User:Everyman/Guild Wars Wiki:User pages Draft

Registered users in the official Guild Wars Wiki 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 to specify additional details about yourself or manage your current projects.
 * Your user space encompasses all of the above.

A user's personal information or records must 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 may become a candidate for deletion).

Content restrictions
You have fairly broad leeway in creating your user page. Content should be focused on Guild Wars and Guild Wars Wiki but if you choose to discuss issues outside of these fields, be considerate of the diverse range of users on the wiki.

These are absolutely not permitted in any form:
 * Libel or defamation.
 * Material patently offensive to others, including ArenaNet's competitors.
 * Material in breach of the wiki's policies or the game's terms and conditions.
 * Do not include copyrighted text or images (see the image use policy) that are not licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Use common sense and keep etiquette in mind when selecting content:
 * Do not include any material generally deemed offensive and insulting.

User pages should avoid interfering with the main namespace:
 * Do not categorize pages in your user space into categories used for mainspace articles.
 * Avoid creating links to pages that are not meant to exist, particularly joke links, as this will lower the utility of the list of wanted pages.

Restrictions on user images

 * Avoid uploading a lot of large images or images that are larger than 150 kB in size.
 * Do not use arbitrary or generic names. All personal image names must be prefixed with the word "User" followed by your user name (for example, an image named "User Example my necromancer.jpg" is valid).
 * The description of the image must include the  template.

Failure to adhere to these rules may result in the image being deleted without warning.

Main user page restrictions
Your main user page is the primary page that other users will use to access your user space and to contact you. An excessively long or large page can be an inconvenience to others who just want to get to your talk page.

The combined contents on your main user page should not exceed 300 kB in total size. You can verify your page size simply by saving your user page with your browser and checking the resulting file size. Note that some browsers do not save the images used on the page, so you need to manually add the file sizes of any images to the file size of your user page.

User talk pages restrictions
Your talk page should generally be treated like any other talk page on the wiki. Do not remove any comments, including your own. You may amend your comments to correct typos, but if you wish to change your comment significantly, strike out the portions that you are changing (use ). Comments constituting personal abuse may be removed as per Guild Wars Wiki:No personal attacks.

Users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages, though archiving is preferred. They may also remove some content in archiving. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user. This specifically includes both registered and anonymous users.

Archive comments in your talk page 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.

Do not put any formatting on your talk page that makes it more difficult for other users to leave you messages (such as borders, background colors, text highlights, font sizes, etc.).

Removal of comments, warnings
see also Wikipedia:Don't restore removed comments Policy does not prohibit users, including both registered and anonymous users, from removing comments from their own talk pages, although archiving is preferred. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user. Deleted warnings can still be found in the page history. Repeatedly restoring warnings does nothing but antagonize users, and can encourage further disruption; removal of template warnings is rarely an urgent or important matter, and it is often best to simply let the matter rest if other disruption stops.

Important exceptions may include declined unblock requests and confirmed sockpuppetry notices (while blocks are still in effect), or for anonymous editors, shared IP header templates. In these cases it may be legitimate in order to keep a user from gaming the system. Such templates are intended not only to communicate with the user in question, but to share important information about blocks and sockpuppetry with other users.

Users should note that restoring talk page warnings is not a listed exception to the one-revert rule.

Ownership
The Guild Wars Wiki allows users to manage their own user space as they see fit within the rules and guidelines laid out above. However, users must keep the following in mind:
 * User space contributions must be licensed under the GFDL, just as any other contribution in the Guild Wars Wiki.
 * Unless correcting a policy violation or making a maintenance edit, users should avoid making edits in another user's user space against their wishes (not including talk pages). All such edits must include an appropriate summary message explaining the edit. If the reason for the edit may not be immediately obvious, add further explanation on that user's talk page.
 * All policies apply to your user space. In particular, no personal attacks will be tolerated in your user space or anywhere in the wiki. Content in your user space that violates policy may be removed by an administrator.

Failure to adhere
If a user page is found to be in violation of this policy, a notice should be placed on that user's talk page explaining the violation and requesting compliance. That user is expected to comply with the notice within a week. Failure to comply would warrant a subsequent warning notice on that user's talk page. Further ignorance of the warning after 3 days (especially if that user was seen to be active on the wiki after the warning) may be construed as purposeful defiance of policy and administrators are then allowed to remove or change the offending portion of the user page. Any repeated violation of a similar nature is grounds for a stern warning and a subsequent ban if that user persists in defying policy.

Etiquette

 * If you do not want a user page, it is recommended that you create a redirect to your talk page by adding  to your user page. This makes it easier for others to contact you via your signature.
 * While user pages are a fantastic way for users to explore creativity and practice with wiki code, the purpose of the Guild Wars Wiki is to document the game. Users should focus their time and dedication on Guild Wars Wiki-related contributions.
 * 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.
 * When designing the look of your user page, try to follow the common sense guidelines that apply throughout the wiki. For example, employ user friendly formatting, keep your content succinct and concise and avoid using undesirable design aspects such as garish colors or animated text. The better presented your user page is, the more people will be interested in reading it. Creativity and ingenuity are always encouraged.
 * When making edits to your user page or its subpages, always mark them as minor edits to allow them to be filtered from the list of recent changes. Use the 'Show preview' button to avoid doing multiple small edits to your user page, instead of saving the changes every time.
 * 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 . 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.