Wikipedia:Wikibreak

"WP:BREAK" redirects here. For a how-to guide on the usage of line breaks, see Wikipedia:Line break handling.

A wikibreak, wikiholiday, wikivacation or leave of wiki-absence is a period when even a wikipediholic must be parted from Wikipedia—though, presumably only temporarily.

The pain involved varies from Wikipedian to Wikipedian. Some find it easy to endure, whereas others find the separation agonizing. Often the latter find themselves grasping at any opportunity to go online "just to check what's happening".

The degree of coercion also varies. Some remarkable individuals are actually capable of taking a voluntary wikiholiday: they are to be admired for their strength of character. Some people have to enforce their departure for their own good. Others still are forced into it through circumstances beyond their control: it is often at such times that wikiholics discover their condition.

Wikibreaks, and reducing activity while on Wikipedia, can reflect a serious issue if a person is going through serious difficulties.

When to depart

• You are travelling or going on holiday.
• You are a student and you have exams or other pressing schoolwork.
• You marry or divorce.
• You feel exhausted by your regional weather.
• You are neglecting your work and job.
• Your editing is making you not focus on your parenting responsibilities.
• You get addicted to a new video game that you have to obsess over for the next few days.
• You find yourself repeatedly assuming bad faith.
• You are stressed to the point that it affects your editing.
• You have a new girlfriend or boyfriend.
• Your girlfriend or boyfriend wants you to spend more time with them.
• You break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend.
• You have to look for a job.
• You have a job and do not want to lose it.
• You are self-employed and need to pay more attention to your clients or customers.
• You have been making false edits, not verifiable or under copyright protections, including the GFDL and Fair Use licenses.
• You find yourself making minor edits, in order to use the recent-changes page as a discussion forum.
• You have to move to a new home.
• You have neglected to pay your Internet bill and have been banned from accessing the internet.
• You are injured or sick.
• You're deceased.
• Your Wikistress is making it hard to work.
• You need time to relax and think, so that when you do return to Wikipedia, you'll hopefully be refreshed.
• Your time on Wikipedia is having a drastic effect on your life outside of Wikipedia.
• There is an emergency in your area.
• It takes you several hours to make and perfect a single edit, because you're worried your edit will be corrected by someone else.
• You find yourself checking your watchlist compulsively throughout the day to defend your edits against vandals, other editors and various ne'er-do-wells.
• You're giving up editing Wikipedia for Lent, Hajj or a similar religious observance.
• You have been grounded by your parents, business partner or significant other from using the computer.
• You have a baby.
• You've been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia, per ruling of administrators, Jimbo Wales or the Arbitration Committee. See block log.
• You are addicted, and find yourself continually checking and re-checking your favourite articles' History pages for the slightest changes.
• You become disillusioned with the project.
• You find yourself suffering from Adminitis.
• You aren't receiving any satisfaction from editing Wikipedia at this time, but you do wish to return.
• You play a sport.
• You've been arrested and are in jail.
• You've realised that there's a real life beyond obsessive compulsive Wikipedia editing, and restricting others in a form of sadomasochism that you seek to gain pleasure from bossing others and indirectly limiting the knowledge from being shared.
• Your X key is broken and you can no longer obsessively hammer alt-X for hours on end.
• Your computer gets too exhausted of you and quits its job.
• You've been detained by the FBI for being on Wikipedia too often for too long.
• You've been reverting vandalism but ClueBot NG reverts it faster than you and you felt very sad.

