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GeezerVison is showing en.wikipedia.org — Template:Talk header - Wikipedia

Permanently protected template
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Talk header template.
  • Add new text under old text.
  • New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.
    Start a new topic
  • Assume good faith
  • Be polite and avoid personal attacks
  • Be welcoming to newcomers
  • Seek dispute resolution if needed
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Archives: 1
Template documentationviewedithistorypurge
This template uses Lua:
  • Module:String2 (sandbox)
  • Module:Check for unknown parameters (sandbox)
  • Module:Check for deprecated parameters (sandbox)
WarningThis template is used on approximately 855,000 pages, or roughly 1% of all pages.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.
CSSThis template uses TemplateStyles:
  • Module:Message box/tmbox.css[e] (sandbox) [e]
  • Template:Talk header/styles.css[e] (sandbox) [e]
This template should never be substituted – use {{Talk header}}.

This template is a signpost. The text of this template varies by namespace. It displays a talk page message box with four sections of content:

  • § Intro – a short introduction and appropriate links for newcomers
  • § Policies – a reminder of important policies for experienced users
  • § "Find sources links" – a set of links to aid in finding reliable sources for the article topic
  • § Archives – a list of links to the current talk page's archives, and a search box to search them

Portions of the standard boilerplate text may be modified with params that specify additional or replacement text.

Usage

{{Talk header}}

To add this template to a talk page, just open an edit of the talk page, and put {{Talk header}} at the top of the page.

By convention, this template goes at the very top of the talk page, above WikiProject templates and other talk-page banners. However, this is not an absolute rule, and editors should use common sense when deciding its placement. See also: Wikipedia:Talk page layout § Lead (bannerspace).

Should this be added to every talk page?

There is no mandate to have this template appear on all of Wikipedia's approx. 7.3 million potential talk pages.[a] This template should not be indiscriminately added to pre-existing talk pages, especially not by using bots. That said, the template should not be removed from talk pages simply because it is there.

For more information on this topic, see the talk page for this template, including the talk archives[b] and the TfD logs.[c]

A further consideration is when this template is added solely or chiefly for its ability to display the archive list and search box. Both this template and the {{Archives}} template contain the functionality (enabled by default) to display the archive list and search box (for pages where archives are detected). Do not replace an existing {{Archives}} template with this template without other justification.

Avoid the duplication of the archive list and search box: either don't use the {{Archives}} template at all, or turn off archive display for this template. One reason for using {{Archives}} even on talk pages with a {{Talk header}} template could be when the templates at the top of the talk page become so long as to be unwieldy – in that case you might consider moving the archive-related information "off to the side" using {{Archives}}.

The two commonly used archive bots are ClueBot III and lowercase sigmabot III (see H:CHOOSEBOT). ClueBot III offers a built-in third option to display the archive list and search box, see its |archivebox=yes parameter. Again, please avoid displaying the archive list and search box multiple times.

Parameters

Full syntax – Vertical

{{Talk header
| bottom = <!-- additional instructions above the talk header box -->
| custom_header = <!-- customized text in the talk header box -->
| wp = <!-- for wikiproject pages -->
| display_title = <!-- custom displaytitle -->
| arpol = <!-- force inclusion of the "article policies" section -->
| sc1 = <!-- up to five shortcuts can be included, similar to {{shortcut}} -->
| sc2 = 
| sc3 = 
| sc4 = 
| sc5 = 
| demospace = <!-- for demonstration purposes -->
| hide_find_sources = <!-- hides "find sources" on article talk pages -->
| search_term1 = <!-- overrides the article title as search term -->
| search_term2 = 
| search-domain = <!-- overrides search domain -->
| noarchive = <!-- suppress archive info -->
| search = <!-- suppress archive search bar -->
}}

Horizontal

{{Talk header |bottom = |custom_header = |wp = |display_title = |arpol = |sc1= |sc2= |sc3= |sc4= |sc5= |demospace = |hide_find_sources = |search_term1= |search_term2= |search-domain = |noarchive = |search = }}

Hiding the template

Registered users who prefer not to see this template on any talk page may hide it from view. This would affect only your account and nothing is changed for anybody else. You will need to have a registered account to do this kind of personalization.

