Age of Empires Series Wiki:User Pages

User pages are pages in the User, User talk and User blog namespaces, and are useful for organizing and aiding the work users do on Age of Empires Series Wiki, and facilitating interaction and sharing between users. User pages mainly are for interpersonal discussion, notices, testing and drafts, and, if desired, limited autobiographical and personal content. User pages are available to Age of Empires Series Wiki users personally for purposes compatible with the Age of Empires Series Wiki project and acceptable to the community; the Age of Empires Series Wiki is not a webspace provider, or social networking site. Age of Empires Series Wiki policies concerning the content of pages can and generally do apply to user pages, and users must observe these policies.

Terminology and page locations

 * Note: "Your" in this context means associated with you, not belonging to you.


 * User page : Your user page has a name like this: User:Example. (This link is to yours.) Its normal use is to give basic information if you wish, about yourself or your wiki-related activities. You don't have to say anything about yourself. If you prefer to put nothing here then you can redirect it to your user talk page for the convenience of other editors.


 * User talk page : Your user talk page (sometimes abbreviated to "your talk page" or "your user talk") has a name like this: User talk:Example. (This link is to yours.) Its normal use is for messages from, and discussion with, other editors. For more information on using talk pages see Help:Talk page.


 * Subpages : You can create subpages of these, such as User:Example/to-do list or User:Example/sandbox and their related talk pages. A list of existing subpages can be seen using Special:Prefixindex (for example, Special:Prefixindex/User talk:Example/). You can usually have anything on a subpage that you might have on a user or user talk page, except for a few items (see below) that must be visible to other users if posted. Hierarchies of subpages are also possible. You can have as many subpages as you want but keep in mind that Age of Empires Series Wiki is not a free web host, please use subpages within reason.


 * User pages or user space : All of these pages are your user pages or user space. While you do not "own" them, by custom if used reasonably and within these guidelines, you will mostly be left to manage and set them up entirely as you wish. You also have subpages ending in .jsand .css to store any scripts and skin customizations that you may wish to have when you edit Age of Empires Series Wiki. Only you and administrators can edit such pages, although anyone can view them.


 * User blogs : You can create a blog in which you detail you progress in a game, what are you expectations, giving the users news about the game or other related content, but preferably talk about the Wiki or the games of the series. If a blog is found useless or spamming, it will be deleted and the user will be asked to stop this type of content.

What may I have in my user pages?
There is no fixed use for user pages, except that usually one's user page has something about oneself, and one's talk page is used for messaging. Provided other users can quickly and easily find the pages they need, users may, within reason, freely organize their user pages as they choose.

If there is material you do not want copied, reposted, or reused, do not post it on the site.

Certain kinds of material must not linger indefinitely in user space; see below for details. Besides communication, other uses of user space include (but are not limited to):


