Help:Contents

Another good page to see for formatting your content is Markup

Create A New Article

Create new articles by going into an existing article which should be linked to your article. Then put a double bracket around the title of the article you're creating, like this [[Title of My Article]]. Then save the page. Now click on the red link for Title of My Article and you will go to the new page you have created. Edit away and save it.

Discussion pages

Every main page has a discussion page associated with it. Often it will be blank (red).

When editing a discussion page, do not delete any prior discussion. Simply add your additional comments and then use the "signature" button to date and sign your comment.

Typically, when commenting on someone else's comment you will use a colon in front of your comment immediately after their comment to keep the string of ideas together.

Two colons will indent a second time, and three a third.

To start a new idea, create a new subhead.

Normally discussions should be restricted to the topic of the main page, explaining why you think it should be organized a different way than other authors have made it, for example. Look at this discussion pages for an example of how discussion pages should be used.

Official Guides

Another good page to see for formatting your content is Markup.

• Quick Guide
• WikiMedia User's Guide
• MediaWiki editing help.

BBCodes Formatting

In addition to the formatting options below, you may also use BBCode Syntax to format your text. Click BBCCode for a BBCode syntax overview.

Word formatting

Emphasize

''Emphasize'', '''strongly''', '''''very strongly'''''

Emphasize, strongly, very strongly

HTML tags you can use

Typewriter font for technical terms

<tt>monospace text</tt>

monospace text

Small text

<small>small text</small>

small text

Strikethru text

<s>strike out deleted material</s>

strike out deleted material

Headings

same as headlines/chapters/sections

First, second and third level headings

=New section=

==Subsection==

===Sub-subsection===

A first level heading is for example the "Word formatting" heading on this page. The "Bullet lists" heading on this page is an example of a 2rd level heading.

The "Table of contents" box you see at the top of this page will appear automatically when you have used 4 or more headings. First level headings are shown as x, 2rd level as x.x and so on.

Internal linking

[[Main Page]]

Becomes a link to the Main Page of this Wiki.

[[Information|Infos!]]

Becomes a link to the Information page but Infos! is written instead like this: Infos!

Linking to a headline at a wiki page.

You can link to a headline on another wiki page.

[[http://www.ipbwiki.com/IpbWiki_Features#Parses_BBCode]]

Becomes at link to the headline "Parses BBCode" at the Features page like this: IpbWiki_Features#Parses_BBCode

You can also replace the text written on the final page.

[[IpbWiki_Features#Parses_BBCode|Check out the BBCode]]

Becomes: Check out the BBCode

External linking

Remember to start with "http://".

Bare URL

http://www.ipbwiki.com/

Becomes http://www.ipbwiki.com/

Named link

[http://www.ipbwiki.com/ IpbWiki: connecting Invision Power Board with MediaWiki...]

Becomes IpbWiki: connecting Invision Power Board with MediaWiki...

Lists

Bullet lists

You can make bullet lists with "*".

* First level list object
** Second level list object
*** Third level list object
* Another first level list object

• First level list object
  • Second level list object
    • Third level list object
• Another first level list object

Numbered lists

You can make numbered lists with "#".

# First level list object
## Second level list object
### Third level list object
# Another first level list object

1. First level list object
   1. Second level list object
      1. Third level list object
2. Another first level list object

Mixed lists

You can even make mixed lists like this.

* You can even do mixed lists
*# and nest them
*#* like this

• You can even do mixed lists
  1. and nest them
     • like this

Definition lists

;item
: the item's definition

item

the item's definition

Images

You can insert images using the syntax:

[[Image:filename|options|caption text]]

The last item added will always be considered the caption text.

Image without alt-text

[[Image:mediawiki.png]]

Image with alt-text

You add "|caption text" after the image link. This is the text most browsers will show when you hover over the image with the mouse.

[[Image:mediawiki.png|The MediaWiki logo]]

Image options

The MediaWiki logo

thumbnail, thumb

Generates an automatically resized thumbnail image (either reduced or enlarged).

