Help:Editing
From Wiscopedia
| Editing | Sourcing | Administering | Help:Images | Complex editing |
| Basic editing help. This is a resource for anyone but is especially aimed at new editors or editors unfamiliar with wiki formatting. | Help for sourcing. This includes basic guidelines on what kind of sources should be used and suggestions on how to cite sources. | These are instructions for administrators and editors interesting in making the nuts and bolts of Wiscopedia work. | Instructions on how to post images, what images should be used and help with image syntax. | Editing help for more advanced users. This includes template construction, categories and table construction. |
Most of what you see on more familiar sites such as Wikipedia can be found here. What won't be possible, just yet, is the automatic creation of infoboxes, templates and automatic messages. Those are the result of work that individuals do on the wikipedia project, not an element of the mediawiki software. However, the commands and markup will basically be the same.
Listed below are some basic instructions for adding links, internal links and other elements to pages.
Contents |
[edit] Basic Instructions
[edit] Links
[edit] Internal Links
Internal links are handled by two different characters, square brackets and "pipes".
If we want to link to the main page easily, we can do it like this:
[[Main_Page]]
That looks like this: Main_Page. As it stands, that is sort of ugly. It would be much better if we could link while using words other than the exact titles. Here is a better looking link. How did we do that?
[[Page Title|Link title]]
There we used the "pipe" character (|) to link the words on the right hand of the pipe to the target on the left hand side. This is for INTERNAL links only. Unfortunately, external links are handled differently. they are simpler, but different.
[edit] External Links
External links should be used only when we need to link away from wiscopedia. If you are linking to another page, then an internal link will help the site run faster, look better inline and make it clear (as a matter of style) that the reference is internal to the project.
If we want to link to wikipedia.org, we can do so a few different ways:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia]
This will display a link like this: Wikipedia
Similar to the internal link, the right hand text is the title and the left hand text is the link. However there is no pipe in between and the link is enclosed only by one set of square bracket.
We can also use a "quick and dirty" link like so:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page]
Unlike the labeled link above, this link will appear 'naked': [1].
These are only a limited number of the options we can use. A full (occasionally technical) run-down exists at the mediawiki help page for links. For readability purposes named links are preferred.
[edit] Markup
One of the frustrating things about starting out with mediawiki is the uphill climb toward turning a new page into something like this.
The first thought might be to take a look at the page "source" by clicking on the edit link at the top of the page. Sometimes this is very helpful (and will probably server you more effectively than any help page), but in certain cases this does not bear fruit. Lets look at the source page of Euler's conjecture:
'''Euler's conjecture''' is a [[conjecture]] in [[mathematics]] related to [[Fermat's last theorem]] which was proposed by [[Leonhard Euler]] in 1769. It states that for all [[integers]] ''n'' and ''k'' greater than 1, if the sum of ''n'' ''k''th powers of positive integers is itself a ''k''th power, then ''n'' is not smaller than ''k''.
In symbols, if
<math>
\sum_{i=1}^{n} a_i^k = b^k
</math>
where <math>n>1</math> and <math>a_1, a_2, \dots, a_n, b</math> are positive integers, then <math>n\geq k</math>.
The conjecture was disproven by [[Leon J. Lander|L. J. Lander]] and [[Thomas Parkin|T. R. Parkin]] in [[1966 in science|1966]] when they found the following counterexample for ''k'' = 5:
::27<sup>5</sup> + 84<sup>5</sup> + 110<sup>5</sup> + 133<sup>5</sup> = [[144 (number)|144]]<sup>5</sup>.
In 1986, [[Noam Elkies]] found a method to construct counterexamples for the ''k'' = 4 case. His smallest counterexample was the following:
::2682440<sup>4</sup> + 15365639<sup>4</sup> + 18796760<sup>4</sup> = 20615673<sup>4</sup>.
