Wikipedia:Misuse of the sandbox
This is an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting. |
This page is not a sandbox. It should not be used for test editing. To experiment, please use the Wikipedia sandbox, your user sandbox, or the other sandboxes. |
This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's sandbox is intended for relatively free experimentation, but certain rules still apply to it. |
The
Unacceptable use of the sandbox
Removal of the header
The following lines that make up the sandbox header should not be removed.
{{Please leave this line alone (sandbox heading)}}
The header contains important information. Without the header, new users may not know what is and isn't acceptable. Without it, they may not know that their changes will not be permanent, and it may deter new users when they discover that their edits are missing.
The removal of the sandbox header is still considered unhelpful, even though it is automatically replaced by a bot, often within seconds.
Copyrighted content
Posting copyrighted content without permission in the sandbox, or anywhere else, is unacceptable, and may even lead to a block.
Personal attacks and harassment
Personal attacks of a user, a person, or anything are unacceptable in the sandbox, or anywhere else. An uncivil comment on the sandbox could easily deter new users, who could have become useful contributors. The sandbox should not be used to harass users or people either (i.e. by posting personal information about someone you know, or another Wikipedia user).
Such edits will most likely be reverted by someone, or get overwritten by other experimenting users (or in the case of personal information, suppressed in accordance with the
Redirecting the sandbox
The sandbox should not be redirected, as it may cause confusion for experimenting users and may lead new users to make test edits on the page the sandbox is redirected to. Instead, experiment with redirects in your user sandbox.
User warnings and block notices
If you need to test a
Creating your personal sandbox
Some of the above do not apply if you create your own personal sandbox at
Note: If you do not have an account, you can create a sandbox in your user talk space instead of your user space.
See also
- Wikipedia:Sandbox
- Wikipedia:About the sandbox
- Wikipedia:Introduction