  1. Edit your user style page at Special:Mypage/common.css.
  2. Add a line: #talkheader {display:none;}
  3. Save the change.
  4. Bypass your cache.

Do note that archiving information (the § Archives section) is more and more commonly shown through this template as opposed to through a freestanding template such as {{Archives}}. To only hide the intro/newcomer links and talk page policies, but leave the find sources and archive sections visible, instead use the line: 

#talkheader tr:has(> td > .talkheader-body) { display:none; }

Parts of the header

This section describes the different parts of the header. Each subsection below corresponds to one of the four main areas of functionality listed in the bullet items at the top, and explains which parameters are available to modify their appearance.

If the template is used in a SUBJECTSPACE talk page, then a WP:NOTFORUM line, "This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article", is added immediately below the very top line.

Intro and newcomer links

Basic tips for newcomers appear in the top left and are boxed with a white background (or a black background in dark mode). This includes links for how to get help and a button to start a new topic in new section at the bottom of the page. The intro links are displayed in the top left portion of the message box:

  • Add new text under old text.
  • New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.
    Start a new topic

 
 

Policies

Talk page policies

A bullet list of policies, and behavioral and talk page guidelines is included by default in the top right portion of the message box.

Article policies

In the article namespace only, a list of bulleted "Article policies" is included by default. It occupies part of the top right section of the message box, to the right of the talk page policies.

 
  • Assume good faith
  • Be polite and avoid personal attacks
  • Be welcoming to newcomers
  • Seek dispute resolution if needed
Article policies
  • Neutral point of view
  • No original research
  • Verifiability
 

In non-article namespaces, the "Article policies" box is absent by default, but it may be added via |arpol=yes. For example:

{{talk header|arpol=yes}}

Note: The only recognized value for |arpol= is "yes". In particular, |arpol=no has no effect on header display in any namespace. The article policies may be suppressed from view in all namespaces by adding #talkheader .talkheader-policies{display:none} to your common.css (see #Hiding the template for more on such personalization).

"Find sources" links

For article Talk pages, a set of "find sources" links appears by default in the Talk header box. The default links correspond to the output of Template:Find sources; see Talk:Europe for an example. These links appear after the initial article policies and links for newcomers, and above the archiving section. For the article Europe, it looks like this:

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Background

There are several flavors of "find sources" links (medical, video, general) targeted to different search domains. The flavor of "find sources" links displayed in the Talk header depends on WikiProject membership of the article and may correspond to one of these:

  • {{find medical sources}} – for articles in the medical search domain
  • {{find video game sources}} – for articles in the video game search domain
  • {{find general sources}} – the default, for everything else, is the general domain.

The default search domain is "general", which is the large majority of all Talk pages, and displays the links found in template {{find general sources}}. The search domain is determined automatically by the template, depending on the presence of the corresponding WikiProject. If an article belongs to WikiProject Medicine, it is in the medical search domain by default; if it belongs to WikiProject Video games, it is in the video game search domain by default. (If it is in both, then the highest domain in the list above is chosen; i.e, 'medical'.)

Example

For the page Talk:Giardiasis, which belongs to WP:WikiProject Medicine, it looks like this:

Find medical sourcesFind medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL

You can modify the nature of the source links displayed by § Hiding the links, § modifying the query terms, or by § modifying the search domain.

Hiding the links

By default, these links do not appear outside of article Talk space (ns=1).

Within article Talk space, the "find sources" links may be suppressed by setting parameter |hide_find_sources=yes.

Modifying the "find sources" query terms

The find sources links use the article title by default as the search term and forms an "exact search" (or "double-quoted query")[d] from the title. If the article title contains parenthetical disambiguation portion, this is appended after the exact search query term, as an additional, unquoted phrase.

In place of the default, the query terms may be specified by using |search_term= (alias: |search_term1=) to specify the exact search string. Parameter |search_term2= may be added to specify additional, unquoted query terms, as many as desired.

Search domain override

The default domain chosen by automatic WikiProject detection may be overridden using param |search-domain=:

  • |search-domain=medical – use medical as the search domain, regardless what projects it belongs to (value alias: med)
  • |search-domain=video game – use video games as the search domain, regardless what projects it belongs to (value alias: video, and vg))
  • |search-domain=general – use general as the search domain, regardless what projects it belongs to (value alias: gen)

The parameter alias |domain= may be used instead; thus, |domain=med means the same thing as |search-domain=medical.

