Help:Preferences
User profile
User data Your email*: o Disable email from other users Your nickname (for signatures): Change password Old password: New password: Retype new password: o Remember password across sessions * Email (optional): Enables people to contact you through the website without you having to reveal your email address to them, and it can be used to send you a new password if you forget it.
- Your email: You may optionally register your email address (it will not be shown publicly on the site). This will enable you to reset your password by clicking the "Mail me a new password" box on the log in screen at the top right, if you forget it. Additionally, it will enable other registered users to send email to you from the "E-mail this user" link on your user page unless you've checked the disable box (see below).
- Disable email from other users: If you check this, users will not be able to send you email by way of the "E-mail this user" feature.
Signature
Although your username is not necessarily your real name and could therefore be called a nickname, the term "nickname" is used here for a name you may optionally specify, different from your username, for when you enter your signature with ~~~ or ~~~~. However, there is even more versatility. The software enters [[User:Name| in front and ]] in the back of your signature. So entering ]] | [[User talk:Name|Talk as your signature will also include a link to your talk page.
Also you can add a separator, so that the signature looks something like this: — Name | Talk. The code [[User:Name| in front of whatever you put in this box can be effectively cancelled putting <nowiki></nowiki>]] at the front of your nick. Thus you can put e.g. <nowiki></nowiki>]] — [[User:Name|Name]] | [[User talk:Name|Talk.
You can also include font tags, images, and templates, but until version 1.4 a signature with a template can not be used more than five times on one page. Note that changes in the images and templates are retroactive, which on one hand may be confusing, but on the other hand, to rectify annoying signatures, may be convenient. To avoid retroactivity, use a new image or template name.
You can make a custom signature by clicking the "Raw Signatures" box on the preferences. This will remove the [[User:Name| and the ]] from your signature. Thus, you can add full links into your signature, such as: [[User:Name|Name]] | [[User talk:Name|Talk]], without the confusion of brackets at the front and end.
Note that:
- using another nickname than your username is confusing (the page history shows your username, not your nickname)
- if you show your username as an image, or with letters replaced by special characters, even if the name is still readable, searching a talk page for your username will fail
- excessive signatures may clutter talk pages
- drawing excessive attention to yourself may create the impression that you find yourself more important than other people
If you use the edit toolbar for signing, remember that it gives two dashes before the four tildes.
Password
To change your password, enter your old password, the new password, and the new password a second time. (If you're merely changing the other preferences, you do not need to enter your password.)
- Remember password across sessions. Enabling this feature will place a cookie in your browser's cache, which will allow MediaWiki to recognize you each time you visit the page. You will not have to log in each time you visit.
If you want to use remember my password you have to change your password if it was generated by Mediawiki and emailed to you. This is a security feature but very often causes trouble for new users.
Appearance
Skin
Skin
O MonoBook
O Vector
A MediaWiki skin is a style of page display. There are differences in the HTML code the system produces (but probably not in the page body), and also different style sheets are used. The default is the Monobook skin.
Date format
The following is rendered depending on preferences:
2001-01-15 January 15, 2001 15 January 2001 2001 January 15 2001-01-15 January 15 15 January
With your current preference setting on this project the seven are rendered as follows:
- 2001-01-15
- January 15, 2001
- 15 January 2001
- 2001 January 15
- 2001-01-15
- January 15
- 15 January
By default the rendering is as usual for links. However one can specify as preference that all of the first five are rendered the same, in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th way. If the 4th or 5th way is selected, the 6th and 7th line are not affected. If the 2nd or 3rd way is selected, the 6th and 7th line are rendered accordingly, without the year.
Time offset
Time zone Server time is now: 06:34 Local time display: 08:34 Offset*: * Enter number of hours your local time differs from server time (UTC).
- Time diff. This is the number of hours to be added or subtracted from UTC to find your time zone. This time zone is used when calculating displayed page update timestamps, and may become temporarily incorrect from time to time if you observe daylight saving time -- don't forget to update it to match your local time, because the wiki doesn't know where you are or precisely when you celebrate DST. (Also, the server's clock may be slightly offset from reality, much as Wikipedia articles may be.) A scattering of typical (and possibly incorrect!) time diff values are below. If yours isn't listed, try this link or add and subtract a few hours as needed.
- -10 (DST -9) Hawaii and western Aleutian Islands. (Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time)
- -9 (DST -8) All of Alaska, except for western Aleutian Islands. (Alaska Standard Time)
- -8 (DST -7) California, Washington, almost all of Oregon, Nevada, and British Columbia. (Pacific Standard Time)
- -7 (DST -6) Colorado, Arizona (no DST except for Navajo Nation), and Alberta. (Mountain Standard Time)
- -6 (DST -5) Chicago, most of Mexico, Central America, and Saskatchewan. (Central Standard Time)
- -5 (DST -4) New York, Ontario, and Quebec. (Eastern Standard Time)
- -4 (DST -3) Canada's Maritime Provinces, plus most of Labrador.
- -3.5 (DST -2.5) Newfoundland.
- -3 (DST -2) Brasilia, Buenos Aires, and most of Greenland.
- -2 (DST -1) Mid-Atlantic
- -1 (DST 0) Azores, and Cape Verde Islands.
- 0 (DST 1) United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, mainland Portugal, Iceland (no DST), Casablanca, and Monrovia (no DST)
- 1 (DST 2) Most of Europe, and West Central Africa (no DST).
- 2 (DST 3) Bucharest, Kiev, Cairo, Johannesburg (no DST), Finland, and Jerusalem.
- 3 (DST 4) Moscow, Kuwait, Baghdad, Tehran, and Nairobi (no DST).
- 4 Abu Dhabi and Baku.
- 4.5 Kabul.
