Difference between revisions of "LOTC:Page Creation Guide"

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==Navigating to the Wiki and Important Pages==
 
==Navigating to the Wiki and Important Pages==
The wiki can be found at https://wikia.lordofthecraft.net, or by clicking on the wiki button on the forum bar. If you are having trouble loading the page, make sure that you are including “https://” as this may solve the issue.
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The wiki can be found at https://wiki.lordofthecraft.net, or by clicking on the wiki button on the forum bar. If you are having trouble loading the page, make sure that you are including “https://” as this may solve the issue.
 
   
 
   
Two important pages that are useful for general editing are the [https://wikia.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=Wiki_Player_Handbook Wiki Player Handbook] and [https://wikia.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=Wiki_Priority_List Wiki Priority List]
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Two important pages that are useful for general editing are the [https://wiki.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=Wiki_Player_Handbook Wiki Player Handbook] and [https://wiki.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=Wiki_Priority_List Wiki Priority List]
  
 
The Handbook contains the Wiki Rules in addition to editing suggestions and formatting tips. The Priority List is a tiered, prioritized list of what the Wiki Team wants completed and how urgent the tasks are. If one wishes to help out the most, simply take a look at the high priority tasks.
 
The Handbook contains the Wiki Rules in addition to editing suggestions and formatting tips. The Priority List is a tiered, prioritized list of what the Wiki Team wants completed and how urgent the tasks are. If one wishes to help out the most, simply take a look at the high priority tasks.
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==Utilizing Backbones==
 
==Utilizing Backbones==
It may look daunting to start a page from scratch. Therefore the Wiki Team has created an assortment of pre-made page templates, called backbones, to assist in the writing process. By opening a new tab and navigating back to the wiki player handbook, or searching for backbones in the search bar, or clicking [https://wikia.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=Category:Backbone this link], the list of backbones can be found. Simply choose the backbone that seems to be most related to the page you are creating.
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It may look daunting to start a page from scratch. Therefore the Wiki Team has created an assortment of pre-made page templates, called backbones, to assist in the writing process. By opening a new tab and navigating back to the wiki player handbook, or searching for backbones in the search bar, or clicking [https://wiki.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=Category:Backbone this link], the list of backbones can be found. Simply choose the backbone that seems to be most related to the page you are creating.
  
 
Upon clicking on one of these pages, you're met with a fully laid out template for a wiki page of that category. To copy this backbone to the creating box for the page you're creatomg, you must click on edit, on the top right of the page, to view the source information. Then copy this text and paste it in the creation box where you will be writing your page. Note it is recommended to write pages in an external program such as Google Docs or Word to prevent data loss. Now all you must do is fill in the information as suggested in the backbone. Do note that not everything on the backbone must be completed or utilized – it is simply a writing assistant and starting point for page creation. You may certainly include information that is not covered in the backbone.
 
Upon clicking on one of these pages, you're met with a fully laid out template for a wiki page of that category. To copy this backbone to the creating box for the page you're creatomg, you must click on edit, on the top right of the page, to view the source information. Then copy this text and paste it in the creation box where you will be writing your page. Note it is recommended to write pages in an external program such as Google Docs or Word to prevent data loss. Now all you must do is fill in the information as suggested in the backbone. Do note that not everything on the backbone must be completed or utilized – it is simply a writing assistant and starting point for page creation. You may certainly include information that is not covered in the backbone.

Latest revision as of 21:43, 3 May 2020

This guide contains all the steps required for a player such as yourself to submit their first wiki page. It will help you on how to start browsing the wiki, how to get an account, and of course, on how to create pages with proper formatting. A video version of this guide is also available for those who prefer to save their eyes the effort of reading. Timestamps will be included for quick navigation to sections of the video guide. Furthermore, there's also the original forum post by ex-Wiki Team director Destinator.


Navigating to the Wiki and Important Pages

The wiki can be found at https://wiki.lordofthecraft.net, or by clicking on the wiki button on the forum bar. If you are having trouble loading the page, make sure that you are including “https://” as this may solve the issue.

Two important pages that are useful for general editing are the Wiki Player Handbook and Wiki Priority List

The Handbook contains the Wiki Rules in addition to editing suggestions and formatting tips. The Priority List is a tiered, prioritized list of what the Wiki Team wants completed and how urgent the tasks are. If one wishes to help out the most, simply take a look at the high priority tasks.

Wiki Account Creation and Logging In

Before you can begin editing on the wiki you must first obtain a Wiki Account. This can be done by contacting any Wiki Team member and providing them with a user name and email. A temporary password will be sent to the email which will allow you to log in to your Wiki Account. The login button is found in the upper right corner. After logging in, you are free to change your password to whatever you please.

Creating the Page

To create the page, first search the title you want for the page in the search bar. Make sure to use the exact wording that you wish the final title to have. If a similar topic appears in the results and has already been covered, do not create a duplicate page. Once confirming that the page has not been created yet, the option to create the page should appear in Red at the top of the list. Clicking on this red link leads to the creation box.

