Help:Editing
Editing a BelieveTheSign page is not very hard. Simply click on the "edit this page" tab at the top of a BelieveTheSign page (or on a section-edit link). This will bring you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the original page. If you just want to experiment, please do so in the sandbox; not here. You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend, and when you have finished, press the Show preview button to see how your changes will look. You can also see the difference between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page by pressing the "Show changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, be bold and press the Save page button. Your changes will immediately be visible to other BelieveTheSign users.
You can also click on the "Discussion" tab to see the corresponding talk page, which contains comments about the page from other BelieveTheSign users. Click on the "+" tab to add a new section, or edit the page in the same way as an article page.
You should remember to sign your messages on talk pages and some special-purpose project pages, but you should not sign edits you make to regular articles. In page histories, the MediaWiki software keeps track of which user makes each change.
BelieveTheSign is a Wiki, which means that anyone can easily edit any unprotected page and save those changes immediately to that page. After your first edit you are a BelieveTheSign editor! To request a change to a protected page, please leave a message on that article's discussion page.
This Editing Overview has a lot of wikitext examples. You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference while you edit.
Basic Page Contents
Every page requires certain basic information. That info can be found on - Help:Basic Page Contents
Editing basics
Each page in BelieveTheSign contains an article, and a discussion page (usually called "Talk...")
You can see these above, the article is labelled "project page", the discussion page is the tab to the right of it. These are treated as two separate pages in BelieveTheSign, but are shown side by side on the tab bar, for ease of use.
Whether you are looking at the article or project page, or the discussion page, you will see there is a button marked "edit this page", possibly a button "+", and a button labelled "watch" or "unwatch".
- Start editing
- To start editing a MediaWiki page, click on the "Edit this page" at the top of the page (or just the "edit") link at one of its edges. This will bring you to the edit page: a page with a text box containing the wikitext: the editable source code from which the server produces the webpage. If you just want to experiment, please do so in the [[{{BelieveTheSign:Sandbox|sandbox]], not here.
- Edit this page - this is the key to contributing to BelieveTheSign. When you click this button, you change from viewing an article or discussion about an article, to being able to edit the article, or add comments to the discussion that is going on.
- Occasionally, pages that are important are locked, in which case the "edit" will show "view source", and you will not be able to edit the article at that time.
- Page editing is simple with BelieveTheSign, and you cannot harm a page if you make a mistake, since all changes can be undone. This is part of MediaWiki's vandal protection system.
- "+" - adds a new section to a page, without changing what is already there.
- Watch/unwatch - adds or removes a page from your watchlist, the list of pages you are tracking. You can view your watchlist with the user option button "my watchlist" at the top right of the screen.
- Summarize your changes
- You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend.
- Preview before saving
- When you have finished, press preview to see how your changes will look -- before you make them permanent. Repeat the edit/preview process until you are satisfied, then click "Save" and your changes will be immediately applied to the article.
Minor edits
An editor can mark an edit as "minor". Minor edits are generally spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. Users may choose to hide minor edits when viewing Recent Changes.
Marking a significant change as a minor edit is considered bad etiquette. If you have accidentally marked an edit as minor, make a dummy edit, verify that the "[ ] This is a minor edit" check-box is unchecked, and explain in the edit summary that the previous edit was not minor.
Wikitext markup -- making your page look the way you want
- This is page Help:Wiki markup examples, transcluded in Help:Editing.
- If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the BelieveTheSign:Sandbox.
- More information on HTML tags in wikitext
Organizing your writing -- sections, paragraphs, lists and lines
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
Start sections with header lines Note: Single equal signs give the highest level heading, like the page title; usually projects have the convention not to use them. New section Subsection Sub-subsection
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== New section == === Subsection === ==== Sub-subsection ==== |
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A single newline has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph, or ends a list or indented part. (<p> disables this paragraphing until </p> or the end of the section) (in Cologne Blue two newlines and a div tag give just one newline; in the order newline, div tag, newline, the result is two newlines) You can make the wikitext more readable by putting in newlines. You might find this causes future problems -- see w:Wikipedia:Don't use line breaks for details.
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A single newline has no effect on the layout. But an empty line starts a new paragraph. |
| You can break lines without starting a new paragraph. (The HTML tag <br> is sufficient. The system produces the XHTML code <br />.)
