Your User Page

Setting Up and Using a User's Page

One of the most helpfull things on a wiki is your "User's Page". When you register with the Genealogy Wiki you are automatically assigned a user page, under whatever name you registered with. Your user's page includes a number of subpages that that help organize your efforts on the wiki.

Most people use the main page of the user's page to tell others something about themselves---it allows you to identify your interests, background, or whatever it is that you want others to know about you.

There's also a subpage (the Discussion Page) that allows others to contact you with out going through email.

Some users have found it convenient to use this area to keep track of what they are doing on the wiki. For example, some people keep a list of ancestors for whom they've created articles. (This can be very handy. You'd be surprized how quickly you forget who it was that you've written about, sometimes resulting in the creation of duplicate articles under slightly different names.  Its not always easy to keep track of these folks, so keeping a list in one form or another can be a good idea.

Also, its sometimes helpful to have a private "sandbox" to play in when you're experimenting with different features of the wiki. You can always use the main sandbox for this, but there the work will go away when the next person comes to play. If you create a subpage in your own user's page, whatever you put there isn't going away until you want it to.

Also, while there's no guarantees here, the courtesy convention is that people do not change other peoples User's Page, other than placing notes in your discussion page. Sometimes things happen, and someone will make a change (perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps because there's a specific need to do so), but in general, you should be able to expect and get freedom from editing by others on your user's page.