Talk page

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A talk page, or discussion page is used in wiki collaboration containing discussion about the contents of its associated "subject" page (or "article"), and is located in each article's "discussion" tab.

In the first wiki released to the public in 1995, Ward's Wiki, topic and discussion shared the same page. In contrast to this, in the MediaWiki software used at Wikipedia, each article or other content page has a corresponding talk page. Although the content page and its talk page are linked to each other, they are stored in the web server's database as separate table rows.

On Wikipedia, the primary purpose of a talk page (also referred to as a /Talk page) is to improve the contents of the corresponding article, from an encyclopedic point of view^[1]. Questions, challenges, excised text (due to confusion or bias, for example), arguments relevant to changing the text, and commentary on the article are typically placed on the talk page^[2].

Discussion about ways to improve a wiki page can be short and to the point, resulting in changes that are easy to make quickly. At the other extreme, they can drag on for months with no conclusive result. Outdated or excessively large talk page contents are generally archived or refactored.

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