Personal tools

Personal tools are a set of links provided in the most popular MediaWiki skins, including Vector, MonoBook, Cologne Blue, Modern, and others.

Default set

The most default set of links provided is to give users access to their...

• User page (Special:MyPage)
• User talk (Special:MyTalk)
• Preferences (Special:Preferences)
• Watchlist (Special:Watchlist)
• Contributions (Special:Contributions)
• User authentication (Special:UserLogin/Special:UserLogout)

Other extensions or gadgets which add to personal tools

• Admin Links adds, for users designated as admins, a link to the "Admin Links" page
• Echo adds notifications
• LiquidThreads adds new messages
• ULS adds a language selector
• SandboxLink, used by some large Wikipedias (such as the English Wikipedia), adds a "My sandbox" link to Special:MyPage/sandbox.
• Wikimedia Commons adds "My uploads"
• Many extensions using the PersonalUrls hook add links to the personal tools
• Others?

Copy

Other than the header for personal tools, nearly all skins retain the possessive form, e.g. "My talk", "My watchlist".

Use of possessives

Previous versions of this menu used a possessive form, prefixing items with "My...". This was removed as a result of bug 41672 in change 31605.

Related research:

• http://www.designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php?title=Your_vs._My
• http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/4348/your-vs-my-in-user-interfaces
• http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/core/yourvmy.html

• 

  The current version, which wraps the link to Special:MyTalk in parentheses.

• 

  The original proposed change