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You can break lines<br> without starting a new paragraph. |
marks the end of the list.
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* Unordered Lists are easy to do: ** start every line with a star *** more stars means deeper levels *A newline *in a list marks the end of the list. *Of course *you can *start again. |
marks the end of the list.
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# Numbered lists are also good ## very organized ## easy to follow #A newline #in a list marks the end of the list. #New numbering starts #with 1. |
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* You can even do mixed lists *# and nest them *#* or break lines<br>in lists |
Definition list
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; word : definition of the word ; longer phrase : phrase defined
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A manual newline starts a new paragraph.
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: A colon indents a line or paragraph. A manual newline starts a new paragraph. |
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When there is a need for separating a block of text
This is useful for (as the name says) inserting blocks of quoted (and cited) text. |
<blockquote> The '''blockquote''' command will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does. </blockquote> |
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<center>Centered text.</center> |
| A horizontal dividing line:
this is above it... ...and this is below it. If you don't use a section header, you don't get a TOC entry. |
A horizontal dividing line: this is above it... ---- ...and this is below it. |
Links, URLs
More information at Help:Link
Internal links
General notes:
- Enclose the target name in double square brackets -- "[[" and "]]"
- First letter of target name is automatically capitalized
- Spaces are represented as underscores (but don't do underscores yourself)
- Links to nonexistent pages are shown in red -- Help:Starting a new page tells about creating the page.
- When the mouse cursor "hovers" over the link, you see a "hover box" containing... hover over links bellow to see.
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
Sue is reading the official position (or Official positions). |
Sue is reading the [[official position]] (or [[Official position]]s). |
You can also italicize/etc. links: e.g., Wikipedia. |
''[[Wikipedia]]'' |
A link to the page on another wiki (e.g. the same subject in another language) |
*See [[m:Help:Interwiki linking]]. *[[:fr:Wikipédia:Aide]]. |
If the section doesn't exist, the link goes to the top of the page. If there are multiple sections by the same name, link to specific ones by adding how many times that header has alreay appeared (e.g. if there are 3 sections entitled "Example header," and you wish to link to the third one, then use [[#Example section 3]]. For more info, see Help:Editing FAQ. |
*[[List of cities by country#Morocco]] *[[List of cities by country#Norway]] |
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Use a pipe "|" to create a link label: |
*[[Help:Link|About Links]] |
"blank" pipes hide:
After you save, the server automatically fills in the link label. |
*Parentheses: [[kingdom (biology)|]]. *Colon: [[m:Requests for adminship|]]. |
The weather in London is a page that doesn't exist yet.
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[[The weather in London]] is a page that doesn't exist yet. |
Please "sign" comments on talk pages:
The server will fill in the link after you save. |
Please "sign" comments on talk pages: : Your user name: ~~~ : Your user name plus timestamp: ~~~~ : Five tildes give a timestamp: ~~~~~ |
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one article title to another with this special link. |
#REDIRECT [[United States]] |
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ISBN 0123456789X RFC 123 |
To include links to non-image uploads such as sounds, use a "media" link.
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[[media:Sg_mrob.ogg|Sound]] |
To list a page in a Category and have a link to the Categry at page bottom. |
[[Category:English documentation]] |
To link to a Category without causing the page to be listed in the category, add a colon |
[[:Category:English documentation]] |
Use links for dates, so everyone can set their own display order. Use Special:Preferences to change your own date display setting. |
[[July 20]] [[1969]] [[20 July]] [[1969]] and [[1969]]-[[07-20]] |
"What links here" etc. can be linked as: |
[[Special:Whatlinkshere/Help:Editing]] |
External links
| Nupedia, [1] | [http://www.nupedia.com Nupedia], [http://www.nupedia.com] |
| Email Example, | [mailto:email@example.com Email Example], [mailto:email@example.com] |
| Or just give the URL: http://www.nupedia.com. | Or just give the URL: http://www.nupedia.com. |
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Text formatting -- controlling how it looks
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
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Emphasize (italics), strongly (bold), very strongly (bold italics). (These are double and triple apostrophes, not double quotes.) Note: this can also be applied to links (e.g., Wikipedia). |
''Emphasize'', '''strongly''', '''''very strongly'''''. ''[[Wikipedia]]'' |
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You can also write italic and bold. This is useful in mathematical formulas where you need specific font styles rather than emphasis.
