Help:New to the Wiki?

New to the Simpsons Wiki?

Whether you're brand-new to our wiki or have been visiting for a while, it may take you a little bit to find your way around here. This page will give you some tips to get you started. When you're ready to learn more, check out the Community Portal.

Your edits
When you make an edit, other people will be able to look at it. Sometimes what you write will be changed or undone, and sometimes that happens pretty quickly. When this happens, don't get discouraged. This is all part of the way wikis work. The other person simply may be more familiar with the show than you are. Just watch more episodes to learn more about the show and you'll catch up.

If you feel you need to add your edit back in, make sure you fill out the Summary line to explain why you are re-adding it. This will help everyone see why the information should be kept and will show up in the History of each page and the Recent changes.

But be careful not to get stubborn. If you think, "I'm going to add this no matter what anyone else says", then you need to take another look at what you want to add. Is the information correct for what was seen in the episode, or is it something you made up? If it's something that you made up, then please read the What doesn't go here section below.

What goes where
We have six types of pages:


 * Main namespace pages — for episodes, characters, songs, etc.
 * User pages that begin with "User:" — share with us a little bit about yourself
 * Talk pages — for both users and the namespace pages. User pages start with "User talk:" and the namespace pages start with "Talk:".
 * Forums, which begins with "Forum:" — a way of discussing things and getting feedback
 * Blogs, which begin with "User blog:" — an informal way of saying what's on your mind and seeing what other people think
 * Sandboxes — pages that can be worked on for fun or in preparation for adding them to the main Wiki

The first thing to remember is that when you click on New page, blog or picture inside the "Community" menu at the top of the screen, you will see choices as to what kind of page to create. All of these create a Main namespace page. They are for subjects like the episodes, songs and characters. If you want to say hello, that's not the best place for those kinds of messages. Find someone's Talk page or a blog and put your greeting there.

Next, Talk pages are available for all Main namespace pages and for Users. You can get to them by clicking on the "Discussion" tab in the upper-right corner of each page. User Talk pages are for asking users questions. Main namespace Talk pages are for discussing how to make the page better, not for adding comments like "I want a Bango-Ru". Comments such as that will go in blogs or forums.

Forums are split into three sections: "Downtown Danville" (for discussions of community business), "The Backyard" (for general series content questions/discussions) and "Help Desk" (for new users to get answers to their editing questions).

Blogs can be for anything you want to discuss, but preferably relating to the show. Some blogs will also have news about the show or information for the members of this wiki.

User pages are discussed immediately below.

Sandboxes are temporary pages that you can play around in. The main sandbox is a great place for you to learn how to edit the wiki. We can alway restore the template when you're done so that someone else can use it.
 * You can also create your own sandboxes by going to your User page and creating them there. Simply go up to the address bar in your web browser and add  /sandbox  onto the end of the address. You will then be able to create the sandbox and work on it as much as you like. Personal sandboxes should be used if you are working on a new page for the wiki that isn't finished yet, and you can create as many as you need by changing  /sandbox  to whatever name you want (with the forward slash in front of it). Once you get it finished, you can click on Move to rename the page into its final name.

What doesn't go here
There are a few things that should not be added to this wiki. They include:


 * Fan fiction — Stories that you write about The Simpsons should go on the Simpsons Fanon wiki so that we can concentrate on what is actually in the episodes. For more details, refer to the Fan fiction page.
 * Story or character ideas for Matt Groening — These are also fan fiction, but more importantly, they should not be added here because this wiki is not an official site for submitting story material to Fox. In addition, many TV series do not accept outside story ideas due to potential legal issues over ownership of the story ideas.
 * Social networking info — Personal information should be confined to your User page and to blogs that you create. A few items not related to The Simpsons may be added, but users must keep in mind that this wiki is not Myspace or Facebook. We need to avoid having a lot of pictures and videos uploaded that do not relate to the show.

Signing up
As it says on the main page, anyone can edit the wiki. You don't have to sign up for an account, but there are some advantages if you do:


 * Your edits show up under a name that you choose, rather than the IP address of your computer.
 * You can customize your User page to let people know what your interests are. See Help:Customizing your page for ways you can spruce up your User page.
 * If you want to sign up for our newsletter, you can get a copy delivered automatically to your User Talk page.
 * You may not see as many ads when you sign into your account.

More information is available on the Why create an account page. If you're ready to sign up, you can click on "Create an account" in the upper-right corner of the page, but you must be at least 13 years old to do so.