Archives

The archives section of the Talk header occupies the bottom of the Talk header box. This template does not control or initiate any form of archiving; it merely detects if any archiving has been done (that uses the standard naming convention). See Help:Archiving a talk page, both for instructions on how to manually archive a talk page and how to set up automated archiving. The archive section consists of two portions:

  • a set of links to Talk page archives, possibly including an archive bot notice
  • an archive search box

The section is displayed automatically at the bottom of this template when used on a talk page that has archives that are named in the standard way. If no archives exist for the current talk page, or if they have non-standard names, no archives section is displayed. The archive bot notice is displayed if the set of links to archives is displayed and a valid archive bot configuration section is present.

The |noarchive=yes parameter suppresses the set of links to archives.
The |search=no parameter suppresses the archive search box.
Use {{Talk header|noarchive=yes|search=no}} to turn off the entire Archives section (such as when an {{Archives}} template is present on the same talk page)

If the template cannot detect any archives (possibly because they are not named in the standard way), the Archives section is not displayed. If the template cannot detect a valid archive bot configuration section (possibly because any archives were created manually), or no set of links to archives is displayed, the archive bot notice is not displayed.

Links to archives

If Talk page archives exist and are named in the standard sequential way, using either a numeric sequence or the alphabetic system with names like /Archive A, or with yearly archives of the format /Archive 2026, links to all of the archive pages are displayed. If this template cannot find any archives because they are not named the standard sequential way, it will behave as if no archive pages exist.

|noarchive=yes suppresses links to archives.

For archives using numeric sequencing, the archive links look like this (example shown is for Talk:Europe):

Auto-archiving period 3 months  Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

A link to the archive index is included in the list if it exists and has the standard name "/Archive index". There is no parameter to independently suppress this.

Archive bot notice

The set of links to archives offers an archive bot notice containing the text "Auto-archiving period" at the right for informational purposes. It does not set up automatic archiving, it merely reports what type of archiving has been configured, if any. For instructions on how to set up automated Talk page archiving, see Help:Archiving a talk page. If archiving has been set up, it is reported automatically from the archive configuration data on the page. In the example above the archiving period is 92 days but reported as "3 months" because the template prefers units that result in relatively small values for readability over the units understood by archive bots.[e]

In desktop view, the words "Auto-archiving period" have a dotted underline indicating the presence of a tooltip. In the example above, the tooltip text is: "Topics with timestamps are automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III 3 or more at a time after 92 days of inactivity when more than 5 threads are present." Tooltips are not visible to users of the Wikipedia:mobile app.

Note: Formerly, four parameters[f] were available for users to configure the bot notice manually; however, the bot notice is now generated automatically directly from the archive config data.

Search box

The archive search box may be used to search the Talk page archives, and is displayed automatically when used on a talk page that has archives that are named in the standard way. If no archives exist for the current talk page, or if they have non-standard names, no search box is displayed.

Parameter |search=no may be used to suppress the search box.

If present, the search box appears below the Archiving links, and is the last element to appear in the template:

In this working example, entering search terms searches the talk page archives of the article Europe.

Additional and replacement text

Besides the four main sections of the talk header box, the template provides three parameters which may be used to include additional sections or modified text:

  • |bottom=
  • |custom header=
  • |wp=.

bottom

|bottom=yes – adds a message above the main talk header box, separately bordered, about where to place new discussions:

Please place new discussions at the bottom of the talk page.

custom_header

|custom_header=your text here – adds any desired text above the main talk header. Text is in boldface by default, and has a horizontal rule below, separating it from the rest of the content.

Example

Showing |custom_header= with the first line of Lorem ipsum text:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
  • Add new text under old text.
  • Assume good faith

If used together with |bottom=: the "New discussions placement" text appears above everything in a separately bordered box; the main talk header box is below that, and the custom text appears in the main box, above the newbie and article policy links and separated from them by a horizontal rule.

wp

|wp=yes – Extends the bolded lead sentence of the header, to add the words "Pagename and anything related to its purposes and tasks" as follows:

This is the talk page for discussing Pagename and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

This parameter should not be used outside of the Wikipedia talk namespace.

