WikiIslam:Indentation
Good indentation makes prolonged discussions on talk pages easier to read and understand. It is a behavioral guideline that editors are expected to follow.
Indenting
Replies should always be indented and placed beneath the last comment. Indents are achieved by typing one or more leading colon ":" characters at the very left margin, just before the new text about to be added. With every new comment added, the number of colons must be increased by one.
Examples
What is typed:
| This is a talk page comment. --~~~~ :This is the first reply. --~~~~ ::This is the second reply. --~~~~ |
How it looks:
| This is a talk page comment. --Amina (talk) 12:24, 5 March 2014 (PST) |
See WikiIslam:Signatures for help with signing comments.
Outdenting
A long discussion will cause indentation to become too deep, which can make it difficult to read in narrower browser windows. When this occurs, editors should consider resetting the level of indentation by outdenting their next comment. Outdenting can be performed by using the "Outdent" template; either by typing {{Outdent}} or clicking on it in the "User interaction" section of the lower Edit toolbar.
Examples
In the following example, the user adding the final comment has typed the characters of the template, including its "braces", at the left margin, below the preceding comment, and just ahead of the text she entered for her own comment:
What is typed:
| This is a talk page comment. --~~~~ :This is the first reply. --~~~~ ::This is the second reply. --~~~~ :::This is the third reply. --~~~~ {{Outdent}}This is the fourth reply, but the first to be outdented. --~~~~ |
How it looks:
| This is a talk page comment. --Amina (talk) 12:24, 5 March 2014 (PST)
This is the fourth reply, but the first to be outdented. --Amina (talk) 12:56, 5 March 2014 (PST) |
This example has been exaggerated for demonstration purposes. A lot more indentations would be used before outdenting is required in an actual talk page discussion.