSENSUS policies. "There seems like a vague local consensus for some kind of change, but we dunno what it is" = no consensus, no change, revert to the status quo ante, i.e. before any changes were made in furtherance of what's been proposed here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Accessibility

I've just realised that there's a trap with indenting... at the first level (no indenting), you do need to leave white space. Just going to a new line doesn't make a new paragraph.

To do that, you need to leave a blank line. Andrewa (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

On the other hand, once you indent, you must not leave white space, as it confuses accessibility aids.

And it's not necessary. Just going to a new line does give a new paragraph once you are at first indent.

Perhaps this should be more explicitly stated, somewhere? Or is it already and I've missed it? Andrewa (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

No, once you're at the first : level, just going to a new line starting with : does not give a new paragraph. The right way to break paragraph once you're in the : regime is

:Blah blah 1st paragraph

:

:Blah blah 2nd paragraph

EEng 22:21, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I see... what I described above seems to work on my browser, but perhaps not on others. I think this is important... is it documented anywhere in guidelines etc? Andrewa (talk) 23:18, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

No, if you try it with and without the intervening extra line with : alone, you'll see a definite difference. EEng 06:32, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I take it from that that as far as you know this is not documented anywhere.

I've set up a little experiment in the community sandbox. I see five paragraphs, with no significant difference between the spacing of paragraphs three, four and five. What do you see? Andrewa (talk) 00:09, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

@EEng: You may be thinking of how vertical spacing used to work. However, MediaWiki:Common.css was changed in December 2016 (diff) so indented and unidented paragraphs on talk pages have the same vertical spacing. The issue of correct indenting is part of MOS:INDENTGAP where the colon on an otherwise blank line is necessary so the result is a single definition list for screen readers. Johnuniq (talk) 04:07, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Crikey, you're right! And I was just getting the hang of remembering to include the otherwise-blank-line-with-only-colon-on-it, and here they go and make it unnecessary. My apologies to all for sowing confusion. EEng 04:21, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Accessibility is presently a lost cause on our talk pages, because we're grossly abusing description list markup to do things it is not supposed to be used for, namely visible layout indentation, which is a CSS matter. It's even worse that abusing tables for layout. This needs to be fixed technically, as I cover at #Proper use of the colon, below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Where to 2

You're like a dog with a bone – except it's not a bone, it's a stick. Drop the stick.

–EEng 19:46, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

As I have said above, the goal of talk pages is to work towards consensus. There is some progress above on this.

In particular, one editor has changed or clarified their position, as I see it from wanting a complete ban on interleaving to being happy for consenting parties to use it. They still want the default to be not to use it, and perhaps that can work, I'd need to see a definite proposal and I'm a bit sceptical and wary of instruction creep. But happy to work on it.

The other bone of contention is the assertion above that guidelines already ban interleaving. I think that's also over the top, but hope we can similarly resolve that one too. Andrewa (talk) 19:37, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

You're like a dog with a bone, except it's not a bone, it's a stick. (Note that the post concerned was added after my comment above but above it... probably not a good idea, but again don't change it now I've replied.) Nothing will be decided here IMO, it's a big enough issue to require an RfC to change it, and there's no response to my suggestion above that one might be raised.

So feel free to just drop out if you feel it's a waste of time, and allow the discussion to be archived... as I also suggested once above. But IMO, there is progress. Painful progress, but this was never going to be easy. Andrewa (talk) 20:08, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see that you were continuing with this. I did take the discussion as consensus against interleaving so I added guidance about it to the page. I don't personally see how an RfC is necessary. It doesn't seem likely that anyone is going to support the "convention" of editing others' comments to break them up for replies. No one else has expressed support for that and several have opposed (sometimes strongly). Feel free of course to start an RfC if you think that there is some support out there for this. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:27, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Aha, I missed this edit. A bit bold perhaps but a perfectly acceptable action IMO. It has certainly been discussed here, and your edit avoids the excesses that others have (in my view at least) implied.

