Template:Skip to talk is permanently
protected from editing because it is a
heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by
consensus, editors may use {{
edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or
categories.
Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.
I've added the template
Click to the picture, that way when people click the arrow they'll also go down the the table of contents.--Daniel()FolsomT|
C|
U05:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)reply
To help in these kinds of situations, I've just created a new template: {{skiptotoctalk}}, to be added to the top of a talk page which has too many boilerplate
pastel boxes. It adds another pastel box with a link to quickly skip over the following boxes, landing at the TOC. --
cesarb03:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)reply
”
I would like to make a confession. I originally created this template as a silly joke, in the style of {{
toomanyboxes}}, as a sort of comment on
Template madness. I expected people to have a small chuckle and send it directly to
TfD. I never expected people to actually use it. I never expected people to actually like it (to the point of giving me a
barnstar!).
I decided to make this more clear (looks like I was too subtle originally) after noticing that my silly joke template is
spreading to other wikipedias. Unfortunately, it's out of my hands now; being originally a joke template is not a valid TfD reason for deletion, and other people do seem to want this template or something like it. --
cesarb02:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)reply
Recent edits
Firstly, substing the template just creates even more talk page cuft. Secondly, a bunch of uneeded whitespace was introduced. Can't see a rationale for either of these, so reverting.
Chris Cunningham09:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)reply
Huh? of course substitution isn't the preferred way to use templates: that would leave articles completely full of unmanageable crud. Doubly so in this case, where the whole point is that there's too much crud on the page already so the user needs to skip past half of it. The template substitution page is a guideline to which templates should be substituted, and this page isn't listed there.
I don't care either way. I left a request for other opinions at
Wikipedia talk:Template substitution. It is not a problem, though, to skip past the substituted code. There are edit buttons for each talk section. The crud is usually concentrated at the top of talk pages. I thought though that substitution lowered the server loads. I keep seeing server slowdown messages. You know, the ones about a watchlist being behind so many seconds or minutes.--
Timeshifter13:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)reply
(unindent). Are YOU even reading what you link to? Here is part of that section:
Substituting en massemay speed up the site, though the amount and significance of this is the subject of frequent debate. Every time a page is modified, the server must get text from a separate page for every template used. Although each individual template has little effect, the vast number of templates used on Wikipedia is one factor affecting server load and article load times.
Chief Technical OfficerBrion Vibber (who "maintain[s] overall responsibility for all technical functions of the Foundation, including both hardware and software") has
said: "'Policy' should not really concern itself with server load except in the most extreme of cases; keeping things tuned to provide what the user base needs is our job." (See
Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance.)
I was trying to get this note to show up only at the code level after substitution:
Above wiki code created with {{subst:Skiptotoctalk}}
I kept having unwanted text or characters showing up at the visible level after substitution. Or there was a "template loop" message, or something similar, at the hidden level.
I tried no-include tags, hidden comment tags, etc.. Nothing worked correctly when I tried substituting it into a page.
Try it in any template or test template. Then try the substituted template in a sandbox and see if it shows up correctly at both the visible and hidden levels. It is essential to try out the substitution in order to see the problems show up.
This hidden note would be useful for others who want to duplicate the latest version of the template elsewhere. This would encourage more people to substitute templates, too.--
Timeshifter10:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)reply
We shouldn't be encouraging people to substitute templates in hidden comments. On the rare occasions where substing is actually useful, such as in
template:afd, you can do it by using bold error messages when non-substed.
Chris Cunningham11:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)reply
There is a long list of required or suggested substitutions at
Wikipedia:Template substitution. So it is not "rare" that substitution is useful. People seeing substituted code will not see an error message. Only the person trying to use a non-substituted template might see one. So people need an easy way to copy the template elsewhere without having to copy the crud. And they need to use the latest version of the template, not an old substituted version.--
Timeshifter13:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)reply
Can we add a simple explanation on the template page?
It only needs to say (if this is right) that the template should be placed at the top of a talk page with many boxes, what it does, and possibly suggest a number of boxes/height (e.g. a 800x600 screen browser's full page) that qualifies the page as one that should have this template. Should we get consensus on these ideas first, and should they be drafted first?
