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I think the Talk Page policies need to be updated and added onto. This should include information from patrolling best practices about reverting talk page messages, examples of bad and good messages (which I can add) as well as just some more rules. A few reverting rules I came up with are:

  1. Message mentions personal information (age, grade, address, email, or phone number.)
  2. Message is insulting, unkind, threatening, or inappropriate.
  3. Message is asking for another user’s personal information.
  4. Message is spam and/or has been sent multiple times.
  5. Message has an external link (unless it is about making the link internal/trusted).

I am asking because the only policies so far are about designing a talk page, not using one. I think this could be useful to many users (myself included). Does anyone agree or disagree?

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I agree— these reasons are especially important.

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I understand and appreciate that you brought up these concerns. This isn’t really about Talk pages so much as patrolling, though, and we don’t really make policies about patrolling - all of the examples you listed can be posted for innocuous reasons:

  1. I’ve mentioned my age and grade in school in the past. It’s not advisable to share them, but those things aren’t identifiers by themselves. It’s not like there’s only one person my age or in that grade in school.
  2. Sometimes these things are up to personal interpretation. I’ve sparred with friends on Talk pages before, and I’ve gotten yelled at by random kids who thought what I said to my friends was rude, when it was just play-fighting. I’ve also reverted people who were (to me) clearly arguing, and then got yelled at for reverting their messages because apparently this was common for them. Cultural differences also impact what’s viewed as rude or not, so there’s no universal standard here.
  3. Some people don’t realize it’s not appropriate to ask for personal information, or don’t realize there’s an email option (and not everyone has email enabled). We can just send these people {{askpersonal}}.
  4. The wiki software or internet connection can wig out on people and resend their messages (it’s happened to me before), and sometimes people don’t realize Talk pages don’t operate in real-time. Usually just explaining it will suffice. Legitimate spammers are usually blocked pretty quick:slight_smile:
  5. I’ve sent external links on Talk pages to source something, compare text across websites, and show search data trends. Blanket-banning external links would prevent people from sending them in cases where they’re genuinely needed or useful.

Patrolling is often case-by-case, so we can’t really make policies about it. We can follow some general best practices, but an actual policy regarding patrolling or the contents of Talk messages would be a no from me. There’s just too much variation and blanket rules don’t account for that. I appreciate that you made the suggestion, though:slight_smile:

I was also going to suggest amending the Talk Page Policy for some minor stuff and now I feel like if I make my post, I’m going to be jumping on a bandwagon. Whoof.

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I think the only rules we have with talk pages are that they must be accessible, and that kind of applies to user pages as well. Bright, contrasting colors and PSE-inducing patterns and GIFs should not be used on either user or talk pages as it would violate W3C accessibility guidelines and ADA web guidelines.

[edit by admin: There’s no policy prohibiting these things; this is a recommendation, not a hard rule.]

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I never actually knew GIFs weren’t allowed, I actually had a pixelated cat GIF on my user page for a while before i think it was deleted. Ah well, the more you know I guess. 🤷🏻

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There’s no rule or policy against GIFs on User or Talk pages. It’s not recommended, because it can cause accessibility concerns (and some of the flashy stuff is distracting), but there’s no official policy prohibiting them. The only policy about GIFs that I’m aware of is the User Image Policy, which only bans GIFs from being used as user images. If it’s slow-moving and not causing some other kind of issue, I’m certainly not going to give anyone trouble for it.:slight_smile:

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I am talking specifically about PSE GIFs, not other gifs lol @That21PilotsFan and @anon74718567 :slight_smile:

What I was saying is you cannot have PSE-inducing GIFs (like a red and blue flashing GIF at 10 Hz). It is not against policy, but it is against web accessibility guidelines and unethical as it has the potential to hurt someone.

The only other rule we have with images is that they have to be PG-13.

Another crash blossom out of the way:slight_smile:

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Yes, that is true. If a GIF is flashing in such a way that it could cause a seizure. Even though there may not be a policy against GIFs that flash in ways that could cause a seizure, not only is it unethical, but the law also requires them to be deleted. The US has various laws that prevent these kinds of images, such as the ADA. Additionally, other laws, such as assault and negligence, could also come into play. Since deleting these images is required by law, it does not matter what the policy says. The law is above the policy.

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It is more web accessibility standards that I am talking about. Sure US laws like ADA apply to wikiHow because wikiHow is a US-based website. But even if the site was hosted in Sweden, the Netherlands, or India, we would still have to comply with W3C web accessibility standards, otherwise no one would visit our site. And like I said it is unethical to put PSE content without proper disclosure (like the time the London olympics used a video with alternating red, green, and yellow).

After an PSE-inducing episode of Pokemon aired back in 1997, the world once again became concerned about PSE and televisions. What Japan did afterwards was come up with guidelines for flashing content, like how colors should not flash at a frequency higher than 2-4 Hz. US television broadcasters also avoid using PSE-inducing flashing patterns not because of regulations (I could not find any…), but because they do not want to be known as the ones who aired PSE-inducing content on purpose, which would ultimately result in backlash and the broadcast in question being pulled.

If you want to see the clip I am talking about, I’ll put a link to it, but I will blur it out so those who do not want to see it do not see it.

PSE Trigger Warning - do not watch if you are photosensitive

Pokémon - Cyber Soldier Porygon/Electric Soldier Porygon - Seizure Scene Clip [1997] - YouTube

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Kind of off topic, but why can’t someone use a gif as their profile picture?

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I will let Alex answer that but I think it’s because it causes tech issues on wikiHow.

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Honestly, I’m not actually sure why that’s part of the policy (it was created long before I was here). My guess is that it was either a byproduct of the site having less resources, or it was an accessibility issue that was painful on the eyes at best.

But we’re derailing from Talk messages into accessibility, the ADA, and other parts of our policies. I was actually meaning to propose some basic accessibility changes to the Talk Page Policy; I’ll post that thread as soon as I can and we can continue that kind of discussion over there. In the meantime, let’s keep this thread focused on Talk page messages and any policy around them:slight_smile:

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You or I could start a linked topic about creating accessibility guidelines that all user and talk pages must follow.