Template talk:Talk header

Bit long

It's always bothered me a bit how long this template is; based on how a lot of talk page convos go, I feel like few ever read it. I've had cases where well-meaning people don't know about dispute resolution despite this template being up top.

As a first step, can we get rid of this sentence? Put new text under old text The world's most common social networks all work like this, like Facebook and YouTube and Reddit. I'm not sure why this is needed to specify. Would it possibly help a handful of people? Perhaps, but the longer this template is the fewer people will read it. grapesurgeon (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

I still encounter newer editors doing this and assuming new posts go on the top. Maybe I dislike out-of-place posts more than most people but I'd oppose removing mention of post placement from this template. Graham87 (talk) 06:17, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I've been on Wikipedia for a while now and I only rarely run into that. Imo it can just easily be fixed as needed; it's a low priority compared to the other stuff that needs to be communicated to people.

People try to put in too much into these templates. In 2026, the longer you make text, the probability of people reading it greatly drops. We need to prioritize. grapesurgeon (talk) 06:24, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. It's an easily fixed and rare issue that doesn't need to be mentioned in this prominent of a spot. Trialpears (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm of two minds about that. Can't tell you how many times I see new editors placing a comment at the top of a page, sometimes even above header templates. (And often without section heading or sig, to boot.) I would be okay with changing it to something that clarifies that new discussions go at the bottom of the page, and new comments go after older comments. It's more complicated than that, of course; do we want to mention threading rules or the discussion tools reply link? But then, that would be even longer than what we have now. But I don't know if simply removing it would improve things. We don't know how many new editors who might have also written their comment at page-top were prevented from doing so because of that instruction. It's possible removing it might make things worse. It's hard to evaluate questions like that. Mathglot (talk) 20:20, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Even if this as significant a problem as suggested (imo it's not, it's a 3 second cut+paste fix when it does happen), Wikipedians seriously overestimate how many people will actually read the stuff they write out.

Wikipedians are incredibly long-winded and newcomers frequently ignore the stuff Wikipedians write. While we probably could have gotten away with being longwinded more 10 years ago, reading comprehension metrics in especially the US have significantly dropped.

I'm a reader and a long-time Wikipedian, and even I skip over many things that Wikipedians write because it simply does not matter. I literally never read that bullet point until this talk post.

Moreover, is this something that needs spelling out? All you need to do is look at two talk posts and compare the dates, and you can connect the dots. Sure, people will mess that up, but again is it that big of a deal? grapesurgeon (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

You don't even have to invoke reduced reading comprehension to explain it, nor is it restricted to Talk page banners. Studies show that the majority of viewers never read past the lead of main space articles, but that doesn't mean we ought to chop off everything but the lead. But I just find it hard to generalize from anecdotal responses or even studies about banner blindness, valid as they are, as that would argue for removing them all for the same reason. Even banner blindness affects new visitors differently from experienced ones, and eye-tracking studies show newbies spend way more time on them. So I think we need to consider who the intended audience is; if is is mostly to target new users, there are ways to alleviate the problem for more experienced ones.

It is already possible for users to hide portions of the Talk header template, or even the whole thing so they never need see it at all on any Talk page. (But maybe doc-page blindness means even experienced users don't know that!) And with respect to new editors, the Talk header has a three-column table (as correctly pointed out by Utfor below) which gets squeezed into near-oblivion on the mobile app which most new editors use. We shouldn't be using tables for layout in the first place, and if designed properly the header would probably be more legible to mobile users. We could go further, and display abbreviated (or different) Talk header content to mobile app users, and although that wouldn't distinguish new from experienced users, it might benefit both. Mathglot (talk) 23:40, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm in favor of much of those other changes you propose. But I'd still like to get rid of that bullet point per my above arguments grapesurgeon (talk) 23:52, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Narrow screens

On narrow screens, in article space, this template gets three columns. The columns are built with tables. Each line in a column has one or two words. I believe this needs improvement, but I have not devised an ideal solution. Maybe another editor has an idea? Utfor (talk) 21:29, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, it totally should not use tables for layout. When some other issues on this page quiesce, we should take a look at that and redesign it, either using flexbox, or css grid; probably the latter if we want to display different stuff (or the same stuff in a different way) to mobile users, which might be a good idea. See the section above. Mathglot (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, it uses tables, but not tables only. It uses a mix of table and flex, but appears much like a table would on a narrow screen. In such cases, sometimes a min_width= is useful, but, as I can imagine, not in this case. This because the third cell / flex item will wrap to the next line and span the width of both the first two cells. Utfor (talk) 23:17, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Relevant village pump proposal

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Add the Talk header template to the top of all mainspace article talk pages automatically. Graham87 (talk) 06:18, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Add note about WP:AITALK

I recommend updating this template to notify newcomers not to write LLM-generated talk page comments, so that they get fair warning before they write something, not after (Template:Uw-aitalk1). The WP:AITALK guideline is very well-hidden, and newcomers are unlikely to hear about it before they write something unless we tell them. For example:

• Current: "Add new text under old text."

• Proposed: "Add new text under old text. Use your own words, not AI."