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 * Significant editing disclosures (voluntary but recommended)
 * Things other editors may find helpful to understand, such as alternative accounts (if publicly disclosed)
 * If you are editing for or on behalf of a company, organization, group, product, or person (etc.) which you wish to be open about in order to gain a good working relationship with the editing community. (Editing must always be neutral and within encyclopedia norms. Editors tend to distrust concealed conflicts of interest and agendas. Openly disclosing such interests gains respect, invites others to help and shows a desire to edit appropriately.)
 * Notes related to your Age of Empires Series Wiki work and activities
 * Current or planned articles, topic areas, to-do lists, reminders, articles worked on, accolades and other successes, collaborative works, draft proposals, (constructive) thoughts on Age of Empires Series Wiki articles or policies and how they should be changed, etc.
 * Expansion and detailed backup for points being made (or which you may make) in discussions elsewhere on the wiki.
 * Work in progress or material that you may come back to in future (usually on subpages)
 * Drafts, especially where you want discussion or other users' opinions first, for example due to conflict of interest or major proposed changes
 * Drafts being written in your own user space because the target page itself is protected, and notes and working material for articles (Some content may not be kept indefinitely).
 * Useful links, tools, and scripts
 * User space archives
 * Old talk page threads, etc. (Some content may not be kept indefinitely in userspace if unused.)
 * Matters that are long enough in length, or active enough, to allocate them a page of their own
 * Personal writings suitable within the Age of Empires Series Wiki community
 * Non-article Age of Empires Series Wiki material such as reasonable Age of Empires Series Wiki humor, essays and perspectives, personal philosophy, comments on Age of Empires Series Wiki matters
 * Disclosures of important matters such as absences or self-corrections that you would like other editors to know about, etc.
 * Statements of congratulations or condolence for major events, especially if related to Age of Empires Series Wiki editorship or major life-events. (Make sure the user wants these to be publicly mentioned on the wiki, they may wish it to be private.)
 * Experimentation (usually on subpages)
 * Trial pages for templates, unfamiliar or specialist markup (including LaTeX), etc., as a kind of personal sandbox.
 * Pages to test bots and scripts without doing harm. User pages and user subpages can be transcluded and substituted, so they behave like templates, and can be tested as such.
 * Limited autobiographical content
 * For example, languages you know (see Age of Empires Series Wiki:Babel) or fields you have knowledge in.
 * A small and proportionate amount of suitable unrelated material
 * A number of users have Age of Empires Series Wiki and sister project content such as (free use) pictures from Wikimedia Commons, favorite Age of Empires Series Wiki articles, or quotations that they like. Pages used for blatant promotion or as a soapbox or battleground for unrelated matters are usually considered outside this criterion. For example a 5 page résumé and advertising for your band will probably be too much, a brief 3 sentence summary that you work in field X and have a band named Y will be fine.
 * }
 * Personal writings suitable within the Age of Empires Series Wiki community
 * Non-article Age of Empires Series Wiki material such as reasonable Age of Empires Series Wiki humor, essays and perspectives, personal philosophy, comments on Age of Empires Series Wiki matters
 * Disclosures of important matters such as absences or self-corrections that you would like other editors to know about, etc.
 * Statements of congratulations or condolence for major events, especially if related to Age of Empires Series Wiki editorship or major life-events. (Make sure the user wants these to be publicly mentioned on the wiki, they may wish it to be private.)
 * Experimentation (usually on subpages)
 * Trial pages for templates, unfamiliar or specialist markup (including LaTeX), etc., as a kind of personal sandbox.
 * Pages to test bots and scripts without doing harm. User pages and user subpages can be transcluded and substituted, so they behave like templates, and can be tested as such.
 * Limited autobiographical content
 * For example, languages you know (see Age of Empires Series Wiki:Babel) or fields you have knowledge in.
 * A small and proportionate amount of suitable unrelated material
 * A number of users have Age of Empires Series Wiki and sister project content such as (free use) pictures from Wikimedia Commons, favorite Age of Empires Series Wiki articles, or quotations that they like. Pages used for blatant promotion or as a soapbox or battleground for unrelated matters are usually considered outside this criterion. For example a 5 page résumé and advertising for your band will probably be too much, a brief 3 sentence summary that you work in field X and have a band named Y will be fine.
 * }
 * Limited autobiographical content
 * For example, languages you know (see Age of Empires Series Wiki:Babel) or fields you have knowledge in.
 * A small and proportionate amount of suitable unrelated material
 * A number of users have Age of Empires Series Wiki and sister project content such as (free use) pictures from Wikimedia Commons, favorite Age of Empires Series Wiki articles, or quotations that they like. Pages used for blatant promotion or as a soapbox or battleground for unrelated matters are usually considered outside this criterion. For example a 5 page résumé and advertising for your band will probably be too much, a brief 3 sentence summary that you work in field X and have a band named Y will be fine.
 * }
 * A small and proportionate amount of suitable unrelated material
 * A number of users have Age of Empires Series Wiki and sister project content such as (free use) pictures from Wikimedia Commons, favorite Age of Empires Series Wiki articles, or quotations that they like. Pages used for blatant promotion or as a soapbox or battleground for unrelated matters are usually considered outside this criterion. For example a 5 page résumé and advertising for your band will probably be too much, a brief 3 sentence summary that you work in field X and have a band named Y will be fine.
 * }

You are also welcome to include a simple link to your personal home page, although you should not surround it with any promotional language.

User pages are also used for administrative purposes, to make users aware of blocks, warnings, or other sanctions if they happen, and to notify of matters that may affect articles you have worked on or editorial issues you have been involved with. Others may also edit your user pages, for instance awarding you a barnstar or leaving notes and images for you, or adding comments and questions. Although you have wide leeway to edit your user pages, a few of these matters should not be removed (see below).

Userspace and mainspace
Details about yourself should not normally go in the main encyclopedia namespace (reserved for encyclopedia articles only), and encyclopedia articles should never link to any userspace pages.

In the rare case that you or something closely connected to you may have an article in the encyclopedia, that is always treated as completely separate from you as an editor. You should very carefully read the guidance on conflict of interest and generally avoid editing about yourself or matters closely related to you in any article.

If you would like to draft a new article, Help:Userspace draft provides a standard template and useful guidance to help you create a draft in your userspace, and the article wizard can walk you through all stages of creating an article with the option to save as a userspace draft too. You can use the template userspace draft to tag a userspace draft if it is not automatically done for you.