The next step then is to see how this affects discussions... will people even notice it, will it help or hinder discussions. And I may add something to my sig encouraging interleaving in replying to my own posts. Andrewa (talk) 20:41, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

So feel free to just drop out if you feel it's a waste of time – Some of us have this page on our watchlists in case a productive discussion arises, and we'd prefer not to have our attention repeatedly diverted by this discursive trip to nowhere. EEng 22:25, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I think that's another example of incorrect indenting. It replies to this post, so a single colon would have been correct. Or am I missing something? Andrewa (talk) 02:18, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

In all seriousness, you're an admin? EEng 02:21, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes. And a lapsed member of Australian Mensa, and a drummer, and lots of other things.

I guess the reason you ask is that you find by behaviour here below par. And it's true that admins are held to a higher standard of behaviour, even when not using any of our sysop powers. But the rules are the same. We're just expected to follow them a bit more strictly and knowledgeably.

And one of the rules is comment on content, not on the contributor. This is not the place to discuss behavior. TIA Andrewa (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Please tell me the bit about Mensa is intentional self-parody. EEng 04:35, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

It is quite accurate. And you are on really thin ice. Please cease the personal comments here. If you have complaints about my behaviour, make them in the appropriate place and fashion. If you think I'm stupid, tough. Get over it. Andrewa (talk) 06:54, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't dream of doubting you belong to Mensa. It's the offhand name drop I'm struggling to understand. EEng 12:42, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

OK, it was a reply to this personal attack which didn't seem worth raising on your user talk page. But strictly we should take it up there, and can if you wish to discuss it further. Andrewa (talk) 01:47, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Would it be a personal attack to say that if you think the post you just linked is a personal attack, there's something wrong with you? What in the world are you talking about? I think it would be best if you stopped trying to police others' behavior, because you seem incapable of interpreting normal human interactions. This came back onto my watchlist because I answered a ping, but I'm unwatching again; I hope when I return you'll have found some useful way to occupy yourself. EEng 04:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed with EEng in this section, though we disagree in some other ones. This entire mess is all about a handful of prideful editors trying to police other editors, and it needs to be shut down.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

This is a bad, BAD idea

Many users find this practice highly offensive, and it makes discussions very confusing to follow. We should not be encouraging it in any way. Drive a stake through this. EEng 22:37, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

If it's true that Many users find this practice highly offensive, then I'd have to agree it should be banned. End of story.

But I must ask why is it so offensive? And why is it confusing? Was anyone confused or offended by my two-part post above? Why and how?

Walls of text are one of the key techniques of rantstyle. The ability to reply concisely and clearly to a long post is vital in order to get ranting discussions back on track, and work towards consensus.

If people find this offensive, I think perhaps they're in the wrong place. In a sense even your signed contributions don't belong to you here at Wikipedia. All text is available for reuse and refactoring. There are restrictions, of course, and we should not for example misrepresent others, or deny them their chance of a fair hearing, and the guidelines seek to ensure this. But interleaving, properly done, does neither of those things.

To the contrary, it allows arguments to be easily, clearly and concisely answered. And this is not always welcome! Andrewa (talk) 00:45, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

All text is available for reuse and refactoring – Reuse, yes. "Refactoring" that in any way even slightly tampers with the context, import, or connotation of an editor's post, no, and that includes interlarding your own comments in a way that neuters the original thrust. Quote a bit of what someone said, and respond to it – as I did in this very post. More than one person may want to respond to the same post, and if they all try to interleave it becomes a complete mess. EEng 00:56, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree with all of the first two sentences except the unstated implication that interleaving properly done even slightly tampers with the context, import, or connotation of an editor's post or that it neuters the original thrust.

And if a second editor inserted a comment here, it would not affect the flow or logic of my post in the slightest. Andrewa (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

It does neither. Did my example above do either? It doesn't seem to have to me. Do you have examples that have? Andrewa (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I'll tell you why I hate it. It derives from an email/usenet practice, where correspondents inserted their comments directly into the comments of the person they responded to. In that context, it works fine, for two reasons.

