Help:Basics
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First thing first: always sign your edits if it's more than a minor edit.
Want more advanced editing help? See Help:Editing.
Contents |
The Basics
Red vs Blue
Links on the wiki are color coded. Blue links takes you to existing pages, while red links means that page isn't created yet (like your user page after you have registered but before you have edited it). Clicking a red link takes you to the edit form of that page and saving that form creates the page. All links to that page are now blue.
Capitalization
Keep in mind, however, that just because a link to that specific page doesn't exist doesn't mean that there is no page with that topic. The wiki is case sensitive and so Forge world is different from Forge World. The first letter doesn't matter, though, so shotgun and Shotgun are the same.
This is why the 'Show Preview' option is so very important: you may think you have it right, but any small error will force you to re-edit the page immediately. Many times we have to open a new window and search for exactly what it is we've been trying to link to.
Editing Existing Pages
To edit a page, click the "Edit this page" link at the top of any page. It's also the best way to figure out how to format the text and do other wiki thingies: look at the code of a page that's done it before.
Note: When Editing a page; the Preview button is there for a reason. Please try to avoid making multiple small edits to a page.
Creating New Pages
- Figure out from what page it should be reachable (ha ha, that's a pun kids)
- Edit that page and put the new page name on it enclosed in double square brackets, like so: [[New Page]].
- Save the page
The page will now have the page referenced. Until the page is created the link will point to the edit pane of the page rather than to the contents itself. Edit the page at the end of link and you'll be set
Linking to Pages
You should already know how to link to pages after reading about creating new ones: when you create a new page you're basically linking to a page that doesn't yet exist. Just in case you skimmed over that part, you enclose the name of the page in double brackets [[Like So]]. If you wanted to link to the Second Foundation page, for instance, you would type [[Second Foundation]].
You may notice that the actual URLs of pages put underscores instead of spaces; Second_Foundation instead of Second Foundation. This makes no difference when you link, and it's far easier to do it without the spaces.
To link to an outside source, use a single bracket. [http://halo.bungie.org] would become [1]. To add text to the link, put a space and the title: [http://halo.bungie.org HBO] becomes HBO.
If you want to link to a page on another wiki, you may be able to use Inter-Wiki Linking.
Signing edits
- Q: When do I sign my edits?
- A: Generally you sign when you've added something to a discussion. This wiki contains different kinds of articles. Some articles are about specific things, like the DMR or Sword Base or Triple Kill or some such. They most often start off with a facts section and some generally agreed on statements. Things in these sections are not signed. Other parts of the articles contains tips and hints from Halo players. These tips and hints should always be signed. Then we have full articles that are signed as a whole. It might be about strategy or whatever. Sometimes these articles contain a "comments" section (either on the same page or on a separate discussion page). All contributions to those comments should be signed.
Don't sign spelling corrections and other smaller edits (see Minor Edits vs Regular Edits).
How To Sign
The conventions used to sign edits on this wiki are the following.
- Sign with one of the two following markup:
- --~~~~ that's two dashes followed by four tilde signs. The four tildes converts to a link to your user page followed by a time stamp.
- --~~~ that's two dashes followed by three tilde signs. The same as the above, but without the time stamp.
- You can put a space between the second dash and the first tilde if you like.
- If your contribution doesn't extend one paragraph, sign at the end of the same line as your text.
- If your contribution does extend one paragraph, sign two lines below your text.
Like so:
One paragraph of text. -- ~~~ Two paragraphs of text. See? More. -- ~~~
Which will render like so (when I'm the editor):
One paragraph of text. -- Sigafoos
Two paragraphs of text.
See? More.
-- Sigafoos 15:28, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Where should I start?
Why not try your userpage? It's the link in the top right corner that's your name in red or blue (if it's blue, you seem to have started already!). You can mess around pretty much as much as you want without drawing anyone's ire. Our only wish is that you use "show preview" until you're happy with the design, so we don't have to wade through 50 edits of you getting your "About" section just right.
Minor Edits vs Regular Edits
Many wiki regulars are what we call "Recent changes junkies." We monitor Special:Recentchanges like hawks, and check it as soon as we get to the wiki. If an edit is marked as being minor, there will be m next to the timestamp.
A regular edit is one that adds content to the page. This includes a comment. A minor edit is one that fixes grammar, spelling or layout; common examples are linking to the wrong page (like Forge world instead of Forge World, as discussed above), typign too fast or forgetting to put word in.
You should mark minor edits as being such because there is an option in your Preferences to hide minor edits on the Recent Changes page. This skips over the tiny fixes and allows people to see only substantial contributions to the wiki.
A minor edit does not mean "any contribution which adds tons of new content." A comment saying "That's a nice video" should not be marked minor. Again: unless it is a grammatical or layout fix consisting of only one or two small changes, it is not a minor edit. Unless it is minor, you should also always sign your work. Said another way, if you sign then it is not minor.
Got it? Great! Now go out and edit some, or read Help:Editing if you'd like more information.
Contributors
The bulk of this text was taken from the halowiki.net Help pages back in 2005. It was written by PEZ and other sysops, then revised by Sigafoos
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