- 5 Islamabad.
- 5.5 India.
- 5.75 Nepal.
- 6 Sri Lanka, etc.
- 6.5 Rangoon.
- 7 Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta.
- 8 People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Western Australia, Ulaan Bataar, Singapore, and Manila.
- 9 Japan and Seoul.
- 9.5 (DST 10.5) South Australia and Northern Territory (no DST).
- 10 (DST 11) Queensland (no DST), New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Guam (no DST), and Vladivostok.
- 11 (DST 12) Magadan, Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia.
- 12 (DST 13) Pago Pago and New Zealand (DST 13).
The time is displayed in local time, according to the set preferences, in:
- Recent changes
- Related changes
- Page history, Image history
- User contributions
- New pages
- "This page was last modified" at the bottom of pages
- Imagelist
The UTC time is applicable:
- In the signing of Talk pages
- In the Upload log
- In referring to non-localized events, including things that happen on the wiki.
Keep this in mind when copying an excerpt from Recent Changes, a revision history listing, etc. to a Talk page. Convert manually to UTC or temporarily set the preferences to a zero offset before producing the revision history etc. to be copied.
Editing
Editing Rows: Columns: o Edit box has full width o Show edit toolbar o Show preview before edit box and not after it o Add pages you edit to your watchlist o Mark all edits minor by default
- Rows, Columns. Here you can set up your preferred dimensions for the textbox used for editing page text.
- Edit box has full width. If this box is checked, the edit box (when you click "Edit this page") will be the width of the browser window, minus the quickbar width.
- Show edit toolbar. In compatible browsers, a toolbar with editing buttons can be displayed.
- Show preview before edit box and not after it. If you select this option, the preview will be displayed above the exit box when you click the "Show preview" button while editing a page.
- Add pages you edit to your watchlist. If this option is selected, any articles that you create or modify will be automatically added to your watchlist.
- Mark all edits minor by default. This option automatically selects the "This is a minor edit" checkbox when you edit pages.
Recent changes
Number of titles in recent changes: o Hide minor edits in recent changes o Enhanced recent changes (not for all browsers) Threshold for stub display:
- Number of titles on recent changes: You may select the number of changes which will be shown by default on the Recent Changes and Watchlist pages. Once on those pages, links are provided for other options.
- Hide minor edits in recent changes. Registered users may choose to mark edits as being minor (meaning fixes too trivial for trusting users to check up on). It applies to Recent Changes and Enhanced Recent Changes, but not to the Watchlist. It also affects Related changes, but currently in an odd way: if the last edit of a page linking to the current page was minor, then neither that nor the last major change is shown.
- Enhanced recent changes (not for all browsers). Group recent changes per day by article, display the titles of the changed articles in order from new to old latest change, or in the case of hiding minor edits, latest major change.
- Threshold for stub display: see Stub feature.
Watchlist
Your watchlist allows you to easily keep track of changes made to certain pages on the wiki.
Display options
- Days to show in watchlist
- The number of days' worth of changes to show in your watchlist.
- Maximum number of changes to show in expanded watchlist
- This controls how many recent changes to show for each watched article when "Expand watchlist" is switched on under "Advanced options".
Advanced options
- Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent
- This option will expand the watchlist to include all changes made to an article within the time-frame of your watchlist, up to a maximum number (as set in "Display options"). Normally, only the most recent modification is shown.
- Hide minor edits from the watchlist
- Hide bot edits from the watchlist
- Hide my edits from the watchlist
- Hide edits by anonymous users from the watchlist
- Hide edits by logged in users from the watchlist
- Use these options to filter out unwanted revisions from the watchlist.
- Hide patrolled edits from the watchlist
- Use this option to filter out patrolled edits (edits made by administrators and so forth). This is particularly useful when monitoring vandalism, as patrolled edits can only be made by trusted users.
- Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist
- Add pages and files I move to my watchlist
- Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist
- Add pages and files I delete to my watchlist
- Automatically select the check box to "Watch this page" when performing any of these actions. You can de-select the check box on a page if you do not wish to watch that particular page. The final option is only available to users that have the ability to delete pages, such as administrators.
Token
- Watchlist token
- This token is used to generate a RSS feed from your watchlist. Anyone who knows this token can use it to access your watchlist. If the token is discovered by someone else, you can use the "Click here if you need to reset it" link to create a new token. Once you have done this, you will need to edit the URL of your feed subscription in your feed reader to account for the new token.
Gadgets
Additional settings that have been added to the wiki:
- Require confirmation before performing rollback on mobile
- Must have the rollback right to be eligible
- Reference Tooltips
- Roll over any inline citation to see reference information, instead of having to jump away from the article text.
Notes
If you want to change your username, it is recommended that you do this retroactively in the sense that your previous user contributions are recorded under the new name. Users and sysops cannot do this, one can ask a developer to do so. Signatures are not changed and therefore will no longer match page histories of the talk pages concerned. However, you can edit signatures manually. Also other occurrences of your name on talk pages are not retroactively changed. The deletion log and the upload log are not altered.
Account deletion is not possible.
You cannot indicate personal information (such as your real name) here, but you may do so on a page named after your username in the User: namespace. (That's available as a link on the line which says "You are logged in as user WhatsYourName" above the preferences panel. Feel free to start your own page with anything you want to say about yourself on it.)
Browser preferences
Browsers usually also allow you to specify preferences, e.g. font size and font type. The standard skin is compatible with your browser setting of font size and font type. The Cologne Blue skin has most text in a fixed font size, ignoring your browser setting. Some browsers, e.g. IE, allow you to specify that font size specified in the web page is ignored. In that case the font size in Cologne Blue is as specified in the browser, but with the line height not adjusted accordingly. Therefore a large font gives a messy result.
