User blog:Kamikaze839/Forum vs. Talk Page Policies

Hi young Wikiers! It's Kamikaze839 of the Policy and Standards Committee, back with another blog to help you understand what goes on in this wiki! In this installation I will discuss the policies we have concerning our Talk Page and Forum Policies.

What is a Talk Page?
There are actually two types of talk pages:
 * 1) The User Talk page, which I outline in this blog.
 * 2) The article talk page, which I will outline here

What is it Used for?
Article talk pages are used for discussing maintenance of articles. This means that any messages involving missing information, correcting information, etc. should be on these pages. General discussions should be kept to the forums.

How do I use it?
To go to a talk page, you got to first go to the end of the road, then see a tour guide to lead you to there....kidding! It's really simple: just go to the page you wish to open a discussion on, and click the button that says "Talk" next to the edit button. From there, click the "leave message" button and it will take you to the editor.

Once in the editor, the first thing you should do is create a header for the message. To do so, just put in two = signs around the message's subject, ==Like this==. When publishing it, it will create a header bar with your message under it.

To respond to a message on a talk page, go to the subject you want and click the edit button on the subject line and edit as you normally would, without adding another subject header. As always, please sign your posts with ~ .

Also note the following things: 1. Unless it's abusive, do NOT remove any message from the talk pages, including your own. You can create archives for your talk page messages, however.

2. Any Admin or Committee member reserves the right to close a discussion if they feel that the discussion can no longer progress or has been resolved. A closed discussion will have the following at the head of the subject:

3. Do NOT edit any closed discussions, if you feel like the topic is still worth discussing, ask an admin to do so, while providing reasons as to why the discussion should be reopened. This does not necessarily mean that the admin will reopen it. 4. Any discussion message/topic that is unrelated to the article will be removed 5. Any discussion topic that is not dealing with article maintenance will be moved to the forums 6. Do NOT edit any post or start a discussion in talk page archives.

What is It?
The forum is a place where users can convene to discuss anything, it works in the usual forum way with users replying to other users and quoting them.

How do I access them?
Two ways: 1. In the "On the Wiki" section of the Wiki Nav-Bar 2. At the bottom of every article, there is a line that says "Discussions about Insert Article Name Here", where if you click the button, you will start a discussion based on the article

Boards and Threads
A board is a collection of threads. Threads are topics of discussion. The following boards are: Please put your topic in the respective board if you aren't accessing the forums using the article method.
 * 1) General Discussion
 * 2) Questions and Answers
 * 3) Improvements and Suggestions
 * 4) Administrative Requests
 * 5) New On Bleach Wiki - this one isn't used much

Our Policies Regarding the Forums

 * 1) No Advertising your own site
 * 2) No Flaming - be polite at all times
 * 3) No Trolling Others, even if it was in response to another troll
 * 4) No Repeatedly Cloning Threads - see if the thread already exists
 * 5) After two months of no replies, the thread is considered dead and an admin will close it.
 * 6) You may post article maintenance on the forums, but it is recommended that you do it on the article's talk page

Conclusion
So in this article, I talked about our policies on Talk Pages and Forums. We covered what to do on a talk page, and what to do in the forums, as well as the restrictions on each. Thank you for your time and happy editing.