Help:Preferences/en

Clicking on the Preferences link in the upper right while logged in allows you to change your preferences. You will be presented with the User profile section, as well as a bar of tabs across the top for changing other types of settings.

Note that some of the preferences discussed here are added by extensions and are not a part of MediaWiki core.

To change your password, enter your old password in the first box and your new password in the last two. If you want this site to remember your login, check Remember my login on this computer. Note that this function requires you to have cookies enabled in your browser, and if your cookie is cleared or expires you will no longer be remembered.

From your preferences you can select what language you would like the interface to be in. Only the buttons like 'edit' and 'talk', in addition to a few pages in the sidebar, will be affected. The main text of the pages will not be changed by this for the vast majority of pages, although there are a few pages where it will, like some in the Wikimedia Meta Wiki.


 * Languages
 * How do you prefer to be described?
 * Specifies the grammatical gender that the interface should use to refer to you. Also controls the output of the GENDER parser function, and hence any templates that support it. This setting is public.
 * More language settings
 * Opens up the pop-up.

If you have supplied an email address, you will need to click the verify address button in order to use these functions. You will receive an email; simply open it and follow the link to enable the following functions.

Here you can choose the skin you want to use. You can preview the available skins before choosing them, by clicking on the "" link next to each skin. Please refer to for more details. Also includes a link to your skin-specific CSS and JavaScript for that skin.

Date format and time offset
Determines the date format and timezone that the interface of pages such as recent changes or your watchlist. Any dates that appear in Wikitext will not be automatically reformatted. In particular, this includes signatures, so if you set a timezone other than the wiki default times shown in the interface won't match those in signatures.

Here you can determine how images will be displayed. Images displayed by direct pasting of a URL (if the wiki has it enabled) will not be affected by this setting.


 *  - This setting lets you choose how big image previews will be on the Image: pages. If you know what your current screen resolution is you may like to set this to one or two sizes smaller than your own screen. If you have a slow connection (such as dial-up) you may want to limit them to 320×240.
 *  - Define how big you want thumbnails to appear. This setting will not affect thumbnails with dimensions determined by an editor, nor can it increase images beyond their original dimensions.
 * Use Media Viewer: On Wikimedia wikis, this setting (on by default) determines whether the Media Viewer should be used to provide a smoother image viewing experience.


 * Determines whether links are underlined automatically. This may make it easier to distinguish links from other content, but may also cause confusion if a link includes an underscore.
 * Determines whether hidden categories are displayed at the bottom of the page.
 * Determines whether hidden categories are displayed at the bottom of the page.
 * Determines whether hidden categories are displayed at the bottom of the page.

Here you can control how mathematical equations described using the tag will be displayed. Mathematical formulae uploaded as images or written outside the math tag will not be affected by this setting. Note the math preferences will only be visible if is installed.

These are the settings to control editing pages, including whether to automatically watch pages that you have edited or created.


 * Assuming your browser supports it, causes right-clicking on a section heading to open up the editor for that section (this is the same functionality as the [edit] link).
 * Assuming your browser supports it, causes double-clicking (anywhere on the page, except for when clicking on a link) to open up the editor for that page, in the same way as clicking on the edit tab at the top.
 * Assuming your browser supports it, causes double-clicking (anywhere on the page, except for when clicking on a link) to open up the editor for that page, in the same way as clicking on the edit tab at the top.
 * Assuming your browser supports it, causes double-clicking (anywhere on the page, except for when clicking on a link) to open up the editor for that page, in the same way as clicking on the edit tab at the top.

Some extensions, such as, , , and also add their own preferences to this section.


 * Determines the font that text in the edit window (and in diffs) displays in. Options are monospace,  sans-serif , and  serif.
 * Causes all edits to be marked as minor, unless the checkbox is explicitly deselected with each edit. Some wikis, such as the English Wikipedia, have disabled this preference (because it makes it too easy to accidentally mark a non-minor edit minor).
 * Will display a warning message ("") when you try to save an edit without providing an edit summary. Can be useful since edit summaries make an edit easier for others to understand.
 * Displays a browser-specific alert popup if you try to close an edit page without publishing your in-progress edit, preventing the edit from being lost.
 * Enables the 2010 wikitext editor's editing toolbar.
 * Various settings that control whether, and under what circumstances, it is provided used when you edit a page. Options are to use only the Visual Editor (for namespaces that support it), use only the source editor, remember which editor was used for the previous edit, or show edit tabs for both. Only shown if Extension:VisualEditor is instakled.
 * Displays a browser-specific alert popup if you try to close an edit page without publishing your in-progress edit, preventing the edit from being lost.
 * Enables the 2010 wikitext editor's editing toolbar.
 * Various settings that control whether, and under what circumstances, it is provided used when you edit a page. Options are to use only the Visual Editor (for namespaces that support it), use only the source editor, remember which editor was used for the previous edit, or show edit tabs for both. Only shown if Extension:VisualEditor is instakled.
 * Enables the 2010 wikitext editor's editing toolbar.
 * Various settings that control whether, and under what circumstances, it is provided used when you edit a page. Options are to use only the Visual Editor (for namespaces that support it), use only the source editor, remember which editor was used for the previous edit, or show edit tabs for both. Only shown if Extension:VisualEditor is instakled.
 * Various settings that control whether, and under what circumstances, it is provided used when you edit a page. Options are to use only the Visual Editor (for namespaces that support it), use only the source editor, remember which editor was used for the previous edit, or show edit tabs for both. Only shown if Extension:VisualEditor is instakled.
 * Various settings that control whether, and under what circumstances, it is provided used when you edit a page. Options are to use only the Visual Editor (for namespaces that support it), use only the source editor, remember which editor was used for the previous edit, or show edit tabs for both. Only shown if Extension:VisualEditor is instakled.