Personal and privacy-breaching material
Some people add personal information such as contact details (email, instant messaging, etc.), a photograph, their real name, their location, information about their areas of expertise and interest, likes and dislikes, etc. Once added this information is unlikely to ever become private again. It could be copied elsewhere or even used to harass you in the future. You are cautioned to think carefully before adding non-public information to your user page because you are unlikely to be able to retract it later, even if you change your mind.

Privacy-breaching non-public material, whether added by yourself or others, may be removed from any page upon request, either by administrators or (unless impractical) by purging from the page history and any logs by oversighters.

What may I not have in my user pages?
Generally, you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Age of Empires Series Wiki. Age of Empires Series Wiki is not a general hosting service, so your user page is not a personal website. Your user page is about you as a Age of Empires Series Wiki editor, and pages in your user space should be used as part of your efforts to contribute to the project.

In addition, there is broad agreement that you may not include in your user space material that is likely to bring the project into disrepute, or which is likely to give widespread offense (e.g. pro-pedophilia advocacy). You do have more latitude in user space than elsewhere, but don't be inconsiderate. Extremely offensive material may be removed on sight by any editor.

The Age of Empires Series Wiki community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants. Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Age of Empires Series Wiki editors with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. But at the same time, if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption.

Excessive unrelated content
Unrelated content includes, but is not limited to:


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! Writings, information, discussions, and activities not closely related to Age of Empires Series Wiki's goals ! Promotional and advocacy material and links ! Very divisive or offensive material not related to encyclopedia editing ! Personal information ! Age of Empires Series Wiki content not suited to userspace
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 * Extensive discussion not related to Age of Empires Series Wiki.
 * Extensive personal opinions on matters unrelated to Age of Empires Series Wiki, wiki philosophy, collaboration, free content, the Creative Commons, etc.
 * Extensive writings and material on topics having virtually no chance whatsoever of being directly useful to the project, its community, or an encyclopedia article. (For example in the latter case, because it is pure original research, is in complete disregard of reliable sources, or is clearly unencyclopedic for other clear reasons.)
 * Communications unrelated to Age of Empires Series Wiki, with people uninvolved with the project or its related work.
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 * Advertising or promotion of an individual, business, organization, group, or viewpoint unrelated to Age of Empires Series Wiki (such as commercial sites or referral links).
 * Extensive self-promotional material, especially when not directly relevant to Age of Empires Series Wiki.
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 * Polemical statements unrelated to Age of Empires Series Wiki, or statements attacking or vilifying groups of editors or persons (these are generally considered divisive and removed, and reintroducing them is often considered disruptive).
 * Material that can be viewed as attacking other editors, including the recording of perceived flaws. The compilation of factual evidence (diffs) in user subpages, for purposes such as preparing for a dispute resolution process, is permitted provided it will be used in a timely manner.
 * Users should generally not maintain in public view negative information related to others without very good reason. Negative evidence, laundry lists of wrongs, collations of diffs and criticisms related to problems, etc., should be removed, blanked, or kept privately (i.e., not on the wiki) if they will not be imminently used, and the same once no longer needed.
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 * Personal information of other persons without their consent.
 * Inappropriate or excessive personal information unrelated to Age of Empires Series Wiki.
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 * Images which you are not free to use (usually fair use images; see below).
 * Categories and templates intended for other usage, in particular those for articles and guidelines.
 * }
 * }

In general, if you have material that you do not wish others to edit, or that is otherwise inappropriate for Age of Empires Series Wiki, it should be placed on a personal web site. Many free and low-cost web hosting, email, and weblog services are widely available, and are a proper place for content unrelated to Age of Empires Series Wiki. For wiki-style community collaboration, you can download the MediaWiki software and install it on your own server if you want full control, or use one of many online wiki farms.

Advocacy or support of grossly improper behaviors with no project benefit
Statements or pages that seem to advocate, encourage, or condone these behaviors: vandalismcopyright violation, edit warring, harassmen, privacy breach, defamation and acts of violence (includes all forms of violence).

These may be removed by any user to avoid the appearance of acceptability, and existing speedy deletion criteria may apply. Treatment such as excusing, trivializing, or normalizing these issues as tolerable or of little importance (for example, by explaining support of vandalism as being 'humor' or edit warring as being valid for resolving content issues) will generally be seen as having the same effect as condoning the behavior, and may also be removed.

Categories, templates, and redirects
Do not put your userpage or subpages, including draft articles content categories.

User talk pages should not redirect to anything other than the talk page of an account controlled by the same user.