Forum:Wasteland (sandbox)

Starting to doubt the benefit of The Vault:Wasteland. Barely anyone uses it to actually test stuff, most edits are pure nonsense. What do you think about getting rid of it? -- Porter21 (talk) 18:47, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

Took you long enough to figure that one out, really. Personally, on my wiki, we just give each new user a link to his own personal sandbox in his user namespace in the welcome message on their talk page. -- Light Daxter -  Talk  19:07, July 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I've been well aware that the page is mostly used for nonsense for a long time ;) My line of thought used to be that I'd rather have them make nonsense edits there than in articles, but I've simply grown tired of resetting the page time and again. -- Porter21 (talk) 19:34, July 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the personal sandbox links idea. Ausir(talk) 09:33, July 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * The personal sandbox idea appeals to me, too. It gives people a practice area (even if they don't use it), and it doesn't require maintenance by regular editors.--Gothemasticator 06:17, July 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * If you'd like to add a link to a personal sandbox, fine with me. I'd suggest to format it as an external link though so we don't start flooding Special:WantedPages with unused sandbox links. -- Porter21 (talk) 21:45, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

Not needed, we've been using it for a while now and the user namespace apparently doesn't call up any wanted links in the wantedpages specialpage. -- Light Daxter -  Talk  22:39, July 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that's probably because of the "Semantic Forms" extension you have installed (the sandbox link in your welcome message is routed through the extension in case you haven't noticed). We don't have that. -- Porter21 (talk) 22:46, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

We got SMW only recently, the Welcome message is a lot older than that, so it's something else. Might I add to my support that any user who never bothers to create an userpage, but does signs his messages, also leaves dead links behind, even though those don't show up in special:wantedpages either? -- Light Daxter -  Talk  09:42, July 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's possible this was changed in one of the recent MW updates, but redlinks to user pages definitely used to show up in Special:WantedPages. Back when AshRandom quit the wiki, she deleted her user & talk page, which resulted in these two showing up near the top of the list (since she had done a lot of welcoming). Not really the point of this thread though. -- Porter21 (talk) 11:08, July 17, 2010 (UTC)

I've whipped up a new version of the welcome template at User:Porter21/sandbox4 which also incorporates the personal sandbox link. Let me know what you think of it; any improvement suggestions welcome. -- Porter21 (talk) 11:39, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

Looks great, perhaps make the header the same yellow-green color as the username at the top of the page (also the same color as the word VAULT on the logo). And will it be used in conjunction with the Wikia welcome tool? -- Light Daxter -  Talk  12:13, July 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made the header text green - the yellow/green tone doesn't have a lot of contrast on that background, the dark green looks better there in my opinion. And yes, it'll be used with the welcome tool once the design is final. -- Porter21 (talk) 12:20, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

Nice, but in that case, I'm fairly sure you don't need the, 2, 3 thingies. I faintly remember the original welcome tool using the paragraph symbol with a number and it would automatically insert the signature of the last active admin. I could be wrong though. -- Light Daxter -  Talk  12:32, July 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * No, you're right as far as the general welcome tool syntax goes. Our automatic welcome message is routed through welcome though - I'm too lazy to update both the template and the welcome tool message, and I wanted to keep the template up-to-date so it can be used manually if needed. Long story short, having the parameters in there is fine for our welcome tool setup. -- Porter21 (talk) 12:48, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and updated welcome/welcome anon. An added perk of this update is that you no longer need to insert your signature when using those templates manually; i.e. instead of  you can simply use. I've also deleted The Vault:Wasteland and removed all references to it. -- Porter21 (talk) 06:25, July 30, 2010 (UTC)

I've seen wikis to do this sort of thing, a personal sandbox. Some even use it for their own, useful purposes, giving a person more space to put stuff out for the community without endangering quality of articles or talk pages. Go for it, it's a great idea!

Nathan Hale 06:40, July 30, 2010 (UTC)