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. You must be registered to create a user page and your user page must be named the same as your login name, otherwise it will be deleted.
Content restrictions
You have fairly broad leeway in creating your user page. Content should be focused on Super Smash Bros. and SmashWiki, but it's fine to have pretty much anything, provided one uses common sense - things such as personal attacks 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.
User pages should avoid interfering with the main namespace. Therefore, do not put user pages into categories. Also, avoid creating links to pages that are not meant to exist, such as joke links, as this will lower the utility of the list of wanted pages.
Main user page restrictions
There is no general rule about how long a user page can be, although it can be difficult to maintain or for someone to 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 35,000 bytes and you do not wish to remove anything, consider splitting some of the content into a subpage.
User talk page restrictions
Like other talk pages, you may not remove comments from your talk page. However, you are permitted to archive older comments as your talk page gets longer (again, at around the 35,000 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.
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. Note that believing someone else "is not very good at X" is usually not a personal attack, nor is "X bugs me" or something similar; on the other hand something like "I think X is a moron" is definately an attack.
- 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 humourous. 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 personal attacks and content that violates Wikia's 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 other to contact you through your signature. You may do this by placing
#redirect [[User talk:YourUserName]]on your user 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, although this in itself is not 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.