Codex

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Codex:Creating a User Page

A Codex User Page is a page created by a volunteer on this WordPress Codex documentation site to provide information to others about who the user is and how to contact them. It also serves as a place to let people know what your interests are regarding contributing and working on the WordPress Codex, and links to your rough draft articles and things to do on the Codex.

By creating your own User Page, you not only help everyone learn more about you and your interest in helping on the WordPress Codex, but you also get a good hands-on lesson on how to write documents for the Codex. You can write documents in HTML, but not all HTML tags work well on the Codex. There are some special styling tags and codes used that you will need to learn, and your User Page is the place to start learning.

First Steps

To create your User Page after registering, click your User Name link at the very top of the Codex screen. [Until you put some content onto that page, the link will be red indicating a wiki page that doesn't yet exist.]

Using the Codex Guidelines, Editing Help, and even the Sandbox as examples, add the following information, in no particular order, to your User page:

  • Your name or what you want to be called on the Codex.
  • How to contact you, via your website or email.
  • Information about you and your expertise as it applies to the Codex.
  • How and what you would like to do to help out on the WordPress Codex and contribute to the WordPress Community.
  • Anything else you want the world to know!

Please:

  • Do not post personal or private notes.
  • Do not use the area to promote yourself or your site (no advertising).
  • Do not post non-WordPress or non-Codex related information or material.

User Pages help other volunteers and the WordPress Documentation Team get to know you and your abilities. The more clear you are about what you want to do on the Codex, the better we can help you to direct your energies.

This is your area for creating rough drafts of your articles, or notes to help you with your contribution to the WordPress Codex. For examples of User Pages, check the User Pages of the Documentation team.

Instead of a User Page

If you are wary about posting information about yourself, let's take some small first steps in learning how to add content to the Codex. The Discussion Area of this article is a good place to start.

1. Click on the Discussion Tab at the top of this page.

2. Across the top of the page, you will see another set of similar tabs, including one called Edit. Click Edit.

3. The page will reload, this time displaying a warning at the top that says:

Note: Remember that this is only a preview, and has not yet been saved!
The content is still there, but scroll down below and you will find an editing box at the bottom of the content. This is the editing window for the article or discussion area.

4. Move down to the bottom of the discussion area. Click inside the edit box and type four dashes (-). This will create a line separating your comment from the ones above. Now type in a note - something polite, please.

5. Sign your name using four tildes (~). The tilde is normally found (on American keyboards) to the left of the 1 number key above the backtick (`) key, or try Shift plus the hash (#) key if you have an English keyboard layout. When you save the page, the four tildes will generate your name in a link and the date and time of your comment. It looks something like this:

Fred Smith 02:18, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

6. In the Summary box below the editing box, type in a very short note about what you've done, like "Creating My User Page" or "Question about the article". This Summary will appear in a list that helps other Codex editors know what happened on a page.

7. Save the page by clicking Save Page below the Summary. When the page reloads, you should now see the end result including your comment and signature, and the editing box is now gone.

8. When a link is red it means that the link doesn't have any content on that page. Because you haven't created a User Page yet, your name link is red. Click it and it will bring you to an Edit Page screen, similar to the one you just worked on, but this one is totally blank. When you're ready, fill it in using the guidelines above.

Now What

After creating your User Page, check out what you can do to help with the WordPress Codex on the Contributing to the Codex page and on the Task List, and sign up for the wp-docs mailing list and let the sysops and other volunteers know that you are here, ready to work, what you want to do, and that you are ready for assignment.

Also notice that your User Page also has a Discussion tab. It is here you can post comments and people can post comments or questions to you. When somebody leaves you a comment on your User: Talk page, you will see a message the next time you login to the Codex, informing you of the new message. A person posting a question on your discussion page will sign their name using the four tildes (~) and then you can click on their User Page name link and it will take you to their User Page where you will respond with an answer on their discussion page.

Next time they sign in, they will get a message at the top of any Codex page they are visiting that they have messages waiting for them. They will reply back on your discussion page, so you will get the same "message waiting" reminder. Read the Discussion Guidelines for more information.