Help:Tutorial

From JargonWiki

The information in the following tutorial is taken from the MediaWiki User's Guide. (MediaWiki is the software package that powers The Jargon Wiki.)

Creating A New Page

There are several ways to start a new page.

Using Wikilinks

MediaWiki makes it very easy to link wiki pages using a standard syntax (see Links). If you (or anyone else) creates a link to an article that doesn't exist yet, the link will be coloured red, like this.

Clicking a red link, will take you to the edit page for the new article. Simply type your text, click save and the new page will be created.

Once the page has been created, the link will change from red to blue (purple for pages you've visited) indicating that the article now exists.

Using the URL

You can use the wiki's URL for creating a new page. The URL to an article of the wiki is usually something like this:

• http://www.example.net/index.php/ARTICLE    or
• http://www.example.net/wiki/ARTICLE

If you replace ARTICLE with the name of the page you wish to create, you will be taken to a blank page which indicates that no article of that name exists yet. Clicking the "edit" page tab at the top of the page will take you to the edit page for that article, where you can create the new page by typing your text, and clicking submit.

From the search page

If you search for a page that doesn't exist (using the search box and 'go' button on the left of the page) then you will be provided with a link to create the new page. (Note that this technique doesn't work if you use the 'search' button).

Using the Inputbox extension

If the Inputbox extension is available on the wiki you can start a new page by typing in your article's name and clicking the "create article" button, as in the example below.

Create redirects to your new page

Don't forget to setup redirects when you create a page. If you think another person may search for the page you've created by using a different name or spelling, please create the proper redirect(s).

Editing a Page

Easy editing of pages is what wikis are made for. It only takes a few clicks.

Editing new pages

If the page you wish to edit does not exist yet, see Starting a new page

Editing existing pages

• Click the edit page tab
• Make changes to the text in the edit box. Make sure you write clearly and concisely, and make sure your edit does something to improve the page. If you're making normal changes to the text like fixing spelling mistakes or grammar, inserting new sentences, etc, then you don't have to worry too much about formatting. When you do need to use some type of formatting, you do it using wiki syntax, see Formatting Pages for some of the common types of formatting used.
• Optionally, enter a short note in the Summary box describing your changes.
• Optionally preview your changes with the Preview button.
• Click the Save page button.

• One can rename pages as well See WikiMedia's Help:Moving_a_page

Discussion

Every article has its own discussion page where you can ask questions, make suggestions, or discuss corrections. Click the discussion page tab to reach it. You can sign your message by writing 4 tildes (~~~~). The wiki software turns them into the current time and your username or your current IP address if you are not logged in.

External Links

MediaWiki Help Contents

Formatting Pages & Text

You can format your text using wiki markup. This consists of normal characters like asterisks, single quotes or equation marks which have a special function in the wiki, sometimes depending on their position. For example, to format a word in italic, you include it in two single quotes like ''this''

Text formatting markup

preformatted text is done with
a space at the 
beginning of the line

Notes: <references/>

Paragraphs

MediaWiki ignores normal line breaks. To start a new paragraph, leave an empty line. You can also start a new line with the HTML tags <br> or <br/>.

HTML

Some HTML tags are allowed in MediaWiki, for example <code>, <div>, <span> and <font>.

Other formatting

Beyond the text formatting markup shown above, here are some other formatting references from MediaWiki's help pages:

• Links
• Images
• Tables

More Formatting from Wikipedia

External Links

MediaWiki Help Contents

Links

There are four sorts of links in MediaWiki:

1. internal links to other pages in the wiki
2. external links to websites
3. inter-wiki links (links to other wikis)
4. inter-language links to other language versions of the same wiki

To add an internal link, enclose the name of the page you want to link to in double square brackets. When you save the page, you'll see the new link pointing to your page. If the page exists already, it is displayed in blue, empty pages are displayed in red. Selflinks to the current page are not transformed in URLs but displayed in bold.

The first letter of the target page is automatically capitalized and spaces are represented as underscores (typing an underscore in the link will have a similar effect as typing a space, but is not recommended, since the underscore will also be shown in the text).

How to link

External Links

MediaWiki Help Contents

User Pages

A user page is a page about a wiki user; someone who registered on the wiki, and is (most probably) a contributor. If you have registered, you can create your own user page. Your user page is linked in the top right. More importantly, others will see links to your user page from various places which assist wiki collaboration. This includes the 'Recent changes' and page 'history' displays (See MediaWiki's Hep:Tracking Changes). You can also link to your user page within text of a wiki page, which is mainly useful on MediaWiki's Help:Talk pages when you sign your name.

What to put on your user page

User pages are just as flexible as any other wiki page, and it's a page all about you, so generally people will leave you to freely write your user page in whatever format you like. Think of it as a 'profile' page. It's a feature to help other people know who you are, and to bring the online community closer together. You might like to mention where you are from and what your job is. You can also state what your main areas of interest are in relation to the topic of the wiki, and describe contributions you have made or are areas where you are interested in contributing.

