NovaRoma:Wiki Editing for Romans

Revision as of 00:34, 22 March 2006

This is a quick guide for Romans who are new to wikis.

• If you just want to edit an existing article:
  • Please read section 1 "Editing: Basic steps" carefully.
  • Use section 2 "Wikitext markup..." as a reference for doing fancier things.
• If you want to create a new article, it is just the same, but please also read about how to name articles.

Editing: Basic steps

Start editing

To start editing a page, click on the "edit" link at the top of the page. 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 on your user page.)

Editing is simple

In most cases you will just type (or paste) words, sentences, paragraphs or whole articles. It is just like typing. You can read below about making headings, lists and other fancy things.

Summarize your changes

You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box.

Minor edits

There is a check box that marks an edit as "minor". Minor edits are generally spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. Other users may choose to hide minor edits when viewing Recent Changes.

Preview before saving

When you have finished, press Show 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 page and your changes will be immediately applied to the article.

Wikitext markup -- making the page look the way you want

Emphasis

1. Emphasis: put two apostropes around the bit you want to emphasize ''emphasis'' (usually italic)
2. More emphasis: put three apostropes around the bit you want to emphasize '''More emphasis''' (usually bold)
3. Lots of emphasis: put five apostropes around the bit you want to emphasize '''''Lots of emphasis''''' (usually bold italic)

New paragraph

Use an empty line to start a new paragraph. A simple return is ignored, but two returns (a blank line) starts a new paragraph.

Section headings and subsection headings

Divide your article into sections by putting your heading on a new line and surrounding it with double equals signs:

==Section heading==

Make subsection headings the same way, but use three equals signs:

===Sub-section heading===

• make smaller divisions with more equals signs.
• Don't skip levels, like from two to four equals signs.
• Start with two equals signs; don't use single equals signs.

Lists

Unordered lists

• Start every list item on a new line.
• Put an asterix in front of each item.
• This list looks like this:

*Start every list item on a new line.
*Put an asterix in front of each item.
*This list looks like this:

Ordered lists

1. Start every list item on a new line.
2. Put a number sign in front of each item.
3. This list looks like this:

#Start every list item on a new line.
#Put an asterix in front of each item.
#This list looks like this:

Definition lists

• Put each item to define on a new line
• Put a semicolon before each item
• Put a colon between each item and its definition

Item to define 

A nice definition that can be as long or as short as you want.

;Item to define : A nice definition that can be as long or as short as you want.

Links

You will often want to make clickable links to other pages.

Link to another article in the wiki

To link to another article in this wiki, just type the article title inside [[double brackets]].

To link to the article "Choosing a Roman name", you would enter [[Choosing a Roman name]] and it would appear in your article like this: Choosing a Roman name. to make it fit smoothly in a sentence, you can make the first letter (only) lower case. If you type:

We have an article about [[choosing a Roman name]]

It will look like this: "We have an article about choosing a Roman name".

If you want to link to an article but you don't want to use the article's title, you can use the pipe character |. Start your link the same way, with the article title in double brackets, but then add the pipe character and then the words that you want to appear as your link.

We have an article about [[choosing a Roman name | picking a name]].

Appears as: "We have an article about picking a name".

Many articles here have titles like "Coin (Nova Roma)". If you don't want the "(Nova Roma)" part to appear, just make a normal link, add a pipe character and then add nothing. If you type [[Coin (Nova Roma)|]] you will get this: "Coin".

If you add any letters right against the end of your link, they will become part of the link.

 We have also minted several [[coin (Nova Roma)|]]s.

Looks like this: "We have also minted several coins."

Link to things outside the wiki

To link to something outside the wiki, just enter the URL. If you type http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newroman/ you get a link that looks like this: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newroman/

If you want to give that link a name you must put it in single square brackets and add the name after the address, just leaving a space. So if you type this: [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newroman/ a group for new citizens], it will look like this: "a group for new citizens".

If you use the single square brackets and no link name, you will get a number. If you type [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newroman/], you will see this "[1]".

You can make an external link just by typing a URL:
http://www.nupedia.com

You can give it a title:
[http://www.nupedia.com Nupedia]

Or leave the title blank:
[http://www.nupedia.com]

#REDIRECT [[Official position]]

Category links don't show up, but add the page
to a category. [[Category:English documentation]]

Add an extra colon to actually link to the category:
[[:Category:English documentation]]

The Wiki reformats linked dates to match the reader's date
preferences. These three dates will show up the same if you
choose a format in your [[Special:Preferences|]]:
* [[July 20]], [[1969]]
* [[20 July]] [[1969]]
* [[1969]]-[[07-20]]

Images

What it looks like	What you type
A picture, including alternate text:	A picture, including alternate text: [[Image:Nova_Roma_Flag.jpg|Nova Roma flag]]
You can put the image in a frame with a caption: The Nova Roma flag	You can put the image in a frame with a caption: [[Image:Nova_Roma_Flag.jpg|frame|The Nova Roma flag]]
The Nova Roma flag You can put the image in a frame with a caption and make text wrap around it:	[[Image:Nova_Roma_Flag.jpg|frame|left|The Nova Roma flag]] You can put the image in a frame with a caption and make text wrap around it:

Special characters

Now that Mediawiki (the software that makes this wiki go) supports UTF-8, many of these can be entered directly into articles, without the HTML markup. On many wikis, a tool appears under the edit box to make this easier. See Help:Special characters.

Templates

Templates let us put things onto pages automatically.

Some categories of articles use special templates.

You add them by putting the template's name in {{double braces}}.