Help:Editnotice

This page is a help page

It is meant to detail processes or procedures of some aspect or aspects of The Sims Wiki's norms and practices. It is not a policy page.

Editnotices are large message boxes that are shown above the edit window when a user edits a page. This is often used to convey important notices and messages, such as warnings and reminders. The Sims Wiki has adopted a sophisticated editnotice system, modelled after the one used on Wikipedia, that allows for more flexibility with editnotices.

Creating editnotices

Editnotices are usually created using the {{Editnotice}} template, which uses {{Metabox}} as its base, as is standard on The Sims Wiki. However, this is not a requirement, and editnotices can utilize any template, or even be in plain text.

Editnotices are stored as individual pages that are then transcluded into the top of the page where they are needed. These pages can be edited like any other page. In most cases, only administrators are able to create and edit editnotices, as they are part of the interface and subject to abuse.

There are three main types of editnotices:

• Namespace notices: these are displayed for all pages in a given namespace.
• Group notices: these are displayed for a specified page and all of its subpages.
• Page notices: these are displayed for only a single page.

These three types of editnotices are all stored as subpages of Template:Editnotices. These are then further organized into subpages by type, and then by the namespace or page they are configured to appear on. For example:

• An editnotice placed on the page Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Template will be shown on all pages in the template namespace.
• An editnotice placed on the page Template:Editnotices/Group/Foo Bar will be shown on the page Foo Bar, and any of its subpages, such as Foo Bar/Baz and Foo Bar/Baz/Bee.
• An editnotice placed on the page Template:Editnotices/Page/FooBar will only be shown on the page FooBar.

User, User talk, and Fanon editnotices

Editnotices can also be displayed on one's own user page, user talk page, and fanon page. Unlike the other three main editnotices, anyone can create and edit them (in other words, you do not need to be an administrator to create and edit them), and they are not stored as subpages of Template:Editnotices, but as subpages of the user/fanon page in question. For instance:

• To create a userpage editnotice for User:Example, edit the page User:Example/Editnotice.
• To create a user talk page editnotice for User talk:Example, edit the page User talk:Example/Editnotice.
• To create a fanon editnotice for Fanon:Example, edit the page Fanon:Example/Editnotice.

Quick links to creating editnotices

You can create an editnotice for a page by going to the page you want to create an editnotice for, clicking on "Edit", and then looking at the top-right corner of the page. You should see links that look something like this:

Page notice

or like this:

Group notice   Page notice

You will only see these links if you have the permission to create these editnotices.

You can also use the table below to navigate to the relevant pages. To create an editnotice for a page, enter the page name and click "Create". Page names are case-sensitive. For your own User: and User talk: pages, you don't need to type anything, just click "Create".

Namespace number	Namespace	Namespace editnotice	Create page editnotice
0	Main: (article)	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main
1	Talk: (article talk)	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Talk
2	User:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/User
3	User talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/User talk
4	The Sims Wiki:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/The Sims Wiki
5	The Sims Wiki talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/The Sims Wiki talk
6	File:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/File
7	File talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/File talk
8	MediaWiki:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/MediaWiki
9	MediaWiki talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/MediaWiki talk
10	Template:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Template
11	Template talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Template talk
12	Help:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Help
13	Help talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Help talk
14	Category:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Category
15	Category talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Category talk
110	Forum:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Forum
111	Forum talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Forum talk
274	Widget:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Widget
275	Widget talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Widget talk
710	TimedText:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/TimedText
711	TimedText talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/TimedText talk
828	Module:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Module
829	Module talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Module talk
3000	Fanon:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Fanon
3001	Fanon talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Fanon talk
3002	Game guide:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Game guide
3003	Game guide talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Game guide talk
3004	Custom content:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Custom content
3005	Custom content talk:	Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Custom content talk

Advanced

Hiding the editnotice links

If you don't want to see red "Group notice" and "Page notice" links and prefer to only be able to see them when those pages actually exist, add the following to your personal CSS:

/* Hide the red "Group notice" and "Page notice" links. */
.editnotice-area .editnotice-redlink {
  display: none !important;
}

If you want to hide those links entirely, use this instead:

/* Hide all the "Group notice" and "Page notice" links. */
.editnotice-area .editnotice-link {
  display: none !important;
}

Technical explanation

MediaWiki supports editnotices as a part of the MediaWiki namespace. Editnotices can be configured as namespace notices. On Wikipedia, this method was found to be inefficient as the MediaWiki namespace grew in size, resulting in performance issues.

The current editnotice system replaces the namespace-specific editnotice pages in the MediaWiki namespace with {{editnotice load}}, which causes pages to use a subpage specific to it as its editnotice, rather than a namespace-wide MediaWiki namespace.

Group editnotices and subpages

Group editnotices do not work in namespaces that do not have subpages enabled, as such a feature would not be useful. Subpages are enabled in all namespaces on The Sims Wiki. Subpages can be enabled or disabled for each individual namespace using the ManageWiki interface.

List of editnotices

• Special:PrefixIndex/MediaWiki:Editnotice – The main MediaWiki namespace notices, and any lingering MediaWiki page notices.
• Special:PrefixIndex/Template:Editnotices – All templates and sub-templates with names beginning with "Template:Editnotices...".
• Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Editnotice – Pages that use the {{editnotice}} template.

See also

• Wikipedia:Editnotice on English Wikipedia
• Manual:Interface/Edit notice on MediaWiki.org (technical documentation)