When to come back

• You came back from travelling/ vacation.
• Your relatives (thankfully) left your house.
• You have either been unblocked or your block has expired.
• Your spouse asks you to buy a new car. Just buy it and come straight back.
• Your exams are over.
• You decide that your divorce has left you more time to be a Wikipedian.
• You find out your new girlfriend or boyfriend is a Wikipedian, too.
• Especially when you find that now you've been spending a lot of time editing, discussing, fighting over and making up with said friend.
• You have finished moving.
• You decide to give up smoking so that you can pay your Internet bill.
• You've recovered from your sickness.
• You have been reincarnated.
• You realize you really hadn't died in the first place.
• You've been resurrected and come back from the dead. (Don't forget to tell us how!)
• You've let go of all your Wikistress.
• You've done all the relaxing you can do and besides, all that talk about relaxation and thinking clearer is baloney anyway.
• Since your computer is broken, you find yourself at the library every day, editing Wikipedia under Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows ME, or (gasp...) Windows XP.
  • Or you get a new one.
• You are cured from being a wikiaddict. (It may never happen. Most likely, you will never recover.)
• You've decided to take a break from your Wikibreak.
• After you've been arrested and suddenly find yourself with nothing else to do while serving time in jail.
• You feel like it.
• You are bored.
• You have nothing better to do out there in the real world. (Better than writing your thoughts all around the city walls and sign boards)
• ClueBot NG goes on a Wikibreak in Hawaii. (Which should never happen)

Generic templates

The wikibreak template

When taking a wikibreak, it is a good idea to inform your wikifriends that you are not active and indicate when you might be back. You can use the wikibreak template for this purpose. Let's say Example wants to go on wikibreak until Christmas. He or she would then place this text on the top of their user or talk pages:

{{wikibreak|[[User:Example|Example]]| on December 25.}}

He or she would get this:

For a longer break, he or she could also use {{Long wikibreak}}, writing

{{Long wikibreak|[[User:Example|Example]]| next summer}}

which renders thus:

The other wikibreak template

When taking a wikibreak, it is a good idea to inform your wikifriends that you are not active and indicate when you might be back. However, not all Wikipedians have the self-discipline to keep away for various reasons, so this template was created for those who feel like taking a wikibreak, but at the same time will return to make small edits every once in a while. Let's say Example wants to go on wikibreak until Christmas. He would then place this text on the top of his user or talk pages:

{{Attempting wikibreak|[[User:Example|Example]]| on December 25|I}}

They would get this:

The WikibreakSwitch template

To keep a template that you can switch on or off, or even convert into many of the others shown below, use {{WikibreakSwitch|<status>}} where <status> may be OFF, ON, LONG, etc.

The tmbox template

If your message isn't covered by any of the templates on this page, you can use the generic {{tmbox}} template to create a similar-looking box containing your text and one or two images.

Specific case templates

Busy

The Busy Template

An alternative for those weaning themselves more slowly from Wikipedia is the 'Busy' template, which is designed for those who are being overtaken by "real" life (if you have one) work. Wikipediholics can use this template to assuage the guilt associated with long breaks from the Wiki. If Example were using this template, he would place the following text at the top of his user page:

{{busy|[[User:Example|Example]]}}

or

{{busy|~~~}}

and they will get this:

A topicon is also available Template:Busy topicon. Use {{Busy topicon}} to use it.

The Off and On WikiBreak Template

There are times when one is having trouble being able to consistently make contributions for some reason. If you are inconsistently able to make edits, add

{{Off and On WikiBreak}} 

to your userpage, which will bring this about:

The Deadline template

Sometimes you are on a deadline and you do everything you can to avoid spending large amounts of time editing. That said, dropping certain things you've been participating in may take weeks so you may need to make edits here and there before completely ending your Wiki-leave of absence.

{{User:Mkdw/Wikibreak}}

  Wikibreak is currently on a deadline and is going to try and not be distracted by Wikipedia. Historically this has only ever been marginally successful.

Name auto adjusts as well as width. Code is easy to copy and colour adjustable.

The Moving template

When you move to a new location there is no help for it; you have to stop editing until your computer is found or edit from strange public computers.

{{User:W.carter/moving}}

  Wikibreak is currently moving and is itching to get back to editing once the computer is located and unpacked at the new location.

Name auto adjusts as well as width. Code is based on the Deadline template.

Education

The School template

When school beckons, use

{{Attempting school wikibreak}} 

to get:

or

{{Atschool}} 

to get:

NOTE: This template uses parameters and has a syntax. Click Here for a quick look.

