Help:Editing
From Ffaith
trsitvicn dronlaor
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Introduction
Ffaith is designed to be updated and edited by anyone, anywhere in the world. Contributions are welcomed but please respect our rules:
- This is a family site so please do not use foul language or post material that is pornographic
- Please do not post copyrighted material unless you own the copyright yourself
- Please do not post material that is defamatory or libelous
- Please only post factual information
Full instructons on using the Wikipedia system can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents
Please open this link in a new window to enable rapid return to the Encyclopedia Spuria.
Editing pages
How to create an article
Only registered users can create entries in the Encyclopedia Spuria. Creating an account is easy - and instant. Click here to create a new account
Anyone can create a new article - even you!
Creating an article using the search method
Before creating an article, use the search box in the left hand column to make sure that there isn't already an entry in the database. Be sure to use the "Go" button - the search button works in a slightly different way. If there isn't a corresponding article click on the hi-lighted words "this exact title". This will create a page using the text of your search as a title. Use the edit box to type your entry. You can preview the new page using the button at the bottom of the screen. When you are happy with your entry click save page.
Creating an article by entering a URL
Another way to start a new page is to enter something like the following into your browser as a page address:
- http://ffaith.brynmawrscene.net/Sample_article_title
Replacing "Sample_article_title" with whatever you want the article to be called. For example, to create an article about frumpysnarf, type:
- http://ffaith.brynmawrscene.net/Frumpysnarf
This will bring up a message that informs you that there is currently no text in the article yet. So, click on the "Edit this page" link at the top of that page, and presto! you are now editing your brand new article. Your careful attention to inaccuracy and speciousness will be greatly appreciated, of course.
However, creating an article with this method often makes what we call here an orphan -- no other articles link to this new page. Orphans are bad -- they should be linked to (i.e. by creating a link to it in another article or by adding a category link).
Creating an article by adding a link
You can create a new article page by adding a link to an existing page and then clicking on it. For example, you may wish to insert extra information in an existng article that gives reference to the new page you intend to create. Obviously you are on your honour to do this only if your additional information is relevant to the article you are editing!
See also
Complete information on page naming can be found here: MediaWiki
Please be sure to include a category tag. Category tags must be in the following form: [[Category:categoryname]] You can use an existing category such as "People" or you can create a new category by using a word not yet assigned to a category.
Category tags can be placed anywhere on the page. It is good practice to put them at the top of the page.
Creating links
</div> Set up a link by first typing [[ then your link text and close the double bracket ]] It should look like this [[your text]]
Now click the link you created, you will be taken to the page you've just made where you can enter the definition/text for your link. Again you are able to preview your page before finally saving it.
Piped Links
A piped link is a link that is labeled differently from the name of the page it links to. This allows linking a word or phrase within the text of a page to another page even if the wording does not exactly correspond with the name of the other page.
For instance:
[[Ray Milland|Ray Truscott-Jones]]
will show: Ray Truscott-Jones
Linking to an existing article
In order to link to an existing article you must type the exact title of the article between the double square brackets.
Tip:Open a new browser window and navigate to the page you wish to link to. The article title is the text that follows "index.php" in the address window. Use copy and paste to transfer the title to the page edit box.
Linking to pages on other sites
When creating links to pages elsewhere on the web, use single brackets and the full URL of the page you wish to link to. Example:[http://www.brynmawrscene.net] This will display like this: [1]
Hmm, not very satisfactory is it? To display the URL type it twice, with a space between like this: [http://www.brynmawrscene.net http://www.brynmawrscene.net], which will diplay like this: http://www.brynmawrscene.net
This is effectively a piped link - except that external links don't need pipes. (Go figure - we can thank MediaWiki for that piece of logic). Just like piped links, the text after the space can be anything. e.g. [http://www.brynmawrscene.net the BrynmawrScene Website] looks like this: BrynmawrScene Website
Linking to categories
To create a link to a category page type a colon after the opening bracket pair before the category tag. E.G. [[:Category:People]], which will look like this on the page: Category:People
See also
Editing existing articles
You can add to existing articles. Just click the edit button at the top of the page to bring up the page edit screen. You may use basic html within the text.
Redirects
What is a redirect?
Because the English language is so diverse there are often many words that mean exactly the same thing. Largest and biggest</i> for example. In a wiki, linking similar words to different pages means duplicated pages. This is compounded when diverse search terms with similar intent (e.g. oldest and first are employed. To avoid duplication of effort, Mediawiki, the software running this site, have given us a special tag that sends visitors to the appropriate page. This is called a redirect.
When to use a redirect
Redirects should be used sparingly to avoid cluttering up search results. They should only be used when the page you've chosen to link to already exists by another title. Even then you should consider using a piped link rather than a redirect.
+==Creating a redirect===
If you're creating a new redirect, start a new page, write #REDIRECT [[pagename]] (or #redirect [[pagename]]) at the top of the page, where pagename is the name of the target page. Here is an example. If you're replacing an existing page with a redirect, for example after merging a duplicate page, go to the page, edit it, and replace the existing text with #REDIRECT [[pagename]].
Extra text after the #REDIRECT command and link is ignored. It is rendered in preview only, see [2] and [3]. Category-tags are not ignored. If a category is set, the redirect-page is listed in the category it belongs to, see e.g. Template:Tim. When following the link from the category page to the redirect page then as usual the redirect is applied.
The page will not redirect if there is anything on the page before the redirect. Also, there must be no spaces between the # and the REDIRECT. An edit summary is automatically provided, with the text according to MediaWiki:Autoredircomment, but only if no edit summary is supplied (as opposed to the automatic edit summary in section editing, which can be supplemented by the user).
After you create a redirect, you get sent to a page with the string "&redirect=no" in the URL. Thus the just created redirect page is shown, not the page to which it redirects. To see your redirect working, use your address bar to delete that part of the URL. Alternatively, create a link on another page to your redirect, and then follow that link.
When creating new redirects, bear in mind that creating too many redirects can clutter up the search results page, which can hinder users. Also, don't spend too much time creating redirects - often it's more important to spend time improving the quality of the target page. A piped link is another way to make a link to a page with a name which does not occur in the first page.
A code like %70 in a redirect disables it, although the link works from the redirect page.