Utilizing Backbones

It may look daunting to start a page from scratch. Therefore the Wiki Team has created an assortment of pre-made page templates, called backbones, to assist in the writing process. By opening a new tab and navigating back to the wiki player handbook, or searching for backbones in the search bar, or clicking this link, the list of backbones can be found. Simply choose the backbone that seems to be most related to the page you are creating.

Upon clicking on one of these pages, you're met with a fully laid out template for a wiki page of that category. To copy this backbone to the creating box for the page you're creatomg, you must click on edit, on the top right of the page, to view the source information. Then copy this text and paste it in the creation box where you will be writing your page. Note it is recommended to write pages in an external program such as Google Docs or Word to prevent data loss. Now all you must do is fill in the information as suggested in the backbone. Do note that not everything on the backbone must be completed or utilized – it is simply a writing assistant and starting point for page creation. You may certainly include information that is not covered in the backbone.

Also: An important little detail that is key to the categorization and organisation of the wiki, make sure NOT to copy the "noinclude>[Category:Backbone]</noinclude" part at the bottom of the page.

Basic Formatting

This part of the guide will help you to start properly formatting your page. Because the formatting and coding of wiki pages is a wide field of information, we've split it up into seperate parts.

Headings

Headings are designated by equals signs. Ex: =Heading= One equals sign on each side means a first level heading, while two equals signs designates a second level heading, and so on. This can be used to neatly organize your page and make it look more appealing.

Table Of Contents

A table of contents will automatically be created for the page and placed near the top. However, when is placed anywhere on the page, no table of contents is created. It is common practice to place this on the first line of the page. On the other hand, if you would like the Table of Contents to be placed in a specific location instead of on top of the page, simply type and the table of contents will be placed in that location.

HTML

Html can be used on the Wiki’s platform, Mediawiki, to some extent. Not all Html will work correctly and things such as CSS cannot be used at all. If you would like to spruce up your page with your own Html, feel free to do so, although this will make it more difficult for people to contribute to your page in the future as not everybody is learned in coding.

Links

A useful feature of the wiki is the easy way to link to other pages on the wiki. By putting two brackets around a word, a link is automatically created to a page with that title on the wiki.

To link a web address, copy the address within single brackets. Put a space after the address and then a word to have that work link to the web address.

Ex: [www.lordofthecraft.net Link]

Italic and Bold

For italicizing and bolding parts of text, simply select the part of text that you wish to italicize or bold, then go to the top of the editing window, and click either the B for Bold or the I for Italic. Do note however that it is recommended to use this in moderation, for overusing this feature makes the page look less pleasing.

Images

Adding images to your Wiki Page can really help to make it look nicer, or help people to understand the page better, by giving them a picture so they can visualize the matter at hand. Upon starting with using the wiki, adding an image to your page can be somewhat tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it's actually very simple!

First off, to use any sort of image on your wiki page, you need to first make sure you have this image saved in your image files. If you have the image you want saved, then go to any wiki page, and scroll down so that the index on the left side of the screen (under the Lord of the Craft logo) shows the part "Upload File".

Once you're on that page, things are very simple, simply click the "Choose file" button. This will open your images folder, here you click on the image you want to use and then you click on the "Open" button. Now that your file is chosen, you can give it a file name, under file description, where it says "Destination filename". Of course, you can also keep the automatically chosen filename. Keep this filename in mind or copy it, as you'll need to put it on the page you want to use it on.

When you're done with that, simply click "Upload" on the bottom of the page, and then you've succesfully uploaded your image!

Putting the image on your desired wikipage is the trickiest part as it involves coding. If you don't know how to use the HTML coding, simply copy paste coding from another page that holds an image, or use the simply form as shown below.

[File:FilenameExample|300px|center]

Note: You need to use double square brackets, single ones are used here for demonstration.

For help with adding images to your wiki page, feel free to ask any Wiki Team member!

Categories

Adding one or more categories to the bottom of your page is essential. For one it makes things more organized but that of course also means it's easier to find your page. To add a category simply put Category:categoryname within double square brackets at the bottom of your page.

For a full list of all the available categories, go to this page.

Summary and Preview

Summarize your creation and any future edits by shortly describing the changes you are making in the summary bar, which is found on the editing screen, below the editing box. This creates an easily identifiable record of the reasoning behind changes to pages.

Preview all your changes to ensure they are appearing as intended by clicking the preview button. This is highly encouraged over saving multiple times to correct errors as this clogs the wiki records and makes sifting through them more difficult.

Posting

After putting in all of your information, one last thing to do when using a backbone is to go to the very bottom and make sure to remove noinclude>Category:Backbone</noinclude if you haven't already done this. Again, this is to help with the organization and categorization of the wiki, as leaving it labels the page as a backbone, which it obviously isn't, why would you've put in all that work otherwise, hm?

Once that is done, do one final preview, and if it checks out, you can finally click the ‘Save page’ button.


Congratulations! You have posted your very first wiki page. We hope this guide has been a help to you. If you have any questions, feel free to contact any Wiki Team member, and ask away!