Caption text is displayed directly underneath. An "enlarge"-icon is added.

If you do not specify where the image should be place it will be places to the right.

Example to the right (in this example the image is enlarged because it is small):

[[Image:mediawiki.png|thumb|The MediaWiki logo]]

right

Makes the image right-aligned.

left

Same as above, but left aligned.

center

Same as above, but centered.

none

The image will be rendered inline, even if the thumbnail-option is set.

The MediaWiki logo

frame

The image will have a frame, regardless of whether it is a thumb, and the caption text will be included as a visible caption.

Example to the right:

sizepx

Renders a version of the image that's [size] pixels wide (e.g. '150px').

Height is computed to keep the aspect ratio (i.e. the shape of the image).

This allows both size reduction and enlargement.

Combining options

You can combine the options as you like. Example (as you see below resizing is often not very good):

[[Image:mediawiki.png|50px|left|none|The MediaWiki logo]]

The HA logo

[[Image:mediawiki.png|none|frame|The MediaWiki logo]]

The MediaWiki logo

Tables

{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="3"
| 1 || 2
|-
| 3 || 4
|-
| 5 || 6
|}

1	2
3	4
5	6

See also WikiMedia table guide

Citations and References

Usage

The basic concept of the <ref> tag is that it inserts the text enclosed by the ref tags as a footnote in a designated section, which you indicate with the placeholder tag <references />. The new format cannot be used interchangeably with the old format — you must pick one or the other.

If you forget to include <references /> in the article, the footnotes will not appear, but a red error message will be displayed at the end of the page.

This page itself uses footnotes, such as the one at the end of this sentence. If you view the source of this page by clicking "Edit this page", you can see a working example of footnotes.

Example

According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big.<ref>E. Miller, The Sun, (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23-5.</ref>
The Moon, however, is not so big.<ref>R. Smith, "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 46 (April 1978): 44-6.</ref>

==Notes==
<references/>

Multiple uses of the same footnote

To give a footnote a unique identifier, use <ref name="name">. You can then refer to the same footnote again by using a ref tag with the same name. The text inside the second tag doesn't matter, because the text already exists in the first reference. You can either copy the whole footnote, or you can use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like this: <ref name="name" />.

In the following example, the same source is cited three times.

This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.<ref name="multiple">Remember that when you refer to the same footnote multiple times, the text from the first reference is used.</ref>

Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, if different statements come from the same source.<ref name="multiple">This text is superfluous, and won't show up anywhere. We may as well just use an empty tag.</ref>

A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end. Although this may reduce redundant work, please be aware that if a future editor removes the first reference, this will result in the loss of all references using the empty ref tags.<ref name="multiple" />

==Notes==
<references/>

The text above gives the following result in the article (see also section below):

This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.

Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, when different statements come from the same source.

A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end. Although this may reduce redundant work, please be aware that if a future editor removes the first reference, this will result in the loss of all references using the empty ref tags.

Note: name= identifiers require alphabetic characters; solely relying on numerals will generate an error message

<references />

Placing <references /> inserts the full text of all pending inline citations defined by <ref>, anywhere on the page. For example, based on the citations above, the code:

<references />

will yield:

In some language editions of Wikipedia, long reference lists may be placed using the template {{Reflist}}, which incorporates <references />. It provides an optional parameter to display the reference list in multiple columns. For instance, the English, Hindi and Interlingua Wikipedias use the css selector references-small to make the reference text smaller than normal text.

In the case of multiple references-tags on a page, each gives the references defined in the ref-tags from the previous references-tag. In the case that these references-tags are produced by templates, each gives the references defined in the ref-tags before the first references-tag, and there is an error message that there is a ref-tag but not a references-tag.

Grouped references

This may be disabled by $wgAllowCiteGroups = false; if desired. However, it is enabled on the foundation wikis.

The following example generates separate reference lists for citations and miscellaneous footnotes:

According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big <ref>E. Miller, The Sun, (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23-5.</ref>.
In fact, it is very big <ref group="footnotes">Take their word for it. Don't look directly at the sun!</ref>.

