Help:Editing

Merging this with Help:Editing some time soon.

Editing

We won't be giving a detailed course on MediaWiki markup here : just a few basic "how to"s, "do"s and "don't"s.

For generalities on how to use a MediaWiki-powered wiki, you're encouraged to have a look HERE

(also available in Italian and Russian, as well as Greek and French and Slovenian).

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Recommended

Signature

A triple tilde ("~~~") anywhere in a page you edit will be replaced by your user name (or your IP if you're not logged in).

Like this

geyser

Note that this signature is not just a user's name, but a hyperlink to the user's page in the User namespace (every registered user gets one).

If you were to insert such a link by hand, you'd type

[[User:geyser|geyser]]

It doesn't make much sense to sign all your contributions, e.g., minor edits or stricly informative content

(every change is logged along with its author anyway, so if we really need to track you down, we will ^^ ).

You're encouraged to sign personal contributions, especially comments you make on a talk (or "discussion") page.

(obviously, for your signature to bear your name rather than your IP, you're invited to log in before you edit and sign)

(you can always sign by hand, even if you're not logged in, of course; like, I can type "geyser" instead of "~~~"))

A quadruple tilde ("~~~~") displays your user name (or IP) (with a link to the User page) and a date/time stamp.

Preview

Use the "Show preview" button as much as possible before submitting. Sure, even experienced and good-willing users (like me) make a few edits in a row sometimes (because they think a page is done and submit it, and then go through it again and spot a typo or something), but that's nothing compared to the dozens of edits made by someone who's totally oblivious of the preview feature.

Templates and transclusion

More, later. Transclusion may be a bit tricky to figure out at first, but it's well worth it.

Uploaded files

There is no such thing as folders (just "Categories"), so keep in mind all the images go into one big folder. Also, an image can't be renamed or moved in the same way a regular page can.

Therefore, please give your images the most explicit, unique, unambiguous name you can think of.

Like

GUIDO Hikari closeup.jpg

NOT like

August4_2006.jpg

^^

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Various tips

Line formatting

Numbered lists

1. This line actually begins with a "#" character
   1. This line actually begins with two "#" characters
      1. This line actually begins with three "#" characters
      2. This line actually begins with three "#" characters
   2. This line actually begins with two "#" characters
2. This line actually begins with a "#" character

Bulleted lists

• This line actually begins with a "*" character
  • This line actually begins with two "*" characters
    • This line actually begins with three "*" characters
  • This line actually begins with two "*" characters
• This line actually begins with a "*" character

Indented paragraphs

This line actually begins with a ":" character. The whole paragraph will wrap around indented; it all has to be on the same line, though.

To start a new paragraph indented the same way, just start another line with a ":"
You can also use the <br> tag to start a new line.

Put "::" at the start of the line to indent more.

Put ":::" at the start of the line to indent even more.

(actually, it's a lot like tabulation)

Definitions (titled paragraphs)

This line starts with a ";"

This one too, but

it switched to indented text when it encountered a ":" (have a look at the markup).

This allows one to typeset definitions, dialogue lines etc rather easily. You can also use it as a quick way to put a line in bold.

• the advantage of the leading ";" is that you don't have to bother about the extra new line before the bold-faced line
• the drawback is that the line can't contain a ":" unless you escape it (e.g. with the <nowiki> tag).

Like this : ":"

"Definitions" can occur within an already indented paragraph :

bla

bla

BLA

bla

bla

bla

Custom indentation only works flawlessly when you use nothing but ":"; the ";" is a bit limited.

Unformatted ASCII

This line actually starts with a " " character. It is rendered in a box, with a fixed-size font.

Do this for several lines to set apart a whole block of text (e.g., programming code).

The previous line is only empty in the rendered box; in the markup, there's a " " character.
    This one begins with 5 leading spaces in the markup; only 4 are there when rendered.
You can still put text in italics, bold, or bold italics.
However, leading "*", "#", ":" and ";" won't work :
*bla
#bla
;bla
:bla

Bottom line : be careful when you use leading spaces in your text : is that really what you want?

For regular indentation (like this line), prefer ":".

Smileys

Because of the line formatting, one should be careful with putting smileys on a new line. The following are examples of smileys that work fine :

^_^

^^

=)

%)

":)", ":-)" and ";)", however, won't work on a new line. Neither will " :)", " :-)" and " ;)" (same as the first three, with a leading space).

(well, actually the latter three will display the smiley you wanted, but set apart as unformatted ASCII (see above))

One solution is to avoid such smilies altogether. You can also use these (add three leading single quotes "") :

:)

:-)

;)

Or these (add a leading colon and space ": ")

:)

:-)

;)