I should point out that another larger, more spacious design is also possible, but I feel it takes up too much room, and wouldn't want it to replace the current one (it could be made into an option like "large=yes" by clever people, or made into a new template:
Just thought you'd like too see. I reckoned that as the arrow is quite large compared to the text, having two would be garish. Many thanks,
Drum guy (
talk)
00:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)reply
I like it how it looks now. I'm baffled by how many edits this template gets considering that its purpose is pretty basic compared to other templates :)
Gary King (
talk)
07:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)reply
I wonder if anyone would support making the design of this template a bit bolder, since I consistently miss it on pages where it is needed, viz. where there are a stream of identical-looking talk-page boxes. The other talk-page boxes also have a bolder design. For example, see how innocuous it looks on
Talk:Friedrich Nietzsche. What if we were to boldface the text, make it larger, not have the entire message be a bluelink, etc.? RJCTalkContribs16:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)reply
Needed: Something for Talk page without a Contents box
This template only works on a Talk page big enough to have a Contents box,
namely, one with more than three items. I tried adding {{toc}} but I don't understand the resulting ABCD... box -- not a regular Contents box. And I developed
{{Skip to talk2}} with "Skip to Talk" as the text and of course {{skip to talk}} as the model. But "2" and the associated "/doc" are now blanked and up for deletion because there was nothing generic for the command to "go to" (to replace "[[#toc|" in the current template). If anyone can tell how to add a standard Contents box to a small Talk page, that would at least give a tool one could manually combine with the existing Skip template. Or maybe there's another solution I haven't thought of. Thanks.
Swliv (
talk)
21:11, 9 September 2012 (UTC)reply
With some pondering time; and with, alas for where my head is now (with a help from
a Yobot visit to my original-target, two-item Talk page), my {{Skip to talk2}} now deleted; I have a new idea on this. With "Untitled" now having been added by the bot to the opening item on the GJRomero Talk page, I can imagine a new "Skip to Talk" command bar (if "command bar" is the right term for what the template creates on the Talk page) which went to "Untitled". In other words, the template would have to be customized to the particular Talk page with the name of the first Talk item in order to use it. Put more in terms used in my earlier note above, instead of "[[#toc|" it would be "[[#___|" with "Untitled" filling in the blank for use on the GJRomero page. (And, once a TOC appeared, there'd be a switch to the current {{Skip to talk}}<nowiki/> template.) For another [[Talk:Bukit Merah, Perak|"slim" talk page I know well]] (though one not as clogged with a raft of templates so thus prob. not a current candidate for the imagined <nowiki>{{Skip to talk2}}), the blank would be filled in by "Name confusion". It's sort of a
jury rigged solution but for me it would be better than nothing. I don't know how to build a "blank" into a template, if anyone could help on that. (A working, manual TOC template to add would still be the simplest solution.) Or any other thoughts? Thanks.
Swliv (
talk)
19:18, 18 September 2012 (UTC)reply
Found
If I chew on something for a while .... In my very first line above I linked to the Wiki place which today,
one subsection in, solved my problem. Inserting "__TOC__" (two underlines before and after) creates ("forces") a TOC.
I've done it here, smooth as ___ (allusive language escaping me). How'd I miss it? Ah, well. Cheers. Thanks.
Swliv (
talk)
17:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)reply
Explain "skip to toc" functionality, explain "skip to talk" better
About skip to toc: I arrived here after noticing an editor add {{skiptotoc}} at a Talk page. It seems to work fine, in bringing reader of a talk page over banners to the TOC of the talk page. And it appears to be an undocumented function of {{Skip to talk}}.
Template:Skiptotoc is a redirect to
template:Skip to talk. How best to describe this, in
Template:Skip to talk/doc?
About skip to talk: And, in the documentation, it seems to me that "skip to talk" should be better explained. With uninformed eyes, I don't get what it is for... I gather that it probably allows a reader of a talk page to skip over banners to the first discussion section? It wouldn't be possible or more natural to have it go to the most recent discussion section, or perhaps go to the last one? Slightly different than skipping to bottom of page, if the last discussion section is a long one.
But, hmm, maybe "skip to talk" does NOT go to the first discussion section, but rather goes to a TOC of discussion sections? So "skip to talk" is the same as "skip to toc"? That's not clear in the doc.
I only surmise this because, at
Template:Skip to section, I notice a "See also' note: "{{skip to talk}}, for skipping to the table of contents". If they are the same, then actually maybe "Skip to toc" ought to be promoted first, because it is a more clear name, and this template should be moved to that name, leaving a redirect from "skip to talk".
And, hmm, does there have to be a TOC for "skip to talk" or "skip to toc" to work? Before I started editing this new discussion section, I saw mention in a section above that a Talk page with few discussion items might not have a TOC, and about the possibility of forcing a TOC to be created, as a workaround. Now I sort of understand that. But the workaround is not in the documentation.... --
doncram17:01, 27 February 2015 (UTC)reply
Good eye
user: Doncram. I have been using the template Skip to TOC for a while, without realizing it is a redirect to Skip to Talk. I am not sure why they changed this in the RFD (which I cannot find) in 2011, since I believe it only works if there is a Table of contents, which it goes to just as you describe above, but I haven't tested this lately.
