Wikipedia:How to use your user space

This is an information page.

It is not an encyclopedic article, nor one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of the user page guidelines. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting.

Every logged-in user is given:

a user page, where they can write about themselves;
a talk page, where other users can leave messages for them;
a space where they can create pages for their own use.

This page explains how to use these things. For all the gritty details, see the user page guidelines.

To have a user space, you must be a logged-in user, always. log in or create an account first, if you are not a logged in user. For a listing of special pages related to your individual registered account see, Wikipedia:User special pages.

Your user page

Your user page is located here. You can access it by clicking on your username at the top of the page. Like other pages, anyone can edit it, but users generally do not edit other users' pages without their permission.

You can put more or less anything on your user page, as long as it does not break any other rules (for example, no copyright violations or insults directed at other users). Many users use it to provide information about themselves. Bear in mind that information you provide is visible to anyone.

Use caution in providing non-public personal information about yourself, such as your real name, or information about you which could enable others to deduce your real name, such as your job title or city of residence. If you place non-public personal information about yourself on your user page, even if you have it deleted by Administrators, this deletion can draw the interest of other people. Trying to stop people from seeing something can just make people more interested in what you are trying to hide (the Streisand effect).

Creating a user page is optional. If you do not wish to put anything there, you can redirect it to your talk page, so that anyone visiting it will be sent there instead. To do this, edit your user page and add the text #REDIRECT [[User talk:your_username]], replacing your_username with your username.

Your talk page

Your talk page is located here. You can access it by clicking on the "my talk" link at the top of the page.

User talk pages are used for communication between users. Any user can leave a message on your talk page; when they do, a notification will appear at the top of pages you view. You can leave a message for any user by following the "talk" link next to their name in page histories and signatures on other talk pages.

Over time your talk page will accumulate old messages; you can edit it to remove them when you no longer need them. You may wish to "archive" old messages to make them easier to find should they be needed; see how to archive a talk page.

Your user space

Your user space consists of "subpages" of your user page and talk page. Page names that start with "User:", followed by your user name, followed by a slash (/), are in your user space. To create one, edit your user page and add a link starting with a slash (/); for example, [[/Example]]. Save the page, and follow the link that was added to create the page. To create more pages in your user space, return to your user page and add other such links, for example [[/Test]] or [[/Sandbox]].

You can use your user space for anything you like, provided it is related in some way to the Wikipedia project; Wikipedia is not a free web host, and user pages used for something else may be deleted. Many users use it to hold new articles that they are working on.

A list of the pages in your user space can be found by going here, entering your user name in the "Display pages with prefix" field, and clicking "Go".

Wikipedia:How to use your user space

Your user page

Your talk page

Your user space

See also

Templates