Help:Preferences



Logged in Wikia users are able to set some personal preferences which tailor the way they read, write and edit on Wikia to their particular style. These preferences are applicable across all Wikia wikis, so the same preferences are applied on every wiki you visit. To access your preferences, move your mouse over your username at the top right of a page. A drop down menu will appear, and from here select "My preferences"

What are the different tabs for?
This help page will walk you through the current preference options Wikia users have and explaining the effects of changing these options. We will address these in order from tab-to-tab.

Tabs are organized to clump together related preferences so that it is easier to find the relevant field to change. By default, there are five tabs on the Special:Preferences page.

Please realize that none of the changes you make to your preferences will be stored unless you press the "Save" button.

Basic Information

 * My username: Simply prints your username. You can not change your username through the preferences screen. If you wish to change your username, please see this page on username changes.
 * My user groups: Lists the user groups you belong to.
 * My gender: Not a required preference. By default, users are unspecified, though of course one can choose male or female.
 * The purpose of this preference is for international languages in which proper nouns need a gender form.
 * To learn how to set your gender for your User Profile, please visit Help:Profiles. Your profile gender is not set by this preference.
 * My password: If you would like to change your password, please click the link in this field, which will lead you to Special:ChangePassword

Signature

 * Existing Signature: Renders your signature, including all wikitext.
 * Custom Signature: Where your signature can be changed.
 * Wikitext you use will be converted when the signature is used unless you uncheck the "I want to use wikitext in my signature" box.

Appearance

 * Language: A dropdown menu where you can choose the language you wish to view the wiki in.
 * Note: This applies to the interface on all wikis, so while the content of a DE wiki mmay will be in German, if you have "EN - english" as your user language, you will see most of the messages and tools on the wiki in the English language.
 * Date: Allows for users to change how they wish to see timestamps.
 * Time: Allows for users to override the server time (which is in UTC) with the time zone of their own choice. Users can either select their geographical region to determine time zone from a dropdown list or can enter the offset manually using the next input box.
 * This will not affect the timestamp in user signatures.
 * Layout: Allows for users to see Wikia with the Wikia skin or the Monobook skin. Learn more about skins.
 * Ads: Registered users on Wikia can hide most of the ads our anonymous users see. Consider it a perk of membership. Some admins, though, like seeing all the ads on a wiki so they can understand the user experience for their anonymous readers.
 * Landing Page: Users can either choose between going to the Main Page of a wiki (MediaWiki:Mainpage) or to Special:WikiActivity when going directly to the wiki's URL from the address bar.

Email
The email tab allows users to change their email address on record with Wikia and then control the type and volume of emails they receive from Wikia.

Address

 * My email address: The field in which you see what current address you have on file. If you type in a new email address and save the page, you will be prompted to confirm your new email address.
 * Email Confirmation: If you need to confirm your email address, you will see text informing you that your email is not confirmed and then offer a link to resend your confirmation email if it has been misplaced. If you are already email confirmed, you will be told you are confirmed and given a timestamp of when it was done.
 * Note: As of March 2012, users must be email confirmed when registering.

Followed Pages
To learn what followed pages are, please consult this help page on followed pages.

These preferences will determine when if your account will automatically watch the page when you make one of four major changes to a page:


 * When you edit a page
 * When you create a page
 * When you move a page
 * When you delete a page

Email Me When...
Now that you have managed your subscriptions to a page through the followed page feature, you can also choose how much communication you receive about those pages. These are fairly self explanatory. Some quick notes:


 * "Minorly changed" - means a user making a change to the page has checked the "minor edit" box.
 * For wikis with message wall enabled, you will see another mini-section entitled "Message Wall" and a dropdown field to choose how you should be mailed.
 * Wikis with the old user talk page system rely upon the previous box of "my user talk page is changed" for those followed pages emails.

Advanced Options

 * Send me HTML options: If you have an email client that has the capability to render HTML messages, it may be wise to check this box. HTML-rich messages from Wikia contain hyperlinks that make it much easier to go to a page you are being emailed about.
 * Enable email from other users - If you check this box, wiki users can contact you via the Special:EmailUser function.
 * Reveal my email address in noficiation emails - Some users are willing to share their email to aid wiki communication. That said, please do not check this field if you have concerns about privacy or are a minor.
 * Mark all pages from my Weekly Digest as visited - If you do not visit pages outlined in a Weekly Digest, you may be presented with the same list on your next Weekly Digest.

Disable all emails
Email communication is a critical tool that allows you to stay attuned on what is going on your favorite wikis as well as on Wikia as a whole.

We presented you on this Email tab with plenty of options to suit the types and volume of emails you receive from Wikia. If you have concerns about email, we would suggest you review your general email preferences first.

That said, Wikia does respect your right to not be emailed from our network if you do not wish to be contacted by us. As such, if you check this box, you will not receive any emails from Wikia until the checkbox is unchecked.

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.