Personal tools

Personal tools are a set of links provided in the most popular MediaWiki skins, including Vector, Monobook, Cologne Blue, Simple, Modern, and others.

Default set
The most default set of links provided is to give users access to their...


 * User page
 * User talk
 * Preferences
 * Watchlist
 * Contributions
 * Authentication (logging in or logging out)

Other extensions or gadgets which add to personal tools

 * LiquidThreads adds news messages
 * Echo adds notifications (not currently used in production, but planned)
 * Extension:Education Program adds courses
 * Others?

Copy
Other than the header for personal tools, nearly all skins retain the  possessive form, e.g. "My talk", "My watchlist".

Use of possessives
The use of possessive clearly denotes that these pages are related to your account, but may actually be deceptive, since you do not actually own or have exclusive rights to edit anything except your preferences. The possessive form also takes up extra space. See bug 41672 about whether the possessive form should be removed.

Related research:
 * http://www.designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php?title=Your_vs._My
 * http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/4348/your-vs-my-in-user-interfaces
 * http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/core/yourvmy.html