Template:U/doc

Note: This template is used on a lot of pages. In order not to put too much load on the servers, edits should be kept to a bare minimum. Please discuss proposed changes on the talk page first.

• Editing a template causes all pages that use the template to be re-rendered. If the template is used often, this can put a lot of load on the servers since it fills up the job queue.
• Keep in mind that templates that are used on file description pages also show up on other wikis.

This subpage contains documentation, categories, or other content that is not part of the template.
To view the template page itself, see Template:U.

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Link to a user, either internal or interwiki

• For users without a user page you may link to their talk page with {{Ut}}.
• For links to users of the German Wikipedia choose the effective {{Ud}}.

Usage

{{U |1= }}

Many users have only a User Talk page but no User page on Commons. This results in a red link when the user is mentioned using a standard {{user|UserName}} template.
An easy edit to fix this link is just to change the {{U| to {{Ut| to link the user talk page with the user name.

Another reason for a redlink may result of changing the user name by the postfix "~commonswiki".
An easy edit to fix this link is just to change it to {{Uw| to link to the new user page with the user name.

Sometimes neither user page nor the user talk page exist on Commons.

• The Template:Uc checks whether the user page exists, and links to it if yes.

Otherwise it checks whether the user talk page exists, and links to it if yes.

Otherwise it links to the special page "user contributions" that lists the editor's contributions on Commons.

If the other pages are created later, it automatically prefers the talk page over the user page.

Since existence checks are not possible in other Wikipedias, these checks are performed only when no language code is specified.

Template parameters

Parameter	Description		Default	Status
1	user name: it is recommended to define the user name. If absent, the name is shown of the last editing user		empty	optional
2	nick name: display text, may be formatted wikitext or html		empty	optional
3	language code: for interwiki link. If absent, link to user entry in the Commons		empty	optional
4	+ or - to precede the user name with the namespace User: + ("plus" sign) to make User: a part of the link, - ("minus" sign) to precede User: as plain text; (if both signs are specified, "+" is used and "-" is ignored) The +/- parameter can as well be specified with parameter 2 or 3.		empty	optional
link	specify link=no to suppress the link		empty	optional
0	more parameters to format the namespace (when "+" or "-" is specified) » not every possible combination of parameter values is useful «		0	optional
case	for formatting of the namespace: case=l display "user" instead of "User" case=i display the national translation, in general a link case=n display the national translation without linking it		empty	optional
lang	an ISO 639 language code, to follow another translation then yours when parameter setting is case=i or case=n		en	optional

Additional information

The template is intended to be used in the following namespaces: all namespaces

The template is intended to be used by the following user groups: all users

Localization

This template is not intended to be localized.

The template does not generate any localizable text; with + or - always the namespace in English: "User" is displayed;
only in combination with case=i or case=n the namespace can be translated (according to lang).

Table: different displays for {{U}} with the namespace option 0
{{ U | username }} 0this is the standard	username
{{ U | username | - }}	User:username
{{ U | username | - | case = l }}	user:username
{{ U | username | - | case = i }}	user:username
{{ U | username | - | case = n }}	user:username
{{ U | username | + }}	User:username
{{ U | username | + | case = l }}	user:username
{{ U | username | + | case = i }}	user:username
{{ U | username | + | case = n }}	user:username
{{ U | username | link = n }}	‍username
{{ U | username | - | link = n }}	User:‍username
{{ U | username | - | link = n | case = l }}	user:‍username
{{ U | username | - | link = n | case = i }}	user:‍username
{{ U | username | - | link = n | case = n }}	user:‍username
{{ U | username | + | link = n }}	User:‍username
{{ U | username | + | link = n | case = l }}	user:‍username
{{ U | username | + | link = n | case = i }}	user:‍username
{{ U | username | + | link = n | case = n }}	user:‍username

{{Commons:Link templates/User and user talk links}}