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.

This page is not a sandbox.

It should not be used for test editing. To experiment, please use the Wikipedia sandbox, your user sandbox, or other sandboxes.

This is an information page.

It is neither an encyclopedia article nor one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting.

Shortcuts

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 {{My sandbox}} 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."
Once the page is created, add as the first line {{User sandbox|a=yes}} on its own. This puts the {{user sandbox}} template onto the subpage, telling any visitor this page is intended to be used for testing and experimenting. The |a=yes 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.
Unlike for your primary sandbox, Wikipedia does not automatically provide a link to additional sandboxes, so be sure either to bookmark it or add a link to it on your userpage (in this case [[User:Example/sandbox2]]); 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

Wikipedia:Sandbox

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 RedWarn.
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

{{Template sandbox}} and {{X1}} through {{X20}} exist for testing Template-space techniques.
{{TemplateStyles sandbox}}, for creating and testing pages with the sanitized-css 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 scribunto 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.