Andre has it right, and if you dig into the very oldest email archives,
you will find that the inventor of the "talk page" was Tim Shell, later
a board member of the Foundation.
Andre Engels wrote:
2007/4/2, Nicholas Moreau
<nicholasmoreau(a)gmail.com>om>:
Okay, maybe it wasn't you, but I remember
hearing (don't remember the
source) that before Wikipedia was launched, everybody discussed everything
on the mainpage, mainly because there was no talk page feature. I guess I'm
just spreading stories.
I know that in the old days of Wikipedia, discussion pages were normal
pages titled [[Title/Talk]]. On the page itself, a link could be
created with the text [[/Talk]]. The current method of having a
specific namespace for that was I think created together with the
current software, in which case Magnus Manske would be the person to
praise for it.