 * Results in a preview window (of the page before your edit) appearing alongside the edit box when you edit a page, as if you had pressed "Show preview" and made no changes.
 * Determines whether to display the preview window above or below the edit textbox. Below is the default position.
 * Determines whether to display the preview window above or below the edit textbox. Below is the default position.
 * Determines whether to display the preview window above or below the edit textbox. Below is the default position.


 * Determines which languages are shown in the translation interface. See Help:Extension:Translate/Translation example for more details.
 * Determines which languages are shown in the translation interface. See Help:Extension:Translate/Translation example for more details.

Some of these preferences impact Special:RelatedChanges and Special:RecentChangesLinked as well as Special:RecentChanges. See Help:Tracking changes for more information.


 *  - Here you can specify how far back the recent changes pages will go. Note that the list will stop prematurely if the number of edits is exceeded (see below).
 *  - Here you can specify how many edits should be displayed.


 *  - Enhanced recent changes condenses edits into a per-page list. This requires JavaScript to be enabled..
 * - Enables or disables Help:New filters for edit review, a more complicated UI for displaying and filtering changes developed in 2017. This requires JavaScript be enabled.
 * Show Wikidata edits in recent changes: On selected Wikimedia projects where data from Wikidata is available, this option allows you to see changes to the Wikidata items connected to pages on your wiki, as well as changes to the wiki pages themselves. This can help catch vandalism on Wikidata that could be seen on your wiki.


 *  - This enables you to hide edits marked as minor (see ). Since some users will rapidly make a lot of tiny tweaks to update templates or fix spelling errors you may find enabling this to be useful. You can also turn this on temporarily from the recent changes page.
 *  - This enables you to hide edits marked as patrolled (see ). You can also turn this on temporarily from the recent changes page. May not appear if you don't have sufficient permissions to see patrolled edits.
 *  - This enables you to hide changes to categories (see ). Note that this only affects changes to pages within the category when watching the category; if you are watching the page, or the category is edited directly, any edits will still be shown. You can also turn this on temporarily from the recent changes page.
 *  - Same as "", but for Special:NewPages (some wikis only use patrolling for new page creation, and not edits to existing pages). You can also turn this on temporarily from the new pages list itself.

These are the settings to control the behavior of the watchlist (See ). Most of these options are also available on the watchlist display itself, but by setting them in your preferences, you control the default behavior of the watchlist i.e., it will perform the same actions every time you visit the page.

Provides a set of links to view and edit the pages on your watchlist, either as a formatted list of links with checkboxes to remove them, a raw list of page titles in a text box. The final option is to clear your watchlist entirely.


 *  - Here you can specify how far back the watchlist will go. Note that the list will stop prematurely if the number of edits is exceeded (see below).
 *  - Here you can specify how many edits should be displayed.


 *  - Expands the watchlist to display all relevant changes to pages (limited by the time and number settings above), rather than merely the most recent edit to page.
 *  - When you change one of the filter settings (on the watchlist itself, not in your preferences), causes the page to be automatically reloaded. If this is not set, then the changes to the filters will not take affect until you click on the "show" button to refresh the list.
 * Show Wikidata edits in your watchlist: On selected Wikimedia projects where data from Wikidata is available, this option allows you to see changes to the Wikidata items connected to pages on your wiki, as well as changes to the wiki pages themselves. This can help catch vandalism on Wikidata that could be seen on your wiki.
 * Show Wikidata edits in your watchlist: On selected Wikimedia projects where data from Wikidata is available, this option allows you to see changes to the Wikidata items connected to pages on your wiki, as well as changes to the wiki pages themselves. This can help catch vandalism on Wikidata that could be seen on your wiki.


 * Watchlist token: This token is used to generate a RSS feed from your watchlist. Anyone who knows this token can use it to access your watchlist. If the token is discovered by someone else, you can use the "Click here if you need to reset it" link to create a new token. Once you have done this, you will need to edit the URL of your feed subscription in your feed reader to account for the new token.

Default settings for searches including how many results to display and how much context to show for each result. Check the boxes next to the namespaces which you want to show up, the first time that you search for something. You can override this when doing an actual search, by checking or unchecking the boxes at the bottom of the search results screen.

On Wikimedia wikis, the Beta features tab allows you to enable experimental features before they are made available to everyone. If you choose to turn on any of these features, you should be prepared to encounter bugs and problems, and you may see sudden changes in the way the feature looks or works as development continues.

Each feature has a "discussion" link next to it, so you can offer your suggestions or report any problems.

See About Beta Features for more information.


 * Automatically enable all new beta features: If you turn on this option, new beta features will become active for you as soon as they are added to the Beta Features system.