Ottawahitech (
talk)
02:35, 28 February 2015 (UTC)reply
Template-protected edit request on 22 July 2016
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Bring that shortcut menu in the documentation page
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Please apply
this sandbox edit. It introduces
TemplateStyles, which results in clearer wikicode, improved accessibility (the arrows, which have no semantic meaning, are applied in CSS, so accessibility software like screen readers don’t consider them to be content), and less deprecated inline CSS. Thanks in advance, —
Tacsipacsi (
talk)
19:09, 22 January 2021 (UTC)reply
@
Tacsipacsi and
Elliot321: Why are the arrows seemingly italicized, i.e. was this intentional? I find them less clear visually, because following the link takes one down the page as opposed to slightly to the left and down the page. —
Godsy (
TALKCONT)17:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)reply
@
Godsy: I'm unsure of exactly what your issue is here? It looks visually the same to me before/after the change and worked in the same way. If it's causing an issue for you, I can revert it, but I don't quite understand what that would be.
Elliot321 (
talk |
contribs)
17:13, 12 February 2021 (UTC)reply
Godsy, Thanks. I've undone the change - kinda weird though, neither Chrome nor Firefox displays the arrows as italicized. If
Tacsipacsi re-implements the styles to remove the italics effect from the arrows, I'll re-instate the change, of course.
Elliot321 (
talk |
contribs)
17:33, 12 February 2021 (UTC)reply
@
Godsy and
Elliot321: I have no idea what’s going on in Safari. The arrows are supposed to be italicized also in the now-restored version… Anyways, I’ve
forced the non-italic arrows, does the
sandbox look okay now? (I neither see italic arrows in any of these versions.) If it’s okay, please apply the edit to the
live stylesheet (but pay attention not to remove the padlock template from the bottom) before reverting the main template edit. —
Tacsipacsi (
talk)
21:29, 12 February 2021 (UTC)reply
Broken functionality with new version of vector theme
This template appears to no longer work with the latest version of the Vector (2022) theme, which moves the table of contents into the sidebar. The expected behaviour would be that it would autoscroll the page to just above the first section heading, where the table of contents would otherwise be, however, clicking the link to skip appears to do nothing. Anyone know how to get this fixed? –
Scyrme (
talk)
12:30, 2 May 2022 (UTC)reply
@
Scyrme Is this template useful in Vector 2022? The table of contents is already available at the top of the page (assuming you have the sidebar closed), so I'm not sure whether or not you would need/want a "Skip to table of contents" button? AHollender (WMF) (
talk)
16:35, 29 August 2022 (UTC)reply
@
AHollender (WMF): No, you're right. My understanding now is that the new theme is meant to make the template unnecessary, but when I wrote that comment I didn't know that. I assumed that hiding the sidebar also hid the table of contents because they are both located in the same place, so I didn't know hiding the sidebar would elevate the table of contents. It took me a while to notice that hiding the sidebar doesn't hide table of contents. The design could be refined to make the theme more user friendly, but posted that feedback
over on MediaWiki rather than here. Thanks for your reply though! –
Scyrme (
talk)
18:48, 29 August 2022 (UTC)reply
I mainly used this template as a means to skip to the comments section in cases where there are a lot of header templates. However, that functionality is no longer available with the new layout.
Praemonitus (
talk)
20:19, 18 February 2023 (UTC)reply
Hide on mobile
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
This template should also be hidden in the mobile version. The talk page boxes are hidden there, so skipping past them is not necessary, and the link in the template doesn't work anyway for similar reasons as in Vector 2022. Please replace noprint with noprint nomobile.
Matma Rextalk10:18, 20 January 2023 (UTC)reply
@
Matma Rex:nomobile is an ill-designed class, as it’s not clear whether it refers to MobileFrontend vs non-MF or Minerva vs non-Minerva. For whom do you want it to hide? For MobileFrontend users? Use the body.mw-mf selector in
TemplateStyles. For users of the Minerva Neue skin? Use body.skin-minerva. Do you really want to affect users not using DiscussionTools-enhanced talk pages? If not, include .ext-discussiontools-visualenhancements-enabled in the selector. —
Tacsipacsi (
talk)
13:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)reply
Thanks for the note. I wasn't aware of mw-mf (I see it's a fairly new feature
[2]), but that looks like the ideal solution. I also wasn't aware that desktop Minerva hides nomobile elements, that's a bit silly indeed. I do want this to affect both the new DiscussionTools-based and the old MobileFrontend-based version of mobile talk pages.