Testing issues

Find sources testing

For testing and demonstration purposes, this template accepts parameter |demospace= which enables testing of the find sources opt-out parameter |hide_find_sources= from other namespaces.

  • If |demospace= has the value main or the value 1 it returns the findsources text it would normally return when transcluded from mainspace.
  • If |demospace= has any other value such as the name of some other namespace it returns the text it would if transcluded outside of mainspace.
  • If the parameter is empty or undefined, the actual page type determines the result.

The dynamic features of WikiProject autodetection and § Search domain override depend on the article title where it appears, and therefore cannot be tested in the normal way. The test cases page provides an explanation of how to test these features using Special:ExpandTemplates with the ContextTitle enabled, or by using in situ testing.

Expensive parser functions

This template uses up to 24 expensive parser functions (during 2026, with it increasing by one a year) depending on what parameters are used. In theory, on pages with very large numbers of other templates using expensive parser functions this could result in template limits being reached, but this is very unlikely. It could also affect expansion of templates on a test page that has more than 20 uncollapsed invocations of this template, especially ones appearing lower on the page.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Talk header in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Talk header

Template parameters[Edit template data]

ParameterDescriptionTypeStatus
Shortcut1 shortcut shortcut1 sc sc1

Shortcut that displays similar to the {{shortcut}} template, but within the Talk header message box

Example
WP:SHOR
Page namesuggested
Shortcut 22 shortcut2 sc2

A second shortcut

Page nameoptional
bottombottom

Set to "yes" to add additional instructions at the top to "please place new discussions at the bottom of the talk page"

Suggested values
yes
Booleanoptional
Custom headercustom_header

Replaces the entire header with customized text

Lineoptional
WikiProject?wp

For use on WikiProject talk pages; set to "yes" to add "and anything related to its purposes and tasks" to the header

Booleanoptional
Display titledisplay_title

Displays a custom page title

Stringoptional
Article policiesarpol

Adds a link to the article policy pages

Default
On for article talk pages, off otherwise
Booleanoptional
demospacedemospace

Namespace number or name for testing purposes

Stringoptional
Hide find sources?hide_find_sources

Set to "yes" to hide the find sources banner on article talk pages

Booleanoptional
Search termsearch_term search_term1

Changes the search term used in the {{find sources}} module

Stringoptional
Search term 2search_term2

Adds a second search term for unquoted search, as used in the {{find sources}} module

Stringoptional
Search domainsearch-domain domain

Changes the default search domain used in the {{find sources}} module

Suggested values
medical video general
Stringoptional
No archives?noarchive noarchives

Set to "yes" to hide the archives links

Suggested values
yes
Booleanoptional
Searchsearch

Set to "no" to override the default behavior for the search box appearance

Booleanoptional

Tracking categories

  • Category:Pages using Talk header with unknown parameters (2,990)

See also

  • {{New discussion}}
  • {{Portal talk}}
  • {{Skip to talk}}
  • {{WikiProject banner shell}}
  • Wikipedia:Template index/Talk namespace
  • Wikipedia:Template index/User talk namespace
  • MediaWiki:Talkpagetext

Notes

  1. ↑ It is currently used on about ~825,000 of them or roughly 11%.
  2. ↑ Template talk:Talk header/Archive 10#Consider updating the "only where it's needed" instruction
  3. ↑ See the top of the talk page for the banner with links to previous TfDs.
  4. ↑ Exact search is also known as a "double-quoted query" because major search engines interpret paired double-quote characters as indicating that everything between the double quotes must be found exactly as specified.
  5. ↑ See {{Human readable duration}} for details on this conversion. Do note: "months" is NOT a valid unit when configuring archive bots.
  6. ↑ |archive_bot=, |archive_age=, |archive_units=, and |minthreadsleft=
The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Talk header/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (edit | diff) and testcases (edit) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Talk_header&oldid=1383511242"
Categories:
  • Talk message boxes
  • Non-subject-matter-related article-talk header templates
  • Talk header templates
  • User talk header templates
Hidden categories:
  • Wikipedia template-protected templates
  • Lua-based templates
  • Templates using TemplateStyles
  • Wikipedia never-substituted templates
  • Templates using TemplateData
  • Templates that are not mobile friendly
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