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.

In detail:
 * Real name: This may be used to give you attribution for your work. Other users of the wiki will not see this! It probably won't be used for anything, either, though, as most wikis will credit you by your username.
 * E-mail address: Your preferred email address. It is strongly recommended that you give an email address you use and are likely to have for a long time. If you forget your password, this is the only way you can get it sent back to you!
 * Nickname: The name you would like to have displayed when you sign posts. If you leave this blank, posts will be signed with your username. (For example, if your username is "jbrown123" but you would like to sign as "Jeff", put "Jeff" in the nickname field. If you would like to sign as "jbrown123", leave it blank.) There are lots of ways you can customize your signature using HTML. If you'd like to see how you can do that, see Help:Signature. The "Raw Signature" box is for those using more advanced customized signatures, which you can find out about at the signature help page.
 * Language: Which language you would like the interface (buttons, system messages) to be in. This can be different from the language that the wiki is in! The articles will stay in whichever language they were originally written in.
 * Change password: Use these fields if you would like to change your password. "Remember across sessions" stores a cookie on your machine so that you do not have to enter your password every time. (If you use a public computer, such as a library or school lab computer, you probably don't want to do this. But if you're using your home computer that no one else uses, it can be convenient.)
 * Email: Check the box if you do not want other logged-in users to be able to contact you via email. (Normally, the "e-mail this user" link, which is on the side of the screen when you look at any user's user page, will allow users to email you without seeing your email address.)

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.

In detail:
 * Limit images on image description pages to: allows you to choose a size that will fit on your monitor when you click on an image to see the information about it.
 * Thumbnail size: allows you to choose how big images should be when small "thumbnail" versions are put on a page. Choose a size that you like and works best with your monitor.

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.

In detail:
 * Hits per page: You may choose the number of results returned on each page of search results.
 * Lines per hit: Specifying a number n means "do not show any context if the search term occurs beyond line n in the page." Setting this to 5000 or more gives context for every occurrence.
 * Context per line: The number of characters of context per occurrence; however, the context is anyway restricted to the "line" (anything without a line break; usually a paragraph) it occurs in. To get the whole line, choose a large number like 5000.
 * Search in these namespaces by default: Choose which types of pages you would like to appear in searches by default. (You will be able to change these options from the search page.) For example, selecting "Main" only will return only articles, selecting "Main" and "Talk" would search articles and their discussion pages.

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.