Ice Hockey Wiki:Userbox

A userbox is a small colored box designed to appear on Ice Hockey Wiki's members' user pages as a communicative notice about said user, which may, directly or not, help fellow members collaborate with them on a more efficient level.

Using a userbox
Several userboxes are already in circulation for those who wish to use them. Anyone is free to use them on their own user page, but should not place them on other people's pages without their consent. They are not to be used in articles either.

How to add one?
Simply, by adding its name into the  , preceeded by a "|". Exemple: to add a box saying you are a native French speaker, you would simply write as follows:  . To add more than one userbox, simply repeat the process:  , etc.

Creating a userbox
Should you not find a userbox fitting your tastes, you can always create new ones by copying the source code of a userbox (see Ice Hockey Wiki:Userbox list) and modify it. Some rules must be followed, however:


 * 1. Userboxes MUST be of good taste, and therefore must not display racism, nudity, personnal attacks, violence and so on. Any such distasteful userbox will be deleted and its creator may face sanctions. Userboxes should NOT be used as a mean of propaganda, advocacy or recruitment of any kind. Userboxes about commercial, political, religious, advertizing or self-promotion are NOT welcome. These topics are controversial and we do not want to have people segregating themselves here. Keep your userboxes clean and nice, or don't do any.


 * 2. Userboxes certainly may include a picture, but the picture must not be copyrighted (to avoid legal violations on the term of use of those pictures). Copyrighted pictures, to make things simple, are most of the pictures you can find online. There are however some pictures available under Gnu Free Distribution Licence (GFDL). These may be used. [http:www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia], for instance, has many such free pictures. Images that can be considered as "fair use" in articles (for instance, the Montreal Canadiens logo on the Montreal Canadiens page) do NOT count as fair use in userboxes, and as such are prohibited. So, if you wish to create a userbox for your favorite team, please don't add its logo in it. The userbox will be deleted without exception.

Categories
Userboxes may categorize the page they are added to into a category. Said category MUST be a sub-category of Category:IHW users. The same rules applying to the content of the userbox apply to the categories.

Exemple of userbox content
The following section is not to be considered all-inclusive. As such, other word combinations (both appropriate and inappropriate) are obviously possible. Typical userbox content:


 * This user
 * This user

Typical verbs:


 * verbs of action: contributes (to), drives, eats, edits, plays, uses, watches
 * verbs of comprehension: reads, speaks, understands
 * verbs of preference: enjoys, likes, loves

Additional examples, using the linking verb is:


 * This user is
 * This user is a fan of
 * This user is a member of
 * This user is interested in
 * Potentially divisive words

Avoid verbs (often followed by the word "that") which may be used to suggest negative comparison and would thus be potentially divisive, such as:

Avoid negative verb phrases which can be potentially divisive, such as:
 * believes, considers, finds, knows, prefers, thinks, wishes.

Also avoid compound sentences which are positive and negative, such as:
 * dislikes, despises, hates, loathes

This user likes, but does not like.

Essentially: Express what you do like, rather than what you don't like. Express who you are, rather than who you aren't. Express what you do, rather than what you don't.

How to construct the box
There are a number of box types to select from when deciding to make a userbox. The most commonly used design is the "Standard box". It has one square shaped area on the left ("id") and a rectangular area on the right ("info").

For ease of use, userboxes are made using maker-templates that have a number of parameters. Once the maker-template is saved, it is automatically transformed to HTML.

Template Parameters Meaning Value type
 * border-c The border color of the userbox. CSS color value (#hex or color name)
 * border-s The border size of the userbox. Width in pixels
 * id-c The background color of the id box. CSS color value
 * id-s The font size of the id box. Size in PostScript points
 * id-fc The font color of the id box text. CSS color value
 * id-p The distance between border and content of id box. CSS padding width value. px, pt
 * id-lh The distance between text lines of id box. CSS relative line height/length value. em
 * info-c The background color of info box. CSS color value
 * info-s The font size of info box. Size in PostScript points
 * info-fc The font color of info box. CSS color value
 * info-p The distance between border and content of info box. CSS padding width value. px, pt
 * info-lh The distance between text lines of info box. CSS relative line height/length value. em
 * id This is the content of the id box. Free-form
 * info This is the content of info box. Free-form

The id and info boxes can include text, links, and images using the usual Wikipedia syntax. Generally, the id box will contain a few letters or a 43px image, while the info box will contain a sentence with a link or two.

[edit] Userbox types Code Appearance Standard box or ID Content Reverse box or Content ID Double box or Note: If omitted, border colour and side-box 2 colour default to the same colour as side-box 1, and font colour is black. Default border thickness is 1. ID 1 Content ID 2 Mini box or ID

Userbox sampling templates
To make it easier to quote the generation code for a userbox in a uniform format, a template has been made available, which produces a picture of the userbox along with the code necessary to create it. To use it, just give it exactly the same parameters you would give the template. You must use subst:, or the template will not work properly. An example is shown below:

Produces:

UBX This is a Userbox.

There are not yet any similar templates available for userboxes created by the templates Userbox-r, Userbox-2 and Userbox-m.

Userbox gallery
See Ice Hockey Wiki:Userbox list.