In 1988, [[Roger Frye]] subsequently found the smallest possible ''k'' = 4 counterexample by a direct computer search using techniques suggested by Elkies:
::95800<sup>4</sup> + 217519<sup>4</sup> + 414560<sup>4</sup> = 422481<sup>4</sup>.
In 1966, L. J. Lander, T. R. Parkin, and [[John Selfridge]] conjectured that for every <math>k>3</math>,
if <math>\sum_{i=1}^{n} a_i^k = \sum_{j=1}^{m} b_j^k</math>, where <math>a_i\ne b_j</math> are positive integers for all <math>1\leq i\leq n</math> and <math>1\leq j\leq m</math>, then <math>m + n \geq k.</math>
Oh my, that is a mess. Luckily for us, we aren't likely to be writing too many pages with LaTeX here at Wiscopedia. That said, most pages with complicated formatting will look as foreign.
[edit] Simple Markup
Bold: This one is easy: Enclose the bold text with three apostrophes on either side. '''Bold text goes here'''. Just like any markup language, remember to CLOSE YOUR TAGS! If you write '''Incorrectly closed tags'' then the text will be italicized (see below) with a leading apostrophe for your troubles. On top of that, the rest of the article will have its formatting changed.
Italics: Similar to bolding, italicizing a piece of text involves only enclosing it inside two apostrophes. ''Italics''. If you're feeling saucy and want to both bold and italicize something, just add two and three to get five. In other words, you are using two apostrophes to italicize something and three on top of that to bold it. The basic idea is that you can enclose something with more than one tag. This is a common theme in markup languages and will repeat itself.
[edit] Headings
This part is pretty easy. Headings are created one of two ways. they can either be created by the use of equal signs on either side of a phrase or by the use of tags denoting the heading level. Headings come in different levels, from 1 to 4. Lower level headings are subordinate to higher level headings. By this we mean that a level 3 heading will generate a subsection under a level 1 or 2 heading and a level 4 heading will generate a subsection under a level 3 or higher heading.
Examples:
====Heading 4==== OR <h4>Heading 2</h4>
Produces:
[edit] Heading 4
To see the 'nesting' of headings, note:
===Heading 3===
====Heading 4====
Produces:
[edit] Heading 3
[edit] Heading 4
Take a look at how the table of contents at the top of the page displays these two headings.
[edit] Tables
|
Shamelessly Borrowed Table | ||
| Description | You type | You get |
| Applies anywhere | ||
This one is a lot harder. You see the beautiful table reproduced above? That table was derived (read: borrowed) from the Cheatsheet page on wikipedia (Incidentally, all of those markup items on there will work fine on any mediawiki wiki, including this one).
In order to generate our own tables, we have to consult the help page first. Mediawiki help page
The help page there is particularly well written, so I don't have too much to add. My biggest suggestion is that copy/paste should be used liberally. As long as you understand the fundamentals of how tables work (braces and pipes galore), you can use other pre-made tables to present something on the wiscopedia page. This will shorten your workload and make sure you aren't bogged down in pixel width and column names.
Remember! If it is on Wikipedia or the Meta Mediawiki site, it is licensed under the GFDL. That means that you may copy any portion you like onto a GFDL compliant site as long as you attribute (attribution only needs to be in the edit summary). You aren't violating an express copyright by taking material from wikipedia, that is why it is there.
[edit] Creating a Page
This is EASY! If a link is red, clicking on it will result in the option to create that page. Likewise, if you simply type the page name into the browser location bar, you will be taken to a new page to create. Try it out!
[edit] Style
Wikipedia has a very large manual of style, suggesting spelling choice (honor vs. honour), tone and technical details (such as attribution of sources and formatting for quotes). By and large those guidelines are helpful for any writer looking to contribute to a reference document. Wiscopedia aims to be an editable reference of wisconsin progressive organizations. As such, it will face both members of the community and the public at large. Therefore it helps us to have contributors write accurately, dispassionately and grammatically.
I won't repeat the whole of the Maunal of Style here but rest assured it is a helpful and instructive document.
