Help:Preferences



The MediaWiki software allows logged in users set some personal preferences which tailor the way they read, write and edit on Wikia to your particular style.

Preferences are carried over to all sites at Wikia, so you get the expected behaviour at every wiki you visit.

See Special:Preferences for the options page.

User profile
From the user profile tab, you can see:
 * Your registered username.
 * Your user ID.
 * The number of edits made across all Wikia.

In addition, you can change various things, including your customized signature, your e-mail address, language, password and email notification settings.

Skin
Here you can change the "skin", or page layout and design, that you see when you are browsing Wikia sites. There are several different options available, from the classic Monobook skin used at Wikipedia, to the new Monaco skin - each provides site navigation and links in a slightly different way. You can also choose whether to see all ads as if you are a logged out user, and whether to use the locally chosen site skin.

See Help:Skins for more information.

Files
From the files tab, you can choose how to display images. Adapting the options here can improve page display if you have an especially large or small monitor or display screen.

Date and time
On this tab, you can set time zone and date formats.

The server time (on Wikia, this is UTC) usually differs from your local time; by pressing the "Fill in from browser" button, the correct value will automatically be entered into the offset box. If the server time was 18.00 and your local time was 21.00, the offset would be  hours. Note this won't automatically adjust for any local daylight saving changes.

When you save your changes, the time in various logs and lists around the wiki will be displayed in your local time and chosen format. This does not affect signatures.

Editing
The editing tab allows you to change certain details about the editing interface or editing process, which may help to make editing smoother, more intuitive, or less error-prone for you.

See Help:Editing preferences for more details.

Recent changes
Here you can:


 * Alter the number of titles displayed in recent changes (both by days and edits - whichever comes first will be the effective limit).
 * Decide whether or not you want the list to display minor edits (do you care about every typo fix and category change?).
 * If you have JavaScript enabled, enable Enhanced Recent Changes, a method of folding multiple edits to an article into a single recent changes entry. This is popular, and recommended.

Watchlist
The watchlist tab enables you to specify what you do and do not want to see on your watchlist, one of the best methods of keeping an eye on changes to articles you care about.

"Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes" ensures that every recent edit of the page is shown, not just the last edit (similar to Enhanced Recent Changes).

Search
You can choose which namespaces to search, and how many results to return, when using Wikia's internal search function.

It also allows you to turn "Search suggest" on and off - this suggests results as you type words into the search box.

Miscellaneous
A few odds and ends of Wikia behaviour can be controlled here:


 * Format broken links like this (alternative: like this?):
 * Using a question mark? after a link to a non-existing page is a convention used in other types of wiki software; those used to that convention have an option to use it at Wikia too.


 * Justify paragraphs: makes text line up with both left and right margins
 * Auto-number headings: adds numbers before headings
 * Show table of contents (for pages with more than 3 headings): enabled by default; you can disable all tables of contents here if they interfere with your browsing style.
 * Disable page caching: allows you to see certain page updates quicker, but puts more strain on the database servers. Don't disable unless you know you have a reason to.
 * Enable "jump to" accessibility links: provides links at top of page which can make navigation quicker and easier for screen readers and other accessibility software
 * Don't show page content below diffs: Normally a diff view will display the entire page content, including images and templates, below the side-by-side diff comparison. If you don't need that view, checking this preference will speed up the display of diff pages.