First, in the email/usenet context, each response was a separate document, an email message itself. It wasn't a single document being iteratively edited, with the end result being an intermingled mass of commentary by multiple editors, where finding each editor's comments and viewpoints is much more difficult.

Second, in email/usenet, one almost always trimmed away the parts not being responded to. It was a matter both of courtesy and to keep the note from becoming ungainlily long. In contrast, on Wikipedia talk pages, we obviously don't want other editors' comments trimmed by the act of responding; again, because it's a single document, not a series of individual documents.

What worked very well for email and usenet works very badly in an interatively edited document like a Wikipedia talk page. It causes attributions to be masked or difficult to figure out.

You say "it allows arguments to be easily, clearly and concisely answered", but I don't think that's the case. Easily and concisely, sure; but clarity is a casualty of the practice. I love it in email (top-posting is the bane of modern email communication) but hate it for talk pages. TJRC (talk) 00:59, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

It seems to be a matter of taste to me. I have no problem following properly inserted comments; I find it easy to follow the logic (or lack of same) in arguments presented in this way. Again, have you any examples where clarity has suffered? Do you think that the example I gave above, or the original one that started this whole string, are unclear?

I'd like to respond to the detailed points you make, some of which I agree with, but others are I think at least questionable. But without doing what you hate I think it would be unworkable, so I'll just leave it at that. Andrewa (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

andrewa, in reply to your first ¶ above (I refuse to interleave), my comment in the previous section about the "old hand" applies here as well. As a extremely experienced editor, you are unable, without effort, to comprehend how what is so easy for you can be difficult to a newcomer. --Thnidu (talk) 16:37, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

That's certainly not what I meant to say. I am unable to understand how you and other old hands have such trouble with it.

I admit I haven't checked what I said, and I don't find your references terribly helpful in doing so. Interested in other views on this. But I suspect you are, perhaps unintentionally, misquoting me.

There is a learning curve for newcomers, but the convention is easily learned and so useful in many situations that it should not be generally discouraged.

There should be guidelines discouraging its excessive use. But the proposed ban on using it even one level deep seems ridiculous to me. Andrewa (talk) 00:31, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

I think "generally" is a good compromise wording. It acknowledges that there may be circumstances where it is acceptable, although good examples elude me aside from by mutual explicit consent. Even then to me it is a bad idea. It's messy and confusing. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:33, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree it's a good wording. Still disagree with the principle. I could be wrong. So let's see how it works in practice. Andrewa (talk) 23:24, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:MOS is a good guideline where "generally" is excellent advice for two reasons. First, there are lots of exceptions in language, and one set of rules is unlikely to cover all cases. Second, the consequences of conflicting with MOS are small—the point of disagreement would often not be noticed by most readers. However, comments at a busy noticeboard (or an article talk page where conflict applies) are different. First, experience in such places shows that interleaving is a ghastly procedure—it makes it hard for those who need to follow the discussion (perhaps in a year) to see who-said-what and why a decision was made. Second, while there are a few ILIKEIT votes on this page, there are at least as many strong objections. Talk pages are where collaboration is tested, and procedures that annoy a significant portion of the participants are an immediate fail. The people here might understand that generally means "almost never", but those who like interleaving will use generally as a green light. If challenged they will reply that WP:TPG permits the procedure and their convenience required interleaving. Using generally will end up encouraging interleaving, and that would need a major RfC. Johnuniq (talk) 04:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I've just gotten involved here and I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "interleaving" at this point, but your concern that we should assume bad faith and therefore misuse a guideline to make statements in conflict with fundamental principles (the right to edit and no ownership of text) is concerning.  There are only two rules needed, (1) we are here to build an encyclopedia and (2) don't change the meaning.  I think the second is where you've missed the departure, because it is typical when inserting text in someone else's comment to begin the insert with [insert begins here].  The big problem when inserting text in someone else's comment is when they are newbies (which in this context includes senior admins) who think they own the text.  So yes, it is important that TPG make correct neutral statements that protect good edits from ownership conflict.  Unscintillating (talk) 11:41, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Might be best to find out what we're talking about before commenting. EEng 13:51, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

