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Userfication is the process by which material that was posted in onenamespace is moved into theuser namespace (prefixUser:). Generally, material is moved from the article, Wikipedia/project, or template namespace to a subpage of the user that originally posted the material. Such materials (pages) are moved because they are not ready to be seen by the public (articles), used on other pages (templates), or (least common) put out as guidance to the community ("Wikipedia:" or "Help:" prefix pages). But the materialis worth keeping because it has potential to be useful at some point — they may just need more work, or more time.
This page contains guidelines for when and how to userfy material. For help on moving pages, seeWikipedia:Moving a page. For help getting a copy of adeleted article, to put into your userspace, seeCategory:Wikipedia administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles, or post atWikipedia:Requests for undeletion.
For articles, an alternative to userfication is thedraft space. Like userfication, draft space allows editors the opportunity to work on sub-par articles outside of the main article namespace. Draft space, however, may increase the chance of collaboration by placing draft articles in a central location. Another advantage is that incubated articles are automatically "noindexed", meaning they won't show up in search engines.
Userfication is usually performed because material is added in article space that is inappropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia, but not objectionable as content in auser page or asubpage thereof. This can be a satisfactory result fornew users unfamiliar with the boundaries of Wikipedia content, and for users who inadvertently create personal templates in the main template space.
In some cases, a new user will inadvertently create an article in article namespace that appears to be content meant to be in auser page. Generally, such material should be moved to a user subpage with a note placed on that user's talk page informing them of the move. If such an article is made, it is appropriate to move the article to the creator's user page, provided that (1) their user page doesn't already exist, and (2) the creator is the only editor who has edited the content of the page.
It may also be appropriate to move an article thatonly you have edited into your user space somewhere. If others have edited it, a page move is usually preferable to acut and paste move, in order to preserve the edit history.
Userspace material is frequently deleted viaWikipedia:Miscellany for deletion where the material is judged to be merely an archive of previously deleted content. Regarding biographies (including autobiographies), the policyWikipedia:Biographies of living persons may preclude userfication. The fact that an editor initially chose to userfy content rather than delete it does not in any way prohibit a later editor from nominating that content for deletion.
Userboxes posted in template namespace are controversial, since templates generally have wide range applicability and point of view, extra-wiki affiliation, and other userboxes have uses limited to only some Wikipedians. The outright userfying of userboxeswas rejected in April 2006. However, the non-policyuserbox migration solution suggests moving the userboxes in question to user space. If onlyone editor makes use of a userbox, consider moving that userbox to a sub userpage of that user, redirecting any "What links here" links, and listing the now redirected template page for speedy deletion under{{db-r3}}. Ifmore than one editor makes use of a userbox, consider moving that userbox to a user subpage ofUser:UBX, redirecting any "What links here" links, and listing the now redirected template page for speedy deletion under{{db-r3}}. In either situation, post a note on the userbox creator's talk page informing them of the move.
In general, the source page may be moved to a target user subpage, the "What links here" links for the source page manually may be redirected, any resulting redirect on the source page may be listed for speedy deletion under{{db-r2}}, and a note may be placed on the user's talk page informing them of the move details.
No purpose is served by userfying materials that duplicate content already in the contributor's user space. Such materials should be deleted with a note to the contributor.
Regardless of the target location, the following steps need to be carried out on the userfied page:
In order to properly userfy an article, an editor must have access to the "move" function. Thus only registered users will be able to take the necessary steps to userfy a page. Copy–paste moves are generally prohibited by policy (but see instructions below for unusual cases), because they fail to retain the edit history of the content, so userfication must be done via the move function. To do so, go to the page, click the "move" button, and enter the receiving party's username followed by a slash before the original pagename, like so:
The user for whom such a subpage is created should be notified of this event on their talk page, as the creation of a user subpage does not appear on a watchlist (unless the page that was moved was being watched).
In some cases an article describes a certain contributor, such as when they accidentally place a personal profile in article space. In these cases the following can be done:
If text is copied to user space, rather than moved via the page move tool, a list of all the contributors to the original text (obtained from the edit history of the original page) must be kept to meet the requirements ofCC BY-SA andGFDL. If the original content has been modified by other users, and is later moved or copied to another namespace, the list of contributors should be copied to the corresponding talk page. The userfying editor can also simply search the article history for the last version which had only been edited by the person whose space the article is to be moved to, and cut and paste only that text.
Administrators can undelete adeleted page and move it into a user'suserspace, without creating aredirect; this results in a page in userspace with all the history intact and ared link in main space. This can be requested fromrequests for undeletion, or alternatively fromany administrator or viaDeletion Review. There is also alist of administrators who say that they are willing to provide deleted content on an editor's request.
Pages that would clearly fail thecriteria for speedy deletion may or may not be userfied on request, depending on the administrator's judgment. In addition, content inappropriate for the mainspace should not be keptindefinitely in user space, per Wikipedia policy regarding thethird disallowed use of subpages. Pages in userspace (including those that have been userfied) may be nominated for deletion throughWikipedia:Miscellany for Deletion.
The administrator who userfies a deleted page may subsequently reverse their action and delete it again, at their own discretion. The administrator might do this if, for example, an intention to improve the page is not carried out.
