Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:57, 12 January 2008

Designing a userbox

The following userbox design and creation guidelines apply equally to all user templates (including any userbox or userbox-like markup), regardless of whether they have been transcluded, substituted, or written from scratch. Userboxes that fail to meet these guidelines may be subject to deletion.

Caution about image use

The Wikimedia Commons has a large range of icons for use within boxes. However, if you wish to select a different image to put in a userbox, make certain the image license is free. Misplaced Pages policy does not allow templates (which includes userboxes) or user pages to contain any copyrighted content not under free license; so, for example, "fair use" images are explicitly forbidden. This clause is to be interpreted strictly and without exception, for legal reasons. See Misplaced Pages's fair use policy guidelines for more details.

Content restrictions

• All userboxes are governed by the civility policy.
  • Userboxes must not include incivility or personal attacks.
  • Userboxes must not be inflammatory or divisive.
  • Misplaced Pages is not an appropriate place for propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise, opinion pieces on current affairs or politics, self-promotion, or advertising.

Simply: If content is not appropriate on a user page, it is not appropriate within userboxes, and vice versa.

Content examples

Typical userbox content:

• This user <verb phrase> <noun phrase>

Typical verbs (others are possible):

• drives, eats, edits, enjoys, likes, loves, plays, reads, speaks, understands, uses, and watches.

Some alternate combinations (other combinations are possible):

• This user is <noun phrase>
• This user is a member of <noun phrase>
• This user is a fan of <noun phrase>
• This user supports <noun phrase>
• This user contributes to <noun phrase>
• This user is interested in <noun phrase>
• This user is fascinated by <noun phrase>

Potentially divisive words

Avoid verbs which may be used to suggest negative comparison, and would thus be potentially divisive, such as:

• believes, considers, favors, finds, knows, prefers, thinks and wishes.

Avoid negative verb phrases which can be potentially divisive, such as:

• dislikes, despises, hates, loathes

Also avoid compound sentences which are positive and negative, such as:

• This user likes <noun phrase>, but does not like <another noun phrase>.

Essentially: Express what you like, rather than what you don't like. Express who you are, rather than who you aren't. Express what you do, rather than what you don't.

Category inclusion

• Userboxes should not automatically include categories by default. Consider how useful the category would be to other editors before adding it to your userbox. The category system is intended as a tool for navigation, by grouping like things together. Wikipedian categories (categories of Wikipedians) are intended for grouping Wikipedians in order to aid in facilitating collaboration on the encyclopedia. Similar to all categories, Wikipedian categories should not be used as a "bottom-of-the-page" notice. If a Wikipedian wishes to have a such a notice, they may edit their user page and add the notice in some other way (such as by adding text or a userbox), rather than inappropriately creating a category grouping.
• Do not create categories which could potentially include most or all Wikipedians. For example, userboxes such as: "This user is a Wikipedian."; "This user uses the internet"; "This user plays video games"; etc., should not include category markup based on such criteria.
• Userboxes which include category markup that adds the bearing userpage to a category must only categorise within sub-categories of Category:Wikipedians.

Naming conventions (Wikipedian sub-categories)

• Names and descriptions of Wikipedian sub-categories are subject to the same rules and restrictions as userbox content.
• The name of the category should be clear about its scope and purpose, and in general, should follow the naming convention of fellow members of a parent category. See Category:Wikipedians by interest for an example.
• A Wikipedian sub-category should have an indication it is a Wikipedian category. "Indications" include, but are not limited to: "Wikipedians", "WikiProject", or a name of a Misplaced Pages-specific organization or grouping. For example, Category:Wikipedian mathematicians, not Category:Mathematicians. Babel-specific user categories are an exception to this, and instead should follow that convention by having the same name as the Babel-specific userbox.
• If in the userbox content, the verb (see above) is one of preference (enjoys, likes, loves, etc.), replace it with a more specific verb when selecting the category name. For example, "This user enjoys Tolkien" could be categorised as Category:Wikipedians who read Tolkien.
• Avoid creating "not"-based categories. For example: "This user does not like <noun phrase>."

Syntax for including categories

• Using {{User eo-1}} as an example:

<div style="float:left;border:solid #C0C8FF 1px;margin:1px">
{| cellspacing="0" style="width:238px;background:#F0F8FF"
| style="width:45px;height:45px;background:#C0C8FF;text-align:center;font-size:14pt" 
| ''']-1'''
| style="font-size:8pt;text-align:center;padding:4pt;line-height:1.25em" 
| Ĉi tiu uzanto povas komuniki per 
''']''' nivelo de ''']'''
|}</div>{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|User|]}}<noinclude>
]
</noinclude>

• |}</div> must begin on a new line. <includeonly> (or <noinclude> if not categorising userpages) should be on the same line to prevent extra spacing from appearing when grouping userboxes on userpages.

• Categories enclosed in <includeonly> tags - This will only categorise pages on which the userbox is transcluded. To show the userbox in that category, use {{User category}} or {{Your userbox name|nocat=}}.

• Categories enclosed in <noinclude> tags - This will only categorise the userbox. You can make your userbox known through ] and other relevant categories in Category:Wikipedian userboxes. Remember to set the sort key as {{PAGENAME}}.

Constructing a userbox

How to construct the box

There are a number of box types to select from when deciding to make a userbox. The most commonly used design is the "Standard box". It has one square shaped area on the left ("id") and a rectangular area on the right ("info").

For ease of use, userboxes are made using maker-templates that have a number of parameters. Once the maker-template is saved, it is automatically transformed to HTML.

The id and info boxes can include text, links, and images using the usual Misplaced Pages syntax. Generally, the id box will contain a few letters or a 43px image, while the info box will contain a sentence with a link or two.

Userbox types

Userbox sampling templates

To make it easier to quote the generation code for a userbox in a uniform format, a template {{Userbox sample compact}} has been made available, which produces a picture of the userbox along with the code necessary to create it. To use it, just give it exactly the same parameters you would give the {{Userbox}} template. You must use subst:, or the template will not work properly. An example is shown below:

{{subst:Userbox sample compact|id=UBX|id-c=red|info=This is a ''']'''.}}

Produces:

There are not yet any similar templates available for userboxes created by the templates Userbox-r, Userbox-2 and Userbox-m.