(The difference between these two methods is not very important for graphical browsers, so most people ignore it). But it may make a big difference for the visually impaired ;-) |
You can also write <i>italic</i> and <b>bold</b>. This is useful in mathematical formulas where you need specific font styles rather than emphasis. :<b>F</b> = <i>m</i><b>a</b> |
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You can also write in small caps. If the wiki has the templates, this can Template:Bsmbe much simpler to writeTemplate:Esm. |
You can also write
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">
in small caps</span>.
If the wiki has the templates, this can
{{bsm}}be much simpler to write{{esm}}.
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| A typewriter font, sometimes used for
technical terms and |
A typewriter font, sometimes used for <tt>technical terms</tt> and <code>computer code</code>.
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| You can use small text for captions. | You can use <small>small text</small> for captions. |
| You can and underline new material. You can also mark
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You can <strike>strike out deleted material</strike> and <u>underline new material</u>. You can also mark <del>deleted material</del> and <ins>inserted material</ins> using logical markup rather than visual markup. |
| Subscript: x2 Superscript: x2 or x² Most browsers have an easier time formatting lines with ² than with <sup>2</sup> |
Subscript: x<sub>2</sub> Superscript: x<sup>2</sup> or x² ε<sub>0</sub> = 8.85 × 10<sup>−12</sup> C² / J m. 1 [[hectare]] = [[1 E4 m²]] |
Just show what I typed
<nowiki> and <pre> tags can tell the server and the browser to display things as you typed them.
arrow → italics link |
arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
<nowiki> arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] </nowiki> |
arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
<nowiki><pre>arrow → ''italics'' [[link]]</nowiki> |
arrow → italics link |
arrow → ''italics'' [[link]] |
IF a line of plain text starts with a space it will be formatted exactly as typed in a fixed-width font in a grey dotted-outline box lines won't wrap ENDIF this is useful for: * pasting preformatted text; * algorithm descriptions; * program source code * ASCII art; * chemical structures; For larger preformatted text passages you can use the <pre>a lot of text</pre> tag. WARNING If you make it wide,
you force the whole page to be wide and
hence less readable. Never start ordinary lines with spaces. |
IF a line of plain text starts with a space
it will be formatted exactly
as typed
in a fixed-width font
in a grey dotted-outline box
lines won't wrap
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text
* algorithm descriptions
* program source code
* ASCII art
* chemical structures
* poetry
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arrow → italics link |
<tt>arrow →</tt> <tt>''italics''</tt> <tt>[[link]]</tt> |
→ |
&rarr; |
The text between here and here won't be displayed |
The text between '''here''' <!-- comment here --> '''and here''' won't be displayed |
Special characters
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Umlauts and accents: (See Help:Special characters) |
À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô œ õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ |
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Punctuation: ¿ ¡ « » § ¶ |
¿ ¡ « » § ¶ † ‡ • - – — ¿ ¡ « » § ¶ † ‡ • - – — |
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Commercial symbols: |
™ © ® ¢ € ¥ £ ¤ ™ © ® ¢ € ¥ £ ¤ |
| Greek characters: α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω α β γ δ ε ζ |
α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ ς τ υ φ χ ψ ω Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π Σ Φ Ψ Ω |
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Math characters: ∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ Problem symbols: ℵ ∉ ℵ ∉ |
∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ ≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥ × · ÷ ∂ ′ ″ ∇ ‰ ° ∴ ø ∈ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔ → ↔ ↑ ∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ ≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥ × · ÷ ∂ ′ ″ ∇ ‰ ° ∴ ø ∈ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔ → ↔ ↑ Problem symbols: ℵ ∉ ∉ ℵ |
Including another page -- transclusion and templates
Changing a transcluded file will change every file that transcludes it.
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{{:Help:Transclusion Demo}} |
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A special kind of page designed for transclusion. These pages are found in the Template: namespace Templates can even take parameters. When you edit a page, all the templates used on the page are listed below the edit box. |
{{H:title|hovertext|This is underlined}} |