Editing pages
The Community Portal has a lot of tips on editing in the Help section and other tips can be found on the Help:Editing page. Some of the important tips for newcomers to remember are:


 * If you're not sure that your edit will be allowed, check the FAQ to see if we've already discussed it before.
 * Don't put extra spaces and blank lines in if you don't have to. Every space and blank line on a page has an effect on how the page looks. Refer to the Editing tips page, Spacing section to see an example of what happens when you put too many blank lines on a page.
 * When editing a page, you may see &nbsp; show up in several places, especially in between words such as Homer&nbsp;Simpson . They are non-breaking spaces and we've identified that it's coming from a bug in the Rich Text Editor. You can help by doing two things: use the standard editor whenever possible, and change the &nbsp; to a regular space. (There's a few that are in there deliberately, so don't change all of them. Just the ones that are in between words like the Homer Simpson example.)
 * Avoid fan cruft on Main namespace pages, which are personal or biased statements.
 * Before you click on Save page to save your edit, please fill in the Summary line immediately to the left of that button. This helps us see the reason why you made a change.
 * Also, use the Preview button to make sure everything looks right before you save your work with Save page. You may see that there is more you want to add.
 * When editing a Talk page or a Forum, please sign your name. Click on the tildes (the squiggly lines) right after Sign your username with today's date and Insert username only. If you forget to do this, we may go back in later and add the "Unsigned" tag to show who made a particular edit.
 * Remember that Talk pages is for discussing how to make a page better, not for personal comments.
 * When adding a comment to a blog, add only one comment instead of several small comments. Also, please keep it on-topic. Off-topic messages and repeated messages may be deleted if they are determined to be spam.
 * Refer to the Manual of Style for details about how edits should look and should be written.

Other languages
This wiki is based on the English language. There are other Simpsons wikis in other languages. You can find some of them by clicking on the "Wikia" icon in the upper-left corner of the page and searching for them, or by clicking on "More" in the "Entertainment", "Gaming" or "Lifestyle" menus at the top of the screen. The search is not perfect.

Right now, most Simpsons wikis in other languages are independent of this wiki. We will be working some of these other wikis to create "sister wikis" that will translate our English wiki into other languages and provide links to them.

Until this happens, we have a limited amount of information about the show in French, Spanish and other languages. We ask that users wait to upload videos or make pages in those languages wait until this is finished.

Play nice
Though The Simpsons is a cartoon, it is a satire and will be seen by people of all ages. The visitors and members of this wiki are of all ages. Please keep that in mind when you make edits.

In general, play nice. Our rules on behavior are covered in the Simplified ruleset, and here are some guidelines to go by.


 * No name-calling or insulting other people.
 * Use edit summaries when editing, to show the community why you made the change.
 * No swearing. Profanity will get you blocked from here for two weeks, and the block will get longer if you keep doing it. Even if you think it's a minor profanity, don't do it. It isn't needed here.
 * Don't spam. Spam includes off-topic messages, advertisements and any messages that you post several times in a row.
 * No fan fiction. If you want to write your own stories about The Simpsons, click on "Fanon, Sister Wikis, IRC, Message Board" in the "Community" menu at the top of the screen. The Fanon site has been specifically been set up for fan fiction so that this wiki can concentrate on what actually happens in the episode.
 * Undo happens to everyone, so don't get upset when it happens to you. If you make an edit and someone clicks on Undo to change it back, they will usually tell you why they did that in the Summary. If you really think the edit belongs there, add it back and be sure to say why in the Summary line.
 * Occasionally, we may have to leave a message on your Talk page saying why something you did wasn't allowed. If it was an honest mistake, then no harm was done. But if we have to tell you several times, then that usually means you are doing it deliberately. After about the third time, an administrator may place a block on your account. This means you will not be able to make any edits except for on your Talk page. Blocks can be anywhere from two hours to a few days for minor problems, or weeks, months, a year or permanent if the problem is severe enough. If you are able to provide a reasonable explanation for what you did, the block may be shortened or removed before it would expire.

300px Many of the things Phineas from Phineas and Ferb sings about in the Dodgers' Code of Conduct apply to more than just baseball.


 * Keep the stadium clean: work to make this wiki better and help clean up edits that other people make.
 * Your language not obscene: as stated above, profanity and other bad messages will get you blocked from editing this wiki. The main list of what we block for is listed here.
 * Respect the people all around you, even fans of other teams: having a different opinion is okay. Don't get into arguments or start insulting people if you disagree with them.

As he says at the end of the song, "Just file away these simple rules, And we're all guaranteed to have a splendid time".

That will get you started. If you have any questions, ask one of the other members of the wiki or post a question in the Help desk forum. If you have an idea for another topic to be added to this page, let us know on the Talk/Discussion page.