Wiki Help
From ClimateNetworkWiki
A wiki is a very useful tool, allowing users to edit content and create a dynamic web page that suits their needs. Editing a wiki might seem daunting at first, but learning a few basic tools will let you quickly get started.
Contents |
Creating an Account
To create an account, click the "log in / create account" link at the top right of the page. Next click "create an account" and follow the instructions. Be sure to enter an email address, as email verification is required to edit.
Editing and Creating Pages
To edit an existing page, browse to that page, and, once logged in, click on the edit tab at the top. This will take you to the editing window, where you can enter text and do all the other things described below. To create a page that doesn't exist yet, enter the the desired title in the search bar on the left, click "Go," and when the wiki tells you there is no such page click "create this page" (note that this will not work if the page already exists). The other way to create a new page is to link to it from an existing page (see below)
Once you have entered some text onto a page, you will likely want to save it. Below the editing window (scroll down) there is a summary field, two check boxes, and three buttons. The "Save page" button will save anything entered in the editing window. It is good practice to include a summary every time you save a page (please do this so that others can easily see what you have changed or added). Also, the "Show preview" button lets you catch any mistakes before you save them to the internet for everyone to see.
How to Edit
Although it is easy to use, the wiki requires you to use a few special commands to let it know how you want things formatted, what words you want to appear as links, etc. These commands are written in "wiki markup."
Line Breaks
Type <br> at the end of the line or leave a blank line.
Simply typing enter in the editing window will not create a new line once the page is saved. To start a new line, type <br>. To start a new paragraph (with a blank space after the one above) leave a blank line in the editing window.
Headings
==Heading== ===Sub-heading=== ====Sub-sub-heading====
To turn text into a heading, surround it by two equals signs (==Text==) Surround sub-headings by three equals signs, sub-sub-headings by four, etc. One nice thing that mediawiki does for you is create a table of contents from the headings you make.
Links
Internal: [[page name|link text]] e.g. [[Welcome|the welcome page]] External: [url link text] e.g. [htp://wikipedia.org wikipedia]
Links are what turn a basic wiki page into a functioning web page. there are two types of links: internal (linking to another page in the wiki) and external (linking to a different website). See above for how to create them.
Useful (required) Tools
Now that you know how to basically edit the wiki, here are some tools that can make the wiki better and easier to use.
Headers and Reciprocity
Header is formed from any text before the table of contents.
A header serves to orient a user in the wiki, telling him or her what other pages the current page relates to and what the current page is about. Headers are formed from any text on a wiki page that comes before a heading (see above). The wiki puts the table of contents after the header.
Make sure that pages link to each other.
Reciprocity is a concept that says that if page A links to page B, then B should link to A. This can be modified with common sense (just because your user page links to the welcome page, the welcome page won't link to your user page). In general, try to link pages that are relevant to each other.
Categories
Include [[Category| category name ]], possibly multiple times, at the end of the page
Categories unite similar pages and let users know what area of the wiki they are in. A page can be in multiple categories. A list of existing categories exists on the "Special pages" page (link at the bottom of the toolbar on the left). If you don't find an appropriate category there, simply put an unused category name into your page's category tag.
References
<ref> Bibliographic reference </ref> after the statement you want to reference </references> at the end of the page (in a references section)
To make the wiki reliable, references are required. Use good judgment to decide what needs referencing and what does not.
Talk Page
Copy the skeleton from the talk page style guide (on the "Style Guides" page), paste it into your page's talk page, and fill in your page's title
Each content page has an associated talk page, accessible from the tab at the top of the page. Talk pages are the places to discuss the page's content - what should be included, what should not, opinions expressed, etc. There is a useful "add comment" feature that is easy to add to the talk page, and makes discussion threads easy to start. On the style guides page (near the top of the toolbar on the left), click on the talk page style guide, copy the text in the dashed box (this text is called a skeleton) near the bottom, and paste it into your talk page. Fill in the page name (the name of the content page) and save the page (remember a comment).
Important
Please make sure that all pages have:
- A header (with reciprocity)
- At least one category
- References, where appropriate
- A talk page, created as above
Other Resources
For more detailed information on how to use the wiki, see Common Energy's wiki guide. Also, there is a great deal of excellent information on the rest of the internet. Especially, see mediawiki.org.
