Wikipedia / Wikipedia:About the sandbox
Wikipedia / Wikipedia:About the sandbox
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.
Sandboxes are really just ordinary pages - there's nothing special about them. It's when a page is called a "sandbox" it sends the signal "this page is for testing and experimenting, nothing in here should be assumed to remain permanently."
If you have a registered account, you can create your own sandbox in your userspace. You can find your user 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 either a user icon menu or between the "Talk" and "Preferences" links. You can also put the template on your userpage for a convenient link.
Temporary accounts aren't given sandboxes and since you aren't allowed to create pages using a temporary account, you cannot create a sandbox for a temporary account. Do feel free to test and experiment in the Wikipedia:Sandbox common to all users.
Creating more sandboxes in your User namespace
To create another sandbox, first make a subpage to your user page in your User namespace, then designate it as a sandbox and, optionally, keep a handy link to it.
Here is the procedure for User:Example:
Decide on a name for the subpage, for example: sandbox2
Enter the following in the Search box, replacing "Example" with your own username: User:Example/sandbox2
Then click on the reply, "Start the User:Example/sandbox2 page."
on its own. This puts the template onto the subpage, telling any visitor this page is intended to be used for testing and experimenting. The parameter changes the message from "This is the user sandbox of Example" to "This is a user sandbox of Example" - after all, in our example, you're creating another sandbox on top of the one you already have.
); you can also use the Special:PrefixIndex special page to display all the subpages of your user page, including any sandboxes you've created this way.
List of sandboxes
Wikipedia namespace
Draft namespace
Draft:Sandbox, for testing with VisualEditor. It can be activated with VisualEditor by following this link.
Talk namespace
Wikipedia talk:Sandbox, and the talk pages of all other sandboxes, for testing talk page techniques.
User namespace
User:Sandbox, for testing in the user space.
Your user sandbox, a personal place to test your editing skills in your own userspace.
User talk namespace
User talk:Sandbox for user warnings, for testing semi-automatic user warning tools, such as Twinkle, Huggle, and Ultraviolet.
User talk:192.0.2.16: A place to test gadgets on an IPv4 address.
User talk:2001:DB8:10:0:0:0:0:1: A place to test gadgets on an IPv6 address.
Template namespace
and through exist for testing Template-space techniques.
, for creating and testing pages with the content model, which can only be created in the template namespace.
Module namespace
Sub-pages of Module:Sandbox, for creating and testing pages with the content model, which can only be created in the module namespace.
Category namespace
:Category:X1 to :Category:X9, for testing category techniques.
File namespace
: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.
Portal namespace
Portal:Sandbox and its subpages, such as Portal:Sandbox/1
Other
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.
Bots
Some sandboxes are set up to be automatically cleaned by Cyberbot I, while some automatically have the sandbox header template re-added by Hazard-Bot.
See also
Wikipedia:Sandbox/Archive – contains earlier history of the main Wikipedia sandbox (along with relevant links)
Wikipedia:Template sandbox and test cases – usage of sandboxes in testing of template changes
Testwiki, a test version of Wikipedia on which significant code in JavaScript and CSS can be tested