Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:06:48 UTC
An extremely useful feature on Wikipedia is the ability to present a user with the traditional subject and body box for a message -- seen as the "plus" sign on the top of a talk page, or accessed via the external URL "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:[user name]&action=edit§ion=new". However, there is no (as far as I know) internal wikilink to access the comment form, and such a link would be useful, both in the context of signatures and in many other venues as an editor. Perhaps something similar to Special:Emailuser ... Special:Comment?
As from version 1.7, there is a Magic Word __NEWSECTIONLINK__ which forces the appearance of the "+" tab. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Magic_words#More_magic HTH HAND
(In reply to comment #1) > As from version 1.7, there is a Magic Word __NEWSECTIONLINK__ which forces the > appearance of the "+" tab. I appreciate that, but what I'm suggesting is that there be an internal wikilink that takes someone to the same address that <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:[user name]&action=edit§ion=new> does. So that one could do something akin to: [[Special:Comment/Jimbo Wales|comment]] and that would take them to <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&action=edit§ion=new>.
Paranthetically I'm also aware of the fullurl protocol that lets you patch in an external link regardless of server. The issue desired by the feature request [referred to on Metafilter, humorously enough, as the IWantaPonyFilter ;-)], however, is to avoid drastically long external links in favor of an internal wikilink.
We have a method to allow doing this. It's not too much additional work, and to be frank, I don't see that we need to introduce complications to an otherwise simple [[link]] mechanism, which is nice and comprehensible for new users.
