Help:Editing FAQ
From AstrologyNotes
(Redirected from AstrologyNotes:Editing FAQ)
Note: In order to edit article pages a person must first create an account and login to AstrologyNotes.
How do I edit a page?
- It's quite simple. Simply click the "Edit this page" tab located at the top of the page or the other edit link across from headings on the right hand side of the page, and type away.
But I have problems editing with my browser!
- Most browsers will work with the MediaWiki wiki software that we use, however there are a few known bugs
- see Mediawiki's section on browser issues.
How do I make links?
- A link is just the name of the page surrounded by double square brackets (created by the AB button in the edit bar while editing). It's also possible to make the link display text that is different from that of the link itself:
- [[page name]] - will display the page name, for example [[AstrologyNotes:FAQ]] is displayed as AstrologyNotes:FAQ
- [[page name]]s -- suffix text will display as part of the link. For example [[Sun sign]]s displays as Sun signs.
- [[page name|display name]] -- the piped link: hide the page name and display something else (but try to avoid confusing what page you are linking to and don't use "click here"!). For example [[AstrologyNotes:FAQ|AstrologyNotes FAQ]] is displayed as AstrologyNotes FAQ
- [[page name (disambiguation)|]] -- the "pipe trick": the part in parentheses will not be displayed. Disambiguation is usually not needed with astrology, see Wikipedia's article on disambiguation for more info.
- NB You don't need to put underscores ("_"), to act as space separators like you see in links. Spaces will work fine.
How do I rename a page?
- Registered users with a little bit of editing history under their belt can move a page; this moves the page content and edit history to a new title, and creates a redirecting page at the old title. This method is better than just copying and pasting the content by hand, as it preserves the article's history, as required by our license. Use the "Move this page" link. Once you have moved a page, please click the "What links here" and fix the links to the old page (which will be labelled as a redirect in the "What links here" list). See Wikipedia's article on moving pages for more details. (Note: we refer to Wikipedia a lot because we use the same software, otherwise we are not associated with them).
- Images and other media files cannot be renamed. You may save a copy of the file to your computer, rename it there, and then upload it with the new name. Fix any links to the old file to point to the new one (see the What links here link on the toolbox of the image page). Then tag the old file with an "images for speedy deletion" tag by using Template:isd (Usage: {{isd|New image name}}) in the image's description page. This will add it to the Category:Redundant files category, and an admin will delete it for you.
How do I delete a page?
- First off, please don't blank articles. Such changes will most likely get reverted soon afterwards, so they are pointless, too.
- Articles that should be deleted are most commonly nominated in the Member Forum in the deletion requests category.
How do I edit a redirect page?
- The easiest way to edit the redirected page is to click on the link you see at the top of the page after being redirected: "redirected from ...". For example, if you try to go to the Moon inconjunct Sun page, you are redirected to the Sun quincunx Moon page. At the very top of that page, you will see a message: "(redirected from Moon inconjunct Sun)", Click on the Moon inconjunct Sun link and you will be able to see the redirect page.
How long should the ideal article be?
- Since one can link from page to page, then how long should the ideal AstrologyNotes article be? A good rule of thumb would be less than 5000 words, unless the subject really, really needs much exposition. However, for a subject that is that complex, one can link several shorter articles together, using a hub page to tie all articles together.
- For example:
- Foo
- History of Foo
- Description of Foo
- Relationship with Bar
- If you write one long article, you will need new headlines anyway. If you write a long paragraph, then you need to add new linebreaks.
How do I figure out how big an article is?
- Search results give the size in bytes, for example "Knot theory (3220 bytes)". You can also copy the file into Notepad or other text editor and save it to disk to view the file size. If instead of file size you wish to see the word count, you will have to use a program that provides that. If you have a editor such as Microsoft word or Unix vi, copy the content of the edit box into the editor and use the word count feature.
- When the article size reaches 32 KB a warning is displayed at the top of the edit screen, as that size gives some browsers problems. It will likely give readers and editors problems, also.
How do I determine what other users have changed in an article?
- The AstrologyNotes's software can produce a list of all the changes between two versions of an article (either between two consecutive versions, or between an old and the current version), laid out in two-columns side by side with changes highlighted. From the Recent Changes page you can click the "diff" link; from an article page itself click "Page history", then "cur" or "last" to see changes.
How do I convert Unicode characters to HTML special characters?
- Edit the article just like you do UTF-8'd wiki sites.
- Then hit preview. You should get broken characters, but don't delete them because they enable conversion of Unicode characters to HTML.
- While keeping broken characters, type articles. You probably want to copy the entire article before removing it then paste it after you get broken characters.
How can I put pictures on my pages?
- First, you need the right to publish the picture under the GNU Free Documentation License. This means that either you created the picture and therefore own the copyright, or it is in the public domain, or it also lies under the GFDL license. If the picture is located on a server you control, you can refer to that image from your wiki page by simply including its URL, like this:
-
http://my.webserver.com/image.png - and it will be included. (Note it will only be linked, not displayed.) If instead you want to upload a picture to astrologynotes.org, you can use Special:Upload which usually appears as a link on the toolbox. Once it is uploaded, you can refer to it in your wiki pages by including its file name :
[[image:NameOfImage.png|Alternate Text]].
- See also Image use policy.
How can I delete uploaded items?
- Only AstrologyNotes:Administrators can delete uploads, but anyone can upload a new item with the same name, thereby replacing the old one. See How do I rename a page?
How do I describe images?
- Click on the image to get the description page. Also, when you upload the file everything you put in the upload summary is placed into the image description page. At the very least, you should have some explanation of why the images is public domain (for example, "image created by me"). If the image is under the GFDL license (for example, from Wikipedia Commons), then you will need to link to the image description page of that image to comply with the GFDL.
References
- Wikipedia's editing FAQ - retrieved 6/6/2005
