Help:Editing


 * This is a short tutorial on editing wikis at WikiHowTo. For more detail, please see the Wikipedia tutorial, on which this was based.


 * ''If you'd like to try out the editing information which is explained here, please use the sandbox to play.

Registration and logging in
You can read and edit pages without creating an account or logging in. To create an account (which is free), just click the "create an account or log in" link at the top right corner of any page. You only need a single login for all WikiHowTo.

Creating an account is the only way to clearly attribute your work. Without a username, edits you make on any Wikicity will be attributed to the numerical IP address of your computer instead. Logging in therefore also increases your privacy, because your IP address will be hidden once you are logged in.

There are many other benefits, such as user preferences, the ability to move pages, and a watchlist to keep an eye on selected pages. See "Why create an account?" on Wikipedia for some more arguments.

See Help:Create an account.

Policies
Do not submit copyrighted material without permission. The best content is usually written from either personal knowledge or through the synthesis of research from multiple sources. For a more detailed discussion of copyrights, see WikiHowTo copyrights.

WikiHowTo encourages an atmosphere of friendliness and openness. Members of the community are expected to behave in a generally civil manner. You should always assume good faith on the part of other editors.

See WikiHowTo policies and the terms of use for more information.

Editing
Like all wikis, you can edit any non-protected page. Your changes will be visible immediately. Just click the "edit" link that appears at the top of every page.

Explain your edit in the "Summary" box between the edit window and the save and preview buttons. eg: "typo" or "added info on xyz".

Use the show preview button to check your edit and get the formatting right before saving. Remember to save your preview before moving on.

If you are logged in, you can mark an edit as minor by checking the This is a minor edit box to let people know your edit is not something substantive.

To try editing, open a new window and go to the WikiHowTo:Sandbox (which is an editing test area), and then click the "edit" link. Add something and click save.

Formatting
Most text formatting is usually done with wiki markup, so you don't have to learn HTML.

Bold and italics
Bold and italics are added by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):


 *  italics  is rendered as italics. (2 apostrophes on either side)
 *  bold  is rendered as bold. (3 apostrophes on either side)
 *  bolded italics  is rendered as bolded italics. (2 + 3 = 5 apostrophes on either side)

Headings and subheadings
Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up your article by inserting a heading for each section.

Headings can be created like this:
 *  ==Top level heading==  (2 equals signs)
 *  ===Subheading===  (3 equals signs)
 *  ====Another level down====  (4 equals signs)
 *  =====Another level down=====  (5 equals signs)

If an article has at least three headings, a table of contents (TOC) will be automatically generated. Try creating some headings in the sandbox and see the effect on the TOC.

Indenting
To indent text, place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example: This is aligned all the way to the left.</tt>
 *  : This is indented slightly.</tt>
 *  :: This is indented more.</tt>

is shown as: This is aligned all the way to the left.
 * This is indented slightly.
 * This is indented more.

Bullet points
To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*</tt>). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

A brief example:
 *  * First list item</tt>
 *  * Second list item</tt>
 *  ** Sub-list item under second</tt>
 *  * Isn't this fun?</tt>

Which is shown as:
 * First list item
 * Second list item
 * Sub-list item under second
 * Isn't this fun?

Numbered lists
You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or hash symbol (#</tt>). Using more #</tt>s will affect the level of indenting.

Example:
 *  # First item</tt>
 *  # Second item</tt>
 *  ## Sub-item under second item</tt>
 *  # Third item</tt>

Shows up as:
 * First item
 * Second item
 * Sub-item under second item
 * Third item

Links
Links are important on wikis to help readers navigate your site.

Internal links
You can extensively cross-reference wiki pages using internal links. You can add links to existing titles, and also to titles you think ought to exist in future.

To make a link to another page on the same wiki, just put the title in double square brackets.

For example, if you want to make a link to, say, the Wikia page, it would be:
 *  Wikia </tt>

If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can add an alternative name by adding after the pipe "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards).

For example, if you wanted to make a link to WikiHowTo, but wanted it to say "home page" you would write it as such:
 * View the home page ...</tt>

It would appear as:
 * View the home page...

When you want to use the plural of an article title (or add any other suffix) for your link, you can add the extra letters directly outside the double square brackets.

For example, you would write:


 * <tt>Add questions to the Wikicity for quizzes .</tt>

It would appear as:


 * Add questions to the Wikicity for quizzes.

Interlanguage links
Some WikiHowTo are available in multiple languages. To add a link in the sidebar from an article on the English Wikimac to the German version of the same article, type:
 * <tt> iPod </tt>

"De" is the language code for German. The link will appear in the sidebar as "Deutsch" and link to The German WikiMac iPod article. This only works on wikis with multiple languages on different sites.