==Notes==
<references group="footnotes"/>
==References==
<references/>

The anonymous group works as before, while the named group reference will show up as , and the references will look like this:

Separating references from text

In-text references make it easy to copy the text to another page; on the other hand, they make it hard to read. References containing a lot of data, quotes or elaborate citation templates can make up a significantly larger fraction of the source than the text that will actually be visible. To avoid this, recent versions of the extension allow moving some or all of the references into the <references /> section, to the place where they will actually appear to the reader. Thus,

According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big.<ref name="miller"/>
The Moon, however, is not so big.<ref name="smith"/>

==Notes==
<references>
<ref name="miller">E. Miller, The Sun, (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23-5.</ref>
<ref name="smith">R. Smith, "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 46 (April 1978): 44-6.</ref>
</references>

will have the same output as the first example above.

Additional hints

You can avoid that the wiki system proccessing the text (to avoid unwanted formatting) by putting <nowiki></nowiki> around the text you want to parse directly.

Following are some Wiki Help pages to setup

This is the same software that runs Wikipedia. You can learn most of what you need about editing articles there.

Tutorial

Formatting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_how-to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_templates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Template_sandbox

Markup

Sandbox -- Just a place to mess around with trying to create and save pages.

Wikimedia

StyleSheet and page layout http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skinning

Fixing Mistakes or Vandalism is EASY

If you click on the history tab, you will see all previous versions of this article. It also allows you a way to change the article back to a previous version in case you made a mistake...or if you want to reverse someone's vandalism.

If you want to keep an eye on any changes made to "your article" use the watch tab. You can even get an email anytime someone else edits an article of interest to you.

Blocking Spam

Manual:Maintenance scripts

Combating Vandalism

Autoblock An autoblock is an automatic block of an IP address, done by the MediaWiki software. Autoblocks are the result of an attempt to edit wiki from an IP address recently used by a blocked user. Each time a user edits wiki, the IP address used to connect to the site is recorded by the MediaWiki software that powers the wiki. A log of IP addresses used by every user is kept privately, accessible only by users with checkuser access to the MediaWiki software. When a blocked user attempts to edit the site, the IP from which they are editing is "autoblocked," so that they may not make the same edit anonymously or under a different user name. If another user then attempts to use that autoblocked IP, they are autoblocked as well, and any other IPs that they may attempt to use while blocked, are autoblocked as well. Then other users who use those IPs may also be blocked, and onward. In some situations, this system can spiral and many users may be autoblocked even if they did nothing blockworthy.

Extension:CheckUser CheckUser is an extension that allows a user (with the checkuser permission) to check which IPs are used by a given username and which usernames are used by a given IP, without having to run queries directly against the database by hand. The extension is running live on all Wikimedia wikis.

Extension:User Merge and Delete

Try to get http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AkismetKlik working.

Find out how to run the spam clean up script http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anti-spam_features#Spam_cleanup_script

See [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Combating_spam#SpamBlacklist]

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CommentSpammer

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Wiki-httpbl

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ConfirmEdit

$wgCaptchaTriggers['edit'] = false;

$wgCaptchaTriggers['create'] = false;

$wgCaptchaTriggers['addurl'] = true;

$wgCaptchaTriggers['createaccount'] = true;

$wgCaptchaTriggers['badlogin'] = true;

Vandalism Cleanup

1. Find list of pages to be deleted using Orphaned Pages: Special:LonelyPages. Can also use DeadEnd Pages http://www.abortionrisks.org/index.php?title=Special:DeadendPages&limit=500&offset=0

2. Use Special:Delete batch

Characteristics of spam pages 1. Pages with one edit (or two, if spam link deleted) 2. Unique author 3. Lots of spaces between top line and first line of article 4. No inbound links from other wiki pages 4. More than one word in title.

Vandalism Alerts

Extension:Recent Activity Notify http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Recent_Activity_Notify

Extension:New User Email Notification http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:New_User_Email_Notification