MandrakeWiki:Tutorial

You're a part of the wiki!

When you first see a wiki, it doesn't seem like it could possibly work. If anybody can come along and change things, then how can the information be trusted? Doesn't it just get vandalized, or fall into chaos?

Once you start participating, you see that that "weakness" is actually a wiki's greatest strength. Sure, anybody can add anything – and then everybody else gets to proofread it, and fix mistakes. Information that looks suspicious can be verified. Vandalism is almost always fixed within minutes. It's possible for someone to post errors, or nonsense – but over time, the best wins out.

If you're reading these words, then you're a PhantomWiki editor. If you see a problem on one of the pages, don't roll your eyes and complain about it. Just fix it!

Create a user name

Log in and create a user name – it helps you (and everybody) keep track of your contributions, and it makes it possible to communicate with other contributors.

You're also invited to post your name on your user page – either your full name, or just a first name and an initial. It's not required, but it helps everyone get to know you and trust you.

Edit a page

To edit a page, simply click on the "edit" tab at the top of the page. For more detailed instructions, click here.

Talk pages

Sign talk posts with four tildes ~~~~ which automatically adds your user name and a date stamp. When you reply on a talk page, put a colon (:) at the front of your post to indent it.

See Help:Talk pages for more details.

Fancy signatures

Here's how to make a fancy signature for your talk posts:

Click on the "preferences" tab at the top right of your screen.

On the Preferences page, put this in the Nickname box, with your User name and real first name plugged in:

— [[User:Username|Firstname]] ([[User talk:Username|<font size="1">talk</font>]])

Then check the "Raw signatures" box underneath, and hit the "Save" button at the bottom of the page.

Then, when you sign your talk posts, you just have to type the four tildes, and the new signature will appear. You can tweak that code in a bunch of different ways; feel free to play around with it!

Show your sources

When you're posting factual information, other readers should be able to verify the information that you post. If you find information in a book or on a website, tell us the title or the URL. If it's clumsy to put that information in the article, then add a "References" heading at the bottom of the page.

In the event questionable information appears in a particular article, place the {{cite}} tag after the appropriate text in such a way that the notation's inclusion is clear as to what needs to be cited. This will automatically place the article in the Articles in need of citation category.

How to upload pictures

Click on "Upload file" on the left navigation bar to upload pictures. You can add your image to any page using this code:

[[Image:yourpicture.jpg|thumb|300px|Caption for your picture.]]

Images should not exceed 300 pixels wide for article tidyness and copyright adherence.

If you upload an image in error, or do not intend to use it, tag the article with {{delete}} so that an administrator can remove the file from the wiki. Images are subject for deletion if they are not used.

How to add category tags

You can put an article into a category by adding this code: [[Category:YourCategory]] . You can change the way the article is alphabetized within the category like this: [[Category:Writers|Falk, Lee]].

Before you create a category, check the Category list to see if there's a similar category that already exists. If the category doesn't exist yet, then adding that code will create the category. You'll need to add some text to the new category page to make it work properly.

External links

You can add links to other websites by putting one bracket around the site's address. Put a space after the address, and then add a description of the link, like this: [http://www.schapter.org Scandinavian Chapter]. That'll look like this: Scandinavian Chapter.

History tab

Nothing is ever lost on a wiki! You can see all of the changes that have been made to a page – and who made them – by clicking on the "History" tab at the top of any page.

Setting your preferences

There's a lot of useful stuff on your Preferences page.

You can change your display so that links show up without the underlining. You can also change your time zone, and the number of items you see on the Recent Changes page or the Category list.

Keyboard shortcuts

There's some helpful shortcuts to navigate around within a page. The following list is for PC users; Macintosh users should type Control-T instead of Alt-T.

Alt-T : Talk
Alt-E : Edit
Alt-H : History
Alt-R : Recent Changes

Dealing with vandalism

Vandalism isn't much of a problem on a wiki, because everybody has the power to fix it when they see it. See the Vandalism help page for instructions on how to fix vandalized pages, and how to discourage the vandals.

Check the Help pages for more information on contributing to MandrakeWiki!