See Help:Interlanguage links

Interwiki links
To link to another Wikicity, you can use its title followed by a colon and the article name, instead of using the full URL.

For example, the creatures wiki home page is at Creatures:Main Page, which can be typed as
 * Creatures:Main Page
 * rather than as http://creatures.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page

This style of link works for any wiki in the interwiki map, not just for WikiHowTo. See Help:Interwiki link.

Redirects
To redirect automatically from one page to another, type #REDIRECT and then put in brackets the name of the page to be redirected to.

For example, you could redirect from "Cats" to "Cat". That way, anyone typing either version in the search box will automatically go to "Cat".

Wiki variables and templates
Use to see the current Wikicity. For instance,   on this site prints out as .

That and a few other templates are common to MediaWiki sites.

Check the current list of all templates specific to wikicities.

You can create templates. After you create the page Template:XXX, using the command  will include that content in your current page. So, if you have something that needs to be included on many other pages, you might want to use a template.

Most templates available on this Central Wikicity can be used on individual wikicities with just "wikicities:" prefixed to the name. See Help:Shared templates.

Discussion pages
Discussion or "talk" pages are for communicating with other Wikicitizens.

To discuss any page, go to that page and then click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Add a new comment at the end, or below the comment you are replying to.

Sign your comments by typing <tt> ~ </tt> to insert your username and a timestamp.

Use indenting to format your discussion. Standard practice is to indent your reply one level deeper than the comment you are replying to.

Experiment by editing the talk page of the sandbox.

User talk pages
Everyone has a user talk page, on which other people can leave public messages. If someone has left you a message, you will see a note saying "You have new messages", with a link to your user talk page.

You can reply on the user talk page of the person you're replying to or on your own talk page beneath the original message. If you reply on their talk page, they will receive notification of it.

Tips on editing Wikipedia articles
Always use a neutral point of view, as Wikipedia is not a place to promote points of view.

Cite your sources so others can check and extend your work. Most Wikipedia articles currently lack good references, and this contributes to Wikipedia's single greatest criticism – that it is not a reliable source. Please help by researching online and print resources to find references for the article you are working on, then cite them in proper form, and consider inline citation for contentious facts. There is no consensus on the best way to do that, but anything is better than nothing. You can either use inline citation in academic form such as (Example, 2004, pp 22-23) or as a superscript1 to a footnote that you place at the end of an article.

After making a new page, it's a good idea to:
 * With your page displayed, use What links here to check the articles that already link to it, and make sure that they are all expecting the same meaning that you have supplied;
 * Use the Search button to search Wikipedia for your topic title (and possible variants), to find articles that mention it, and make links from them if appropriate

Minor edits
See also Minor edit

When editing a page, a logged-in user can mark that edit as being "minor". Minor edits generally mean spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. It is possible to hide minor edits when viewing Recent Changes. Marking a significant change as a minor edit is considered bad behavior, and even more so if it involves the deletion of some text. If one has accidentally marked an edit as minor, the person should edit the source once more, mark it major (or, rather, ensure that the check-box for "This is a minor edit" is not checked), and, in the summary, state that the previous change was a major one.

Wiki markup
The wiki markup is the syntax system you can use to format a Wikipedia page.

In the left column of the table below, you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects were achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column.

You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox. Try opening the Sandbox in a separate window or tab and keeping this page open for reference.

Sections, paragraphs, lists and lines
{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" ! What it looks like ! What you type Start your sections as follows:
 * - valign="top"

<font style="font-size:120%">New section 

<font style="font-size:110%">Subsection 

<font style="font-size:100%">Sub-subsection 


 * Start with a second-level heading (<tt> == </tt>); do not use first-level headings (=).
 * Do not skip levels (e.g., second-level followed by fourth-level).
 * A Table of Contents will automatically be added to an article that has four or more sections.

Sub-subsection
A single newline generally has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. Some editors find that this aids editing and improves the function diff (used internally to compare different versions of a page).
 * - valign="top"

But an empty line starts a new paragraph.

A single newline generally has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. Some editors find that this aids editing and improves the function diff (used internally to compare different versions of a page).
 * When used in a list, a newline does affect the layout (see below).

