SmashWiki:User pages

This page documents an official SmashWiki policy, a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.

Registered users on SmashWiki may create user pages to introduce themselves to and communicate with the community. User pages help in organizing editorial tasks and foster community spirit and camaraderie.

User space structure

If your username is "Example", then:

• Your user page will be at User:Example.
• Your user talk page will be at User talk:Example. This is the primary method that other wiki editors will use to contact you.
• You can create user subpages under your user page, such as User:Example/Subpage. These can be used for various purposes, most commonly organization of things.
• Your user space encompasses all of the above.

A user's personal information should remain confined to their user space. Your user page must be named the same as your account name. Users without accounts may not have user pages.

Content restrictions

You have fairly broad leeway in creating your user page. Content should be focused on the Smash Bros. series and SmashWiki, but it's fine to have pretty much anything, provided one uses common sense - things such as spam links to external sites, NSFW content, personal attacks, and slander of another user (regardless of whether they are part of this wiki) are not allowed, as is any other sort of offensive content. If you think something may be offensive to others, it probably is, and you should seriously consider not having it. Additionally, you may not have anything that rates other users, such as rating their competency as a wiki editor, how well you get along with them, or anything else of that sort. They lack any potential constructive value, and when they were a user page trend in the past, they only ended up causing nonconstructive user disputes.

User pages should also avoid interfering with the main namespace. Therefore:

• Do not put user pages into categories. The exception are user pages being put into the SmashWiki essays and drafts categories when appropriate, which the essay and draft templates automatically do respectively.
• Do not use maintenance templates such as {{Cleanup}} on user pages, as these automatically add tagged pages to the respective category and so will add noise to the list of pages using that template. The only exception is a user tagging their own user pages with the {{Speedy Delete}} tag when they wish for their page(s) to be deleted.
• Do not link to pages/templates/categories/etc. that are not meant to exist (e.g. joke links); this makes it harder to use utilities such as Special:WantedPages correctly. Even if a page should exist that doesn't yet, you should still avoid linking it if you have no intention to create the page anytime soon, as it will serve to give the page artificial "clout" in Wanted Pages and may rank it above pages that have more "legitimate" links on mainspace pages.
• User pages should not redirect to any other page, and vice versa. The only exceptions are one may redirect their user page to their user talk page, and if a user changed their username, all old user space content under the old username may redirect to their new location. If you are someone with a smasher page that you would rather other users go to in place of your user page, you are still not allowed to redirect your user page to it; besides the aforementioned interfering with the mainspace, doing such also makes it more inconvenient for other users to access your talk and contributions pages. If you truly only want people to see your smasher page, you should instead create a user page just containing the link to your smasher page, which allows users to still easily access your talk and contribution pages after clicking your account.

For one last restriction, one may not add coding to their user page to make it appear as a page on another website. This can be disorienting to other users visiting, and it can interfere with the functioning of SmashWiki for users visiting the page, such as preventing them from being able to easily find the link to your talk page.

User page length

There is no general rule about how long a user page can be, although it can be difficult to maintain or access if it becomes too long. Checking the page's history will reveal how large the page is; if it starts going past the area of 32,000 bytes and you do not wish to remove anything, consider splitting some of the content into a subpage.

User talk page restrictions

Main policy: SW:TALK

Like other talk pages, you may not remove comments from your talk page, outside of obvious vandal/spam posts. However, you are permitted to archive older comments as your talk page gets longer (again, at around the 32,000 byte mark). Do so by copying or moving your talk page to an archive subpage, such as User talk:Example/Archive 1, and leave a prominent link to it from your main talk page. You may wish to use the archive box template for this purpose. Discussions should be continued on a user's main talk page, rather than in their archives.

You are also permitted to post "guidelines" on how you would like users to respond on your talk page if you desire. However, you will not be able to enforce any sort of talk page rules that are not SmashWiki policy (such as attempting to forbid users from cursing on your talk page), and any attempts to do so will not be backed by the administration.

Ownership

As a general rule, while users do not "own" their user pages in the normal sense of the word, they are the ones with the most control over the content of them. Users should generally avoid making edits to other people's user pages except for the following circumstances:

• Removing an obvious breach of policy or other rules, such as a personal attack or slander.
• Removing redirects, categories, broken images, and broken templates.
• Removing obvious falsehoods, provided they're not jokes. For example, saying "i is the best smasher in teh world" is fine, because it's most likely intended to be humorous. However, saying one is an admin when one is not (for example by having an "I'm an admin" userbox) is not allowed.
• Having obtained permission beforehand.

If you edit another user's user page, it is a good idea to leave a message on their talk page explaining the reason for it.

Failure to adhere

If a user page is found to be in violation of this policy, the usual thing to do is to say so on the user's talk page and request it be fixed. If it isn't fixed after a period of time, then the violation may be removed by any user. If a user replaces the content or otherwise violates this policy repeatedly, they are eligible for a block.

Breaches of this policy serious enough to warrant immediate removal include NSFW content, personal attacks, and content that violates the Terms of Service. If this happens, the user will be notified on their talk page and possibly blocked if the offense is serious enough and/or repeated.

Etiquette

• Use the "Show preview" button to avoid doing multiple small edits to your user page, instead of saving the changes every time. This prevents your user page from showing up many times in the recent changes, which makes it difficult for other users to keep track of the wiki.
• Try to keep user pages designed like a wiki page. Divide things into sections, avoid using overly strong or contrasting colours, and keep images to a minimum if not shown in a gallery.
• It is not required to have a user page. If so, you may choose to redirect it to your talk page, to make it easier for others to contact you through your signature. You may do this by placing #redirect [[User talk:YourUserName]] on your user page. As covered in the content restrictions section however, you may not have it redirect to any other page.
• While user pages are a good way for users to explore creativity and practice with wiki code, the purpose of SmashWiki is to document the games. Users should focus their time and dedication on SmashWiki-related contributions. Users that focus too much on their user page tend to annoy other users, and may eventually be placed on probation. Attempts to bypass probation (such as by creating sock accounts) is a blockable offense.
• Be considerate of other users' requests to tone down or trim down your page and try to avoid controversial content and/or representation of content.
• If you have information that you intend to update regularly, consider using inclusions to stop edits from popping up on other users' watchlists. For example, if you are tracking the progress of a title in an infobox and find yourself amending it daily, consider putting the infobox onto a separate page, such as "User:Yourname/Infobox" and including it into the main page as {{User:Yourname/Infobox}}. Any edits made to this subpage will not show up to people watching your talk page, but are kept current if they view your user page. Note that any subpage inclusions still fall under the main content restrictions of this policy.