 | This page is a guideline for user pages |
This page is a guideline for user pages
Limbs AndThings's Posterous
Contributed by Limbs AndThings
This page is a guideline for user and user talk pages. Click here to go to your own user page. You may also be looking for user name policy, or more about Wikipedia users.
This page documents an English Wikipedia project content guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with Your" in this context means associated with you, not belonging to you.
- User page - Your user page is found at User:Example (quick link to yours) and is usually used to give some basic information about yourself and your wiki related activities. You don't have to say anything about yourself. If you prefer to put nothing here, then you can redirect it to your user talk page for the convenience of other editors.
- User talk page - Your user talk page (sometimes abbreviated to your talk page or user talk) is found at User talk:Example (quick link to yours) and is mainly used for general notes from, and discussion with, other editors. For more information on using talk pages, see Help:Talk page.
Shortcuts:
WP:UP#SUB
WP:USERSUBPAGE#SUB
WP:CREATEUSER#SUB
- User subpages - You can create subpages such as User:Example/draft article on violins or User:Example/test and related talk pages at will, by navigating to the page and clicking the Start the ___ page link. A list of subpages can be viewed at Special:Prefixindex (for example, Special:Prefixindex/User talk:Example/). You can usually have anything on a subpage that you might have on a user or user talk page, except for a few items (see below) that must be visible to other users if posted. Hierachies of subpages are also possible. (See: Wikipedia:Subpages for more)
- USER PAGES or USER SPACE - All of these pages taken together are your user pages or user space. While you do not "own" them, by custom if used reasonably and within these guidelines, you will mostly be left to manage and set them up entirely as you wish.
Other useful pages cover the User page design center, User names, talk page archiving guidance, and the Wikipedia community.
You also have subpages ending in .js and .css to store any scripts and skin customizations that you may wish to have when you edit Wikipedia. Only you and administrators can edit such pages, although anyone can view them.
General guidance
You will be notified if anyone edits your user talk page or leaves you a message there. The alert and links below are automatically displayed on all pages until you view the page.
The links Special:Mypage and Special:Mytalk are shortcuts that take any user to their own user and user talk pages. If someone is to visit your (or someone else's) user or user talk pages a proper page link will be needed (e.g., [[User talk:Example]]). In practice, user and user talk pages are mostly visited by clicking on user signatures in discussions, and links shown in page histories and diffs.
There is no fixed use for any of your user pages, except that in the vast majority of cases your user page traditionally has something about you, and your talk page will be where messages can mainly be found and will appear. Provided other users can quickly and easily find the pages they need, you are free to organize any of these within reason.
Userspace and mainspace
Details about yourself should not normally go in the main encyclopedia namespace, which is reserved for encyclopedia articles only.
In the rare case that you or something closely connected to you may have an article in the encyclopedia, that is always treated as completely separate from you as an editor. You should very carefully read the guidance on conflict of interest and generally avoid editing about yourself or matters closely related to you in any article.
If you would like to draft a new article, Help:Userspace draft helps you create a draft in your userspace and provides a standard template and useful guidance. Alternatively, the New Article Wizard walks you through creating an article, and has an option to save as a userspace draft too. You can use {{userspace draft}} to tag a userspace draft if it is not automatically done for you.
Personal and privacy-breaching material
Some people add personal information such as contact details (email, instant messaging, etc), a photograph, their real name, their location, information about their areas of expertise and interest, likes and dislikes, etc. Once added, this information is unlikely to ever become private again. It could be copied elsewhere or even used to harass you in the future. You are cautioned to think carefully before adding non-public information to your user page because you are unlikely to be able to retract it later, even if you change your mind.
Privacy-breaching non-public material, whether added by yourself or others, may be removed from any page upon request, either by administrators or (unless impractical) by purging from the page history and any logs by Oversighters. See Requests for Oversight.
Other information accessible from a user page
In addition to the usual information accessible from an article page such as page history, "Discuss this page" and the like, users visiting user and user talk pages can also click "User contributions" (in the sidebar or at the bottom of the page) to see what contributions you have made at Wikipedia over time, and "Logs" to see records of other events related to your editorship, done by yourself and by others. (Note that having your user page deleted does not delete any list of your wider contributions.)
Visitors to your user page can also click "E-mail this user" if you have opted in your user preferences to be able to send and receive email.
What may I have in my user pages?
Shortcut:
WP:UPYESTo start with, you might include a userpage notice on your user page, talk page, or both. The text "{{user page}}" will generate a tag which looks something like the one below. This can be helpful to clarify pages that are not encyclopedia articles (your user page, or other drafts). It also helps if people find your page in copies of Wikipedia elsewhere and want to locate the original.
This is a Wikipedia user page. This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_pages.
You might also want to give your contributions wider licensing, for example by releasing them into the public domain or multi-licensing them, by putting a notice to this effect on your user page, or on a subpage linked from it. Note that you cannot give them narrower licensing: all of your edits on Wikipedia, including all userspace edits, are licensed for free use under the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License as part of Wikipedia.
User pages are often mirrored by other sites as well. If there is material you would not want copied, reposted or reused do not post it on the site.
Common uses of userspace
Note that certain kinds of material must not linger indefinitely in user space, see below.As well as brief personal information and communication, other common uses of user space include (but are not limited to):
Significant editing disclosures
(voluntary but recommended)
- Things other editors may find helpful to understand, such as alternate accounts (if publicly disclosed)
If you are editing for or on behalf of a company, organization, group, product, or person (etc) which you wish to be open about in order to gain a good working relationship with the editing community.
(Editing must always be neutral and within encyclopedia norms. Editors tend to distrust concealed conflict of interest and agendas. Openly disclosing such interests gains respect, invites others to help and shows a desire to edit appropriately.)
Notes related to your Wikipedia work and activities
- Current or planned articles, topic areas, to-do lists, reminders, articles worked on, accolades and other successes, collaborative works, draft proposals, (constructive) thoughts on Wikipedia articles or policies and how they should be changed, etc.
- Expansion and detailed backup for points being made (or which you may make) in discussions elsewhere on the wiki.
Work in progress or material that you may come back to in future
(usually on subpages)
- Drafts, especially where you want discussion or other users' opinions first, for example due to conflict of interest or major proposed changes
- Drafts being written in your own user space because the target page itself is protected, and notes and working material for articles (Note some matters may not be kept indefinitely).
Useful links, tools, and scripts User space archives
- Old talk page threads, etc. Note that some content may not be kept indefinitely in userspace if unused.
Matters that are long enough in length, or active enough, to allocate them a page of their own Personal writings suitable within the Wikipedia community
- Non-article Wikipedia material such as reasonable Wikipedia humor, essays and perspectives, personal philosophy, comments on Wikipedia matters
- Disclosures of important matters such as absences or self-corrections that you would like other editors to know about, etc.
Statements of congratulations or condolence for major events, especially if related to Wikipedia editorship or major life-events.
(Make sure the user wants these to be publicly mentioned on the wiki, they may wish it to be private.)
Experimentation
(usually on subpages)
- Trial pages for templates
Posted via email from Dogmeat
