How can my students address a certain other editor in the Talk page?
How can my students address a certain other editor in the Talk page? How can I make sure that they get tagged so they see the message?
How can my students address a certain other editor in the Talk page? How can I make sure that they get tagged so they see the message?
There are a couple ways to address a comment at someone. Linking to their username will ping them on Wikipedia's notification system - so [[User:Example|Example]] would work. However, this ONLY works if the link is added with a signature - so you need to sign the comment - with ~~~~ - for this to work. And if you mistype their name and then go back and fix it, it won't work (without a fresh signature).
If you use {{ping|Example}} you will produce a more robust notification, and it will be formatted as @Example on the page. Of course if the person is already present in the conversation, you may not need to ping them at all. But when in doubt, use one of these.
As Ian notes, creating a notification for the target user is particularly important if you want them to see your comment. Some Wikipedians have hundreds or thousands of pages in their watchlists, and/or log in infrequently; so notifications are powerful tools.
If you are addressing a user on their own user talk page, they will be notified of a new, signed comment regardless of whether you mention them by name. But if you're replying on your own user talk page, or an article talk page, or a noticeboard, you should make sure they get a notification. Though a little redundant of Ian's answer, I'll note various ways of doing this -- the third is my preferred approach:
You can also address multiple users at once, I believe with either the "ping" or "u" templates, as follows: {{u|Username1|Username2|Username3}}.
Finally, there are times when private communication is more appropriate; you might consider the "Email this user" link, visible in the lefthand navigation when looking at a user's user page or talk page. (Both users have to have entered a valid email address in their accounts in order for this to work.)
Asked: 2015-11-03 11:01:13 -0500
Seen: 298 times
Last updated: Jul 24 '17