User scratchpad / development area

You can use your user page as a scratchpad. An area for developing ideas without cluttering the main namespace. If subpages are enabled (See MediaWiki's Help:Subpages), you may find them useful for creating sub pages under you user page. However you should avoid expending too much effort within your own area of the wiki. Be bold! Edit the main wiki articles! You can also use a shared Sandbox page for quick (non-permanent) wiki experimentation.

Other people's user pages

As mentioned above, you will see links to other people's user pages, in various places throughout the wiki.

User Contributions

When viewing another person's user page, an additional link "user contributions" appears in the 'toolbox' area (bottom left). This takes you to a list of all of this user's wiki edits. Use this to get an idea of how prolific a contributor somebody is, or to track down edits made by a user who is causing trouble/making bad wiki edits.

Editing someone else's page

It's generally considered bad etiquette to rewrite or reword another person's user page. Editing is not disallowed, but you should avoid adding information (or especially opinions) which might be misinterpreted as coming from that user, in situations where this could potentially cause upset. Some types of edit are widely acceptable, and unlikely to cause upset:

• Fixing wiki links, when a page has been moved or deleted
• Fixing broken external links
• Categorizing or fixing categories of user pages.

User talk pages

Every user page has an associated talk page; a "user talk page". This is a special kind of talk page, for leaving messages directed at a particular user. See MediaWiki's Help:User_pages.

External Links

MediaWiki Help Contents

Talk Pages

Every wiki page has an associated talk page which can be used for discussion and communicating with other users. Talk pages can be accessed by clicking the Discussion tab at the top of the page. Simply edit the page as normal to add your comment.

A talk page is actually very similar to any other wiki page, but it is in the 'talk' namespace, to keep it separate from the articles in the 'main' namespace (See MediaWiki's Help:namespaces) As with any wiki page, you can edit it, link to it, and view the editing history.

Editing conventions on talk pages

Having discussions on a free-form wiki page will seem strange at first. It helps if everyone follows some simple editing conventions:

• Always sign your name after your comments. Use the four tildas '~~~~' wiki syntax (or the toolbar button)
• Start a new discussion with a ==level 2 heading== at the bottom of the page (or use the '+' tab)
• Indent replies with colons (':') at the beginning of the line.

Example

Here is an example discussion, following the talk page conventions:

Editing discussions

Having discussions on a free-form wiki page will seem strange at first. It has some advantages over the conventional rigid forum format, but it can get a little messy. As with other wiki pages, anyone can help with tidying up discussions, to conform to the editing conventions e.g. add signatures and headings where they are missing.

Clearly we also have the opportunity to edit other people's comments. It is generally bad etiquette to modify somebody else's wording (Better to just add your own comment with your corrections) But it can be acceptable to...

Modify discussion headings

Change wording or append words to the discussion headings, to better describe the topic of discussion. Note that good descriptive headings become important when many discussions start to fill the page.

Move discussions to a different page

If discussions are put in the wrong place on the wiki, and are better associated with different talk page, then you could just move the discussion by cut & paste. This is potentially confusing, for the people posting, but can be important for keeping things tidy. Y:ou could leave the discussion in the wrong place for a few days/weeks grace before tidying it. You could leave a link behind explaining that a discussion was moved, or if not, you should link within the edit summary.

Delete discussions when they are out-of-date

Discussions can often get left lying around on a talk page long after the issue is no longer relevant. It's usually a good idea to reply to saying "I think this is now resolved", but sooner or later it's time to just blow away the old discussions (they are of course preserved in the editing history)

Split a post into several discussions

It may appropriate to do this, if somebody has raised several points which need to be answered separately. However you should always be respectful to other people's words. Does their post still make sense if you split it up?

Building articles - Discussing articles

It is usually best to keep focussed on task of building a wiki article, and use discussion pages only to support this process. The topic of conversation should generally revolve around what needs to be done to make the associated article better. Remember that editing the article itself is often a more effective means of communicating. It can be more difficult, requiring you to balance your views alongside those of others, but it can also be more rewarding. This is how the community of wiki editors will make progress. Often it will feel more natural to engage in heated debate on a talk page (or indeed any other contact channel) but in fact the wiki article itself can offer a powerful means of reaching middle-ground. Think about how to portray both sides of the argument (e.g. listing advantages and disadvantages) and you may find the debate evaporates.

User Talk pages

A "user talk page" is a talk page associated with somebody's "user page." This is a place to leave messages for a particular wiki user.

This can function as a kind of messaging system. Users receive a prominent notification when new messages have been left on their talk page. They may be notified by email as well, although this cannot always be relied upon (since the email notification feature must be activated by supplying a valid email address, and clicking a confirmation link). If you don't get a response to your user talk page message, try looking for other contact details which they may have supplied on their user page.

Note that the messages are not private, and others can join in the conversation.

Public Domain This article is in the public domain and is not subject to copyright, trademark, or any other legal protection of intellectual property. Any and all user contributions to this page are also immediately dedicated to the public domain. Editors of this page must accede to these terms as special conditions of the standard editing privileges.