Would people support that? Dreamyshade (talk) 05:29, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

I had also thought something like that might be helpful. I've drafted it in the sandbox. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 09:47, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

Great, thanks! You know what, I always forget that WP:LLMCOMM is actually a better place to link than WP:AITALK. Just updated the sandbox version to use that. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:19, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

If anyone has any other suggestions for how to best incorporate this message, please share them. Given how widely used the Talk header is, there should probably be an WP:RfC, though we shouldn't rush into one otherwise new participants will start suggesting their own ideas instead of keeping it simple.

Might also be worth notifying some other Talk pages about this suggestion, like Wikipedia talk:Large language models to see how editors interested in Wikipedia's LLM/AI policy feel about this. Perhaps also WP:WELCOMING, since one of the purposes of the Talk header is to be welcoming to new editors and the Welcoming Committee have experience with looking at things from that perspective. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 13:24, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Posted a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AI Cleanup yesterday, and just posted at Wikipedia talk:Large language models and Wikipedia talk:Welcoming committee. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:11, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

I would support that.

I feel strongly that every honest "I didn't know it wasn't allowed" is a failure on our part. I know about banner blindness, but it really needs to be hard to miss. M kuhner (talk) 02:25, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree we need something like this. Looking at the sandbox version though, I feel it would fit more naturally in the bulleted list on the right than in the white box, but that would make it longer and maybe easier to miss? Thryduulf (talk) 18:17, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

The natural place for it would be the general Talk page policies column on the right, but that would increase the vacant space in the box on the left and create a vacant line in the article policies column that appears only on article Talk pages. An alternative might be to make room by moving something else to the left.

Since seeking dispute resolution isn't really a "Talk page policy", it's just a suggestion for what to do when a discussion isn't working out, it might make sense for it shift over to the left. The left box would then say:

• Add new text under old text.
• New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.
• Seek dispute resolution if needed.

This would make room for the AI line in the policies column, Would this be better? – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 18:26, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: I've implemented this suggestion in the second sandbox. You can compare the two in the collapsible box at the bottom here. (Note, both will look different when used on article Talk pages; on those pages there's an additional "article policies" column.) – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 18:44, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

My thinking with putting this tip into the top left is that the template documentation page says "Basic tips for newcomers appear in the top left and are boxed with a white background (or a black background in dark mode)." My hope for a notice about AI would be to provide this tip to newcomers before they post a generated comment and inadvertently aggravate people. But putting it anywhere in the template is better to me than nowhere! I'd suggest at least putting it above "Be welcoming to newcomers", because that's the least relevant piece for somebody reading this template for the first time. Dreamyshade (talk) 19:25, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

That's fair. I've amended the sandbox2 version to put the AI line before the newcomers line. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 20:36, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Version 2 looks good to me. Thryduulf (talk) 21:04, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I would not put the AI notice in a link; on dark mode, it's a lot less obvious than general text. I'd probably do something like this:

• "Add new text under old text. Use your own words, not AI.^(why?)"

I might even highlight the text about not using AI in another way, like with {{tq}} or just generic bold. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 18:26, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Admittedly, looking at the sandbox version again, that looks completely different to everything else. Sticking it on the right side makes the text readable enough that I wouldn't be worried about people skipping over it. (The first time I looked at the sandbox, I had to look again because I couldn't find it at first.) Skarmory (talk • contribs) 18:30, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

When I look at this page in dark mode, links seem equally hard to read in the left box and the right box, and just as hard to read in normal article text, so I'm not sure if that should influence placement. :/ Dreamyshade (talk) 19:30, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

As someone who uses dark mode, links stand out very well from normal text. In fact, when I switch back to light mode, I find the blue text vs black text less distinct than the blue vs white in dark mode. Maybe this is a very subjective judgement, but I really don't see a problem here. Regardless, I agree this shouldn't influence the placement as this affects all the existing links in the same way; it would be very strange to treat the new addition differently on the basis of how links look in dark mode. (To put it another way, if the links and text aren't distinct enough for you, that's more a dark mode problem in general than a problem with link placement here specifically.) – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 20:44, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I prefer the first sandbox version to the second (light mode user here) and prefer either of them to status quo. I feel like the first version uses space more effectively and gets critical messages more up front. M kuhner (talk) 00:50, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't have a terribly strong view, but I'm worried about WP:CREEP. It's only a few words, but they add up. In particular, we'll soon have an edit check for content pasted from LLMs, which reduces some of the need for this. Sdkb ^talk 03:07, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm really hopeful for the edit check for article space, but I don't think talk page comments are in scope for edit checks? I agree though about instruction creep - it's a good practice to remove the least important thing if we add a new important thing. Problem is getting people to agree on what to remove. Dreamyshade (talk) 03:23, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Removing Add new text under old text. has been suggested here before, but some editors disagreed with removing it and it seems people lost interest in the suggestion after that. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 10:15, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Ah, yes, edit checks aren't currently working on talk pages (although we might get that capacity in the future). Apologies, I should have made that connection myself ! Sdkb ^talk 20:32, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Sandbox versions

Note, on article Talk pages the banner has an additional column, so appears differently than it does here on a template Talk page.

TM:Talk header/sandbox

Alternative at TM:Talk header/sandbox2