Template:Hidden ping

Template documentation

This template is used to trigger a notification to one or several registered user(s) you are replying to in a discussion without displaying any text. The notification will only work successfully if you sign your post in the same edit in which you use this template. If you make a mistake in placing this template or in signing, see w:Help:Fixing failed pings. It is an alternative to the {{Reply to}} template. It works on any talk page or Wikidata namespace page. IP addresses are only notified if you post to their user talk page.

Usage

{{Hidden ping|1=}}

Parameters

Parameter name	Description	Default value	required or optional?
parameter #1 (1)	The name of the first user you want to notify	empty	required
parameter #2 (2)	The name of more users, up to the last one	empty	optional

Additional information

The template is intended to be used in the following namespaces: no namespace specified

The template is intended to be used by the following user groups: no user group specified

See also

• {{Reply to}} – Links to one or more users names preceded by the @ sign and followed by a colon
• {{User link}} – Links to a single user's page (without the @ sign and colon)
• {{Noping}} – Links a user's name without triggering the echo notification system
• talkback – Allows a user to direct the attention of another user to a discussion via a notification
• Manual:Echo – the manual page for the underlying Echo feature that provides the notifications
• w:Help:Fixing failed pings

Usage

{{Hidden ping|Username}}Message text. ~~~~

The edit that adds this template must be signed with new signature tildes at a minimum, or the notification(s) will not work. See Wikipedia:Notifications and mw:Help:Echo#Technical details for more information.

It is not necessary to use this template to ping the user if you are already linking to the username from your post, neither is it necessary when posting on their own talk page.

Single recipient

Use the following syntax:

{{Hidden ping|Username}}Message text. ~~~~

For example, {{hidden ping|ZI Jony}}This is a message that Jony might be interested in. would display "This is a message that Jony might be interested in." and notify User:ZI Jony.

The comment must be signed and belong to a named section of a "Talk" or "Wikipedia" namespace page in order for the notification to work.

Multiple recipients

You can reply to up to 50 people at once. Use the following syntax:

{{hidden ping|User1|User2|User3|User4|User5|User6|User7|User8|User9|User10|...}}Message text. ~~~~

For example, {{hidden ping|Example|ZI Jony}} would notify User:Example and User:ZI Jony if used in a signed comment.

Warning: If the total number of detected to-be-pinged users in an edit exceeds 50, no notifications will be delivered. An error message will be displayed when previewing the page, but not once the page has been saved.

Error messages

As the intention of this template is that it not produce any output, error messages are only displayed when previewing a page. Once the page has been saved, this template will not display any output.

This error indicates that one or more of the usernames specified contained a character that is not allowed in Wikipedia usernames.

This indicates that no usernames were specified. This error can also be produced when the recipient's username contains an equal sign, for example {{hidden ping|test=test}}. To fix this, simply add 1= at the beginning of the username, 2= at the second username, 3= at the third username and so on: {{hidden ping|1=test=test}}

If the total number of detected to-be-pinged users in an edit exceeds 50, no notifications will be delivered. An error message will be displayed when previewing the page, but not once the page has been saved. This is a limitation of the Echo software that provides the notifications (as of May 2018).