Wikipedia:About the sandbox

Image of the sandbox in the Wikipedia namespace showing the page title and sandbox header

Sandboxes, such as a user's sandbox or the more frequently edited Wikipedia:Sandbox, are pages designed for testing and experimenting with wiki syntax and the VisualEditor.

They were created as a place with fewer rules and policies than other pages on Wikipedia. For example, you don't have to follow the Manual of Style or reach community consensus before making a major change. However, they must not be used for malicious purposes, and policies such as no personal attacks, civility, and copyrights (such as non-free content criteria) still apply.

If you have an account, you can create your own sandbox in your userspace. You can find your user sandbox here. If you don't have an account, you can create your sandbox here. (And if it doesn't exist yet, feel free to create it!) For easy access, there is a link labeled "sandbox" at the top right of every page on a user icon menu or between the Talk and Preferences links. You can also put {{My sandbox}} on your userpage.

Creating more sandboxes in your User namespace

To create another sandbox, first make a subpage to your user page in your User namespace:

1. Decide on a name for the subpage, for example: sandbox2
2. Enter in the search box (using your actual username): User:Yourname/sandbox2
3. Enter the following in the Search box, using your actual username (note that there are no spaces): User:Yourusername/sandbox2
4. Then click on the reply, "Start the User:Yourname/sandbox2 page."
5. Once the page is created, adding the {{user sandbox}} template onto the subpage designates that page as another sandbox. Unlike your primary sandbox, Wikipedia does not automatically keep a way to link to these, so be sure either to bookmark it or add a link to it on your userpage; you can also use the Special:PrefixIndex special page to display all the subpages of your user page, including sandboxes.

List of sandboxes

• Wikipedia:Sandbox
• Draft:Sandbox, for testing with VisualEditor. It can be activated with VisualEditor by following this link.
• Wikipedia talk:Sandbox, and the talk pages of all other sandboxes, for testing talk page techniques.
• User:Sandbox, for testing in the user space.
• {{Template sandbox}} and {{X1}} through {{X52}} exist for testing Template-space techniques.
• Sub-pages of Module:Sandbox, for creating and testing pages with the scribunto content model, which can only be created in the module namespace.
• {{TemplateStyles sandbox}}, for creating and testing pages with the sanitized-css content model, which can only be created in the template namespace.
• Category:X1 to Category:X9, for testing category techniques.
• User talk:Sandbox for user warnings, for testing semi-automatic user warning tools, such as Twinkle, Huggle, and RedWarn.
• File:Image page sandbox.png, File:Image page sandbox2.png to File:Image page sandbox8.png and File:Image page sandbox.jpeg for testing editing on file description pages.
• Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Sandbox, for testing AutoWikiBrowser
• Sandboxes in other languages can be found in a list on the lower left of the English Wikipedia Sandbox. Although using sandboxes in other languages may be useful on certain occasions, it is important to keep in mind that, unless interwiki links are used, each Sandbox can only access the links, images, and templates on the Wikipedia in which it is located.
• Your user sandbox, a personal place to test your editing skills in your own userspace.
• User talk:192.0.2.16: A place to test those gadgets on an IPv4 address.
• User talk:2001:DB8:10:0:0:0:0:1: A place to test those gadgets on an IPv6 address.

See also

• Help:My sandbox