ReCom Wiki:Tutorial
From ReCom Wiki
Contents |
Editing
With the exception of protected pages, every page has a link that says "edit this page", which lets you edit the page you are looking at. It is the wiki's most basic feature, and allows you to make corrections and add facts to articles. If you add information to a page, please provide references, because unreferenced facts can be removed.
Go to the sandbox and click the "edit this page" link. This will open an editing window containing the text for that page. Add something fun and interesting or "Hello world!", then click Save page and see what you have done! Be careful to make sure that you are editing the sandbox page, and not the text of this tutorial. Show preview
One important feature to start using now is the Show preview button. Try making an edit in the sandbox, then clicking the Show preview button instead of Save Page. This allows you to see what the page will look like after your edit, before you actually save. We all make mistakes; this feature lets you catch them. Using Show Preview before saving also lets you try format changes and other edits without cluttering up the page history. Do not forget to save your edits after previewing, though! Edit summary Edit summary text box
Before you hit Save, it is considered good etiquette (or "Wikiquette") to enter a polite explanation of your changes in the Edit summary box between the edit window and the Save and Preview buttons. It can be quite short; for example if you just enter "typo", people will know you made a spelling correction. Also, if the change you have made to the page is minor, such as correcting a spelling or grammar error, be sure to check the box "This is a minor edit" (this is only available if you have logged in).
Formatting
is a bit different from writing on a standard word processor. Instead of a strict ("what you see is what you get") approach, ReCom Wiki uses text codes to create particular elements of the page (e.g. headings). This "language" is known as Wikitext (or Wiki-markup) and is designed for ease of editing.
Bold and italics
The most commonly used wiki tags are bold and italics. Bolding and italicizing are done by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):
| You type | You get |
| ''italic'' | italic |
|
'''bold''' |
bold |
|
'''''bold italic''''' |
bold italic |
On Wikipedia, the names of an article's subject are written in bold when they are first mentioned in the article. For example, the article Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom begins:
- Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor; born 21 April 1926) is Queen of sixteen sovereign states, holding each crown and title equally.
Italics may be used for the names of books, movies, albums, and computer/video game titles. If the first mention of the subject of an article is also a book or movie title then bold italics is used.
For more information about when to use bold and italics, see ReCom:Manual of style.
Headings and subheadings
Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up the article by inserting a heading for each section.
Headings can be created like this:
| You type | You get |
|
=== Heading === |
Heading |
|
=== Subheading === |
Subheading |
If an article has at least four headings, a table of contents will automatically be generated. Try creating a heading in this page's /sandbox/. It will be added automatically to the table of contents for the page, assuming three others already exist.
HTML
HTML code can be used in pages to produce more advanced formatting such as colors, tables, and edit page layout. However, you do not need to know HTML to use Wikipedia and follow formatting conventions.
Wiki Links
Wiki articles together is very important. These easily created links allow users to access information related to the article they are reading and greatly add to a wiki's utility.
When (not) to link
Adding links to an article makes it more useful, but too many links can be distracting. This is why you should only link the first occurrence of a word.
Looking at other Wikipedia articles can also help you learn when to add links.
How to link
To make a link to another ReCom Wiki page (called a wiki link), put it in double square brackets, like this:
- [[Sandbox]] = Sandbox
If you want to link to an article, but display some other text for the link, you can do so by adding the pipe "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards) followed by the alternative name. For example:
- [[Target page|display text]] = display text
You can make a link to a specific section of a page like so:
- [[Target page#Target section|display text]] = display text
If you want the display text of the link to appear in italics or bold, nest the double square brackets for the link within the multiple apostrophes that delimit the italicized or bold text, like this:
- ''[[War and Peace]]'' = War and Peace
Please check your links to ensure they point to the correct article. For example, Apple points to the article about the fruit, while Apple, Inc. is the title of the article about the computer manufacturer. There are also "disambiguation" pages - these are not articles, but pages which contain links to articles with similar titles. Some, such as Apple (disambiguation) are obvious, while others such as Georgia use generic titles. These differing titles make piped links especially useful, as a link to Georgia (country) is far less readable than a piped link called Georgia.
Categories
You can also put the article in a category with others in a related topic. Just type [[Category:]], and put the name of the category between the colon and the brackets.
It is very important to put in the correct categories so that other people can easily find your work. The best way to find which categories to put in is to look at pages on similar subjects, and check which categories they use. For example if you write an article about a type of tree, you may look at an article on another type of tree to see which categories could be appropriate.
External Links
As explained in About ReCom Wiki, "if you add information to an article, be sure to include your references, as unreferenced facts are subject to removal." It is best to use inline citations so that other editors and readers can verify the information you add. Also, make sure that the sources you use are trustworthy and authoritative.
Footnotes
The easiest way to create an inline citation is using footnotes. You can create footnotes with Wiki markup (under the edit box on your Wiki GUI) by adding
- <ref>YOUR SOURCE</ref> ref tags around your source, and
- {{Reflist}} or <references/> under the heading ==References== near the bottom of the page.
If your source is a website, you should create an external link to the website address. Do not use other Wikipedia articles as sources.
To create an external link to your source, put the website address (URL) in square brackets after the text you add, such as
- <ref>[http://www.google.com Google search engine]</ref>
It is a good idea, though not required, to provide a short description just after the external site address. This description will be displayed in the reference list as the title of the external site, rather than the actual URL of the site.
To cite a webpage without giving a description, you can just give the URL and enclose it in ref tags, for example
- <ref>http://www.google.com</ref>
The external links section
Many wiki articles have a separate section labelled External links. This section is for linking to websites with significant and reliable additional information on an article's topic. Before adding a website to an External links section, you should suggest it on the article's Discussion (talk) page.
If you simply type in the full URL for the page to which you wish to link:
The wiki will automatically treat this text as a link (as has been done with the URL above) and will display the raw web address, including the "http://" part. It is recommended that you do not use this format much, as raw URLs are ugly and often give no clue to what the site actually is.
By including a space after a URL and inside a single set of brackets you can decide what text will be visible, for example:
- [http://www.google.com Google search engine]
will make only the text following the space visible, yet will still keep the link seen here:
Talk Pages
Argue sensibly. Do not spam the talk pages.
Keep in Mind
Do not post rubbish articles on this Wiki, and do not spam or you may get blocked indefinitely.
Registration
Kindly register an account to create new articles.
Wrap Up
Be courteous to other editors, and enjoy our wiki.