But an empty line starts a new paragraph. You can break lines without starting a new paragraph.
 * - valign="top"

You can break lines without starting a new paragraph. marks the end of a list item.
 * Please use this sparingly.
 * Close markup between lines, don't start a link or italics or bold on one line and close it on the next.
 * - id="lists" valign="top"
 * Lists are easy to do:
 * Start every line with a star.
 * More stars means deeper levels.
 * A newline in a list
 * A newline in a list

marks the end of a list item.
 * An empty line starts a new list.
 * Lists are easy to do:
 * Start every line with a star.
 * More stars means deeper levels.
 * A newline in a list


 * An empty line starts a new list.
 * - valign="top"
 * 1) Numbered lists are also good
 * 2) very organized
 * 3) easy to follow
 * 4) easier still
 * 1) easier still
 * 1) Numbered lists are also good
 * 2) very organized
 * 3) easy to follow
 * 4) easier still
 * - valign="top"
 * You can even do mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * like this
 * like this
 * You can even do mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * like this
 * - valign="top"
 * Definition list : list of definitions
 * item : the item's definition
 * another item
 * the other item's definition
 * the other item's definition


 * One item per line; a newline can appear before the colon, but using a space before the colon improves parsing.
 * Definition list : list of definitions
 * item : the item's definition
 * another item
 * the other item's definition


 * - valign="top"
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.

A manual newline starts a new paragraph.


 * This is primarily for displayed material, but is also used for discussion on Talk pages.
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.

A manual newline starts a new paragraph. IF a line starts with a space THEN it will be formatted exactly as typed; in a fixed-width font; lines won't wrap; ENDIF
 * - valign=top

IF a line starts with a space THEN it will be formatted exactly as typed; in a fixed-width font; lines won't wrap; ENDIF Centered text.
 * This is useful for:
 * pasting preformatted text;
 * algorithm descriptions;
 * program source code;
 * ASCII art;
 * chemical structures;
 * WARNING: If you make it wide, you force the whole page to be wide and hence less readable, especially for people who use lower resolutions. Never start ordinary lines with spaces.
 * - valign="top"

Centered text. A horizontal dividing line: this is above it
 * Note the American spelling of "center".
 * - valign="top"

and this is below it.

A horizontal dividing line: this is above it
 * Mainly useful for separating threads on Talk pages.
 * Also used to disambiguate within an article without creating a separate page.

and this is below it.
 * }

Character formatting
(see also: Chess symbols in Unicode)

Placement of the Table of Contents (TOC)
At the current status of the wiki markup language, having at least four headers on a page triggers the TOC to appear in front of the first header (or after introductory sections). Putting anywhere forces the TOC to appear at that point (instead of just before the first header). Putting anywhere forces the TOC to disappear. See also compact TOC for alphabet and year headings.

Keeping headings out of the Table of Contents
If you want some subheadings to not appear in the Table of Contents, then make the following replacements.

Replace == Header 2 == with Header 2

Replace === Header 3 === with Header 3

And so forth.

For example, notice that the following header has the same font as the other subheaders to this "Tables" section, but the following header does not appear in the Table of Contents for this page.

This header has the h4 font, but is NOT in the Table of Contents

This effect is obtained by the following line of code.

This header has the h4 font, but is NOT in the Table of Contents

Tables
There are two ways to build tables:
 * in special Wiki-markup (see m:Help:Table)
 * with the usual HTML elements: &lt;table&gt;, &lt;tr&gt;, &lt;td&gt; or &lt;th&gt;.

For the latter, and a discussion on when tables are appropriate, see How to use tables.

Variables
(See also m:Help:Variable)

NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect, i.e. number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages.

Templates
The MediaWiki software used by Wikipedia has support for templates. This means standardized text chunks (such as boilerplate text) can be inserted into articles. For example, typing will appear as "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." when the page is saved. See Template messages for the complete list. Other commonly used ones are: for disambiguation pages,  for spoiler warnings and  like an article stub but for a section. There are many subject-specific stubs e.g.:, and. For a complete list of stubs see Template messages/Stubs.

Hiding the edit links
Insert   into the document to suppress the edit links that appear next to every section header.

More information on editing wiki pages
You may also want to learn about:


 * How to start a page
 * Informal tips on contributing to Wikipedia
 * Editing tasks in general at the Editing FAQ
 * Why not to rename pages boldly, at How to rename (move) a page
 * Preferred layout of your article, at Guide to Layout (see also Boilerplate text)
 * Style conventions in the Manual of Style
 * An article with annotations pointing out common Wikipedia style and layout issues, at Annotated article
 * General policies in Policies and guidelines
 * Naming conventions for how to name articles themselves
 * If you are making an article about something that belongs to a group of objects (a city, an astronomical object, a chinese character...) check if there is a WikiProject on the group and try to follow its directions explicitly.
 * Finally, for a list of articles about editing Wikipedia consult Style and How-to Directory.