The Busy on Weekdays because of School Template School can make weekday activity impossible, or, at the very least, quite difficult. To let people know that your activity on weekdays may be somewhat restricted, add

{{Busy weekdays}} 

to your userpage, which will bring this about:

The Education template

A template for those students smart enough to make studying a priority. Type

{{Education wikibreak}} 

and you'll see:

Also, you can use

{{Education wikibreak|returndate=''date''}} 

to specify the date that your school finishes. To specify that your institution is a college or university, use

{{Education wikibreak|returndate=''date''|institution=''whatever your institution is''}} 

(either the type of institution or the actual name), which looks like this:

The Exams template Another template for those who have exams coming up soon, to add it just add the following text at the top of your user page:

{{exams}}

and you will get this:

Alternatively, you can use

{{exams|date}} 

to specify the date that your exams finish. That will yield:

The Semi-wikibreak Exams Template

{{Semi-Exams}}

Health

• The sick/ill template

For those of us who are sick or ill and would thus be partially inactive, Wikipedians can use this template to indicate this.

{{user health inactive}}

and the user will see this:

• The mental health template

For those of us who are struggling with mental illness or psychological problems and would thus be partially inactive, Wikipedians can use this template to indicate this.

{{User warning-mentalhealth}}

and the user will see this:

Note: DO NOT put this on another person's userpage without their consent, as this is potentially libelous (not to mention cruel).

Vacation

{{holiday}} 

produces

{{vacation}} 

produces

{{vacation3}} 

produces

{{vacation3|[[User:Example|Example]]|start=7 June 2009|end=23 June 2009}}

Produces:

Technical related

The Computer death template

{{Computer death}} 

produces

The No Internet Access template

{{No Internet}} 

produces

The No-power template

{{No-power}} 

produces

Grieving

If you are suffering a loss and you are grieving, you may use this: The User grieving template

{{User grieving}}

produces

Other

The Discouraged user template

For those users who have been disheartened by the wikiprocess through failure, edit wars, bullying, and other acts of not assuming good faith towards the user. They may also be suffering from a sense of wikifailure. Wikipedians displaying this template may periodically check their watchlist, but will not engage in editing. Wikipedians will typically return to their regular contributing activity once their faith in the wikicommunity has been restored or their existential wikistress has been resolved.

{{Discouraged}}

* In this case, the user is named "example".

Bonked/Fatigued templates

{{bonked}} 

produces this:

The |superbonked=yes parameter can be used with {{bonked}} when you have been wikibonked so much that you will have to leave Wikipedia for sometime.

{{bonked|superbonked=yes}}

produces this:

Personal issues

{{Personal issues}} produces:

Due to personal issues, Wikibreak will be away from Wikipedia for an undefined period of time.

Stress

{{User stress}} produces:

Semi-wikibreak

A semi-wikibreak is a Wikibreak taken by Wikipedians who are not fully on a wikibreak but are not fully editing. There are many possible reasons for a semi-wikibreak, such as:

• busy at work or school
• going on vacation
• new puppy isn't housebroken yet
• toilet got backed up
• slow internet connection
• boyfriend or girlfriend needs more attention
• Super Bowl
• AL/NL Pennant Race
• Stanley Cup Finals
• Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
• March Madness
• NBA Playoffs
• FIFA World Cup
• New xkcd strip
• sharing computer with others
• ran out of coffee
• partying
• computer is broken
• tired of Wikipedia

Use

{{Semi-wikibreak}}

Retirement

Retirement template

We hope this never happens, but sometimes good things must come to an end. If you are retiring from Wikipedia you can use the Retirement template:

{{retirement}}

and it will produce:

RETIRED

This user is no longer active on Wikipedia.

If you say:

{{retirement|EXAMPLE}}

it will say

EXAMPLE

This user is no longer active on Wikipedia.

Alternately, if you say:

{{User EX-WP}}

This box will be produced:

This editor has decided to leave Wikipedia.

See also

• Meta:Wikibreak
• Wikibreak enforcer
• Wikipedia:Sleeper accounts
• Category:Wikibreak templates
• Wikipedia:Rage quit