That is a refusal to discuss.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:57, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

No, it's a disinclination to humor the comments of someone who starts by declaring he doesn't know what he's talking about, then goes on to talk about it at length. EEng 17:02, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

According to my search, your first edit to WT:TPG was on 27 August 2017.  Is that correct?  I suggest that you and others review Archive 10 and Archive 11.  Also Archive 8 has relevant material.  Unscintillating (talk) 18:27, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

No, it's not correct, and no one's going to plow through three archive pages you vaguely wave your hand at, looking for something unspecified. EEng 19:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@Unscintillating: It would help if you indicated what specific sections you are referring to as the archives are long. Luckily "interleaving" returns Archive 10 and 11 in a search so I understood that you meant they explicitly used the term. What section in Archive 8 are you referring to? Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 10#Reverting interruptions seemed to conclude that consensus was against interleaving and that the exceptions should not even be mentioned to avoid giving approval for the practice. Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Posting within another editor's post doesn't have clear consensus. Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Non talk page reviews and posting style did not seem to reach consensus about whether WP:TPG should cover project pages like WP:FAC where interleaving is common and mention those practices/exceptions. I am happy to leave this with the "generally" wording and even to make mention of specific exceptions (although they aren't exactly for talk pages). —DIYeditor (talk) 20:18, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Johnuniq makes some good points in their {(longish) single paragraph above but there's also some questionable stuff mixed in. First, experience in such places shows that interleaving is a ghastly procedure—it makes it hard for those who need to follow the discussion (perhaps in a year) to see who-said-what and why a decision was made - similar sweeping statements have been made, including of course in this section head. But we have had no examples of this experience, just strong statements that it's ghastly, a bad, BAD idea, and so on. If this experience is so persuasive, surely it shouldn't be hard to find specific examples? Andrewa (talk) 20:56, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

• Here is an example I posted in Archive 8:

[T]he two priorities are, we are building an encyclopedia, and "don't change the meaning".  User B, or for that matter other editors, can do more by identifying where the inserts begin and end, such as with:

:Point 1 by user:A

::[insert begins here]

::Reply 1 by user:B, sig

::[insert ends here]

:Point 2 by user:A

::[insert begins here]

::Reply 2 by user:B, sig

::[insert ends here]

:Point 3 by user:A, sig

Unscintillating (talk) 03:09, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Posted by Unscintillating (talk) 22:13, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. But some users think that this leaves points 1 and 2 by user A unsigned; The bot has no trouble finding the sig however. On the other extreme, I find the first sig by user B redundant (but harmless), and again so does the bot AFAIK. Andrewa (talk) 22:23, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa: surely it shouldn't be hard to find specific examples I already gave an example - in my post of 08:25, 31 August 2017 (UTC). Clearly, WP:IDHT applies here. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:27, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, in this post you referred to an example I had deliberately provided, and which is the subject of ongoing discussion, and I'm keen to discuss it some more. It's proving to be a very good example. Andrewa (talk) 20:52, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I have taken the behavioural allegation to the user's talk page. [4] Andrewa (talk) 21:09, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not offensive to a large number of editors at all, only to a vocal handful. I've been doing it for years – when it seems genuinely necessary – and it's only produced disputes four times that I can recall: 1) a troll who later got blocked; 2) a self-declared "enemy" of mine for a while (we're on okay terms now) who was pretty much reverting everything I did everywhere and being uncivil to me at every turn; 3) someone trying to derail an RfC by shitting all over it with huge text-wall commentary inserted not just into the comments section but into the RfC itself; and 4) a non-neutrally phrased and evidence-deficient RfC that was improved, after some compromise (the fix was, of course and as I've said elsewhere herein, copying the original attribution to make it unmistakable who posted what, though this was not strictly necessary – RfCs do not actually have to have any attribution at all, and sometimes do not on purpose).