Creating a User Page

A user page is a place for you to display a personal profile and keep track of your expeditions. It also provides a means for other people to contact you, and can be a place where you can practice editing the wiki without worrying about making a mess.

Your first step is to create an account and log in. The log in/create account link is at the top right hand corner of the window. One you're logged in, it will read log out instead, and your login name will appear at the left end of that same row of links. Find your name and click on it to open an edit window.

You can type anything you like in the user page: your other hobbies, where and how you geohash, maybe who dragged you into this. A one-liner is fine to start. If you want, you can add a photograph of yourself. Most people have a section listing expeditions they have gone on and collect ribbons for achievement awards. Have a look at some other user pages for ideas. Click Show Preview at the bottom then keep editing until you like it, and then click Save Page.

Linking to Your User Page

When you write up an expedition report, list yourself on a graticule page or write on someone else's talk page, you can make your name a clickable link leading to your user page. It's done like this:

[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] was on this expedition.

That looks like this: Robyn was on this expedition.

The part between the colon and the vertical bar should be exactly the same as the title of your user page, while the part after the vertical bar should be what you want to display in the text. If your log in name is Alex238 you can still refer to yourself on the wiki as Alex, just by changing what you put after the bar.

[[User:thepiguy|The PI guy]] took these pictures.

comes out as: The PI guy took these pictures.

A clever shortcut when signing notes is to type four tildes (~~~~) and that will create a link to your user page, with the time and date, like this: Robyn 16:04, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Changing the Name of Your User Page

If you created a user page but you now hate the name you chose, or if you created a page, but just did it with something other than the User:Name the Wiki expects, don't worry. It's really easy to fix. Go to the page and click on the move tab at the top. Fill in the fields carefully, click Move page, and you're done. Links to the old page will not be broken. The wiki takes care of them for you. After you move the page to the name you want, create a new account using that name (this will make it easier on everyone, especially yourself, and prevent potential future problems).

Examples

For ideas on how to arrange your user page, here are some diverse examples to look at. Some have listed all the expeditions together. Some divide them into coordinates reached, and not reached. Some put a thumbnail-sized photo together with a link to each expedition report. Some have so many expeditions they have put them on a different page. Please add interesting examples.

• Robyn - a very enthusiastic geohasher
• Ilpadre - an artist
• thepiguy - a very active geohasher
• Wade - someone who doesn't plan many expeditions
• Joannac - a divided list of attempts versus successes

Your Talk Page

Even if you don't have anything on your user page, you automatically have a Talk page where other wiki users can leave messages for you. You can set your preferences to have the wiki e-mail you when someone has left you a message. You can get to your talk page by following the link in the notification e-mail; by clicking my talk next to your name in the top right; by clicking the discussion tab while you are on your own user page; or by clicking the words new messages in the banner that will appear on any wiki page you load while you're on the wiki.

If you need some help with your user page, feel free to leave a me a message on my talk page.

Recommended settings

Note the my preferences link that appears when you log in. Consider the suggestions in Configuring the wiki to improve your experience here.