Help:Editing

From NeoPets Guild

[edit] Before You Start

It's easy to edit these pages, and we hope you will add to the wiki. Please read the short lists of guidelines and safety tips first.

Thank you!

[edit] To Edit an Existing Page

Go to the page you want to edit.
Log in. (Optional, if you don't log in, you may not get the credit for your changes and contributions.)
Click on the edit button.
Type in your text.
Add formatting. (Optional. See below for some formatting commands.)
Click on the "Show preview" button to see what your changes look like. Continue editing, if you want to make more changes.
Click on "Save page" when you are done.

[edit] To Create a New Page

There are a couple of different ways to create a new page. Before you create a page, please search to see if the topic already exists. Ways to create a page:

[edit] Use the Create Page

Go to create a page and enter the name of the page you want to create.

[edit] Type in the URL

You just put in the name (url) that you think the page should have, and a new, almost blank page comes up. Then you click on the edit tab (near the top) and start editing. The full url for the main page is http://guilds.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. To create your new page, replace the "Main_Page" with the name of your page. so, if you wanted to name the page "xyz", you'd just start by entering http://guilds.wikia.com/wiki/xyz

Now you've created the page, and you can start editing it just like an existing page.

[edit] Use a Link

Another way to create a new page is to put a link to it on an existing page. After you save the change to the existing page, click on the red link to go to the new page and start editing it. (Red links indicate that the page doesn't exist yet.) So for example, to create a page named Happy, put the link [[Happy]] on a page that should link to the new Happy page.

[edit] Formatting

Some beginning formatting commands:

Use equal signs (=) around text to make headers.

Use two single quotes around text for italics and three for bold. So ''italics'' creates italics, and '''bold''' creates bold.

Most html commands will also work on the wiki pages.

See Help:Formatting and Help:Advanced Editing.

[edit] Practicing

You can practice editing and formatting pages in the sandbox. The sandbox is for just playing around, so it doesn't matter if it doesn't look good.

This text is stored on Wikia Help. Suggest changes here.

In pictures

Click edit at the top of the page you want to edit.

An "edit box" will open, type your new sentences or corrections.
Please note: on newer wikis you may see the new editor.

Click Preview to check what you have written.

Click Save page to save your writing.

Video walkthrough

Video at Blip.tv

Editing

Ready to put your flavor on things? Learn how here!

Also check out our editing Tips and Tricks

For more videos please see our online demos page.

Some other editing tips

Explain your edit in the 'Summary' box between the edit window and the bottom row of grey buttons. By filling it the summary box, it allows you to tell members of your wiki community why you made a certain change to an article, making communication easier. You only need to type a short message here, for example 'added introduction'.
Use the 'Show preview' button to check your edit before saving. Remember to save your preview before moving on. The preview button gives you a chance to check your edit for formatting and typos before it's up on the wiki for all to see. It also spares you the grief of having to go back and make another change after saving an article.
If you are logged in, you can mark an edit as minor by checking the 'This is a minor edit' box. This lets other editors know your edit is very small.
Pages that start with 'User:' are personal pages. While it's considered impolite to make major edits to other people's user pages without permission, feel free to leave messages for people on their User_talk pages.
Always remember to sign your talk page comments with four tildes ( ~~~~). That way, the person you're writing to will know who sent him/her the message.

Formatting

Most text formatting is usually done with wiki markup, so you don't have to learn HTML.

See Help:Formatting and Help:HTML.

Links

Links are important on wikis to help readers navigate your site. The more your pages are linked to each other, the easier it is for readers to find what they're looking for.

See Help:Links, Help:External link and also Category:Link help on Wikia Help.

Wiki variables and templates

Use {{SITENAME}} to see the current Wikia. For instance, {{SITENAME}} on this site prints out as Wikia Help.

That and a few other templates are common to MediaWiki sites. For a complete list of these "magic words", see magic words on Meta.

You can create templates. After you create the page Template:XXX, using the command {{XXX}} will include that content in your current page. So, if you have something that needs to be included on many other pages, you might want to use a template.

Most templates available on the Central Wikia can be used on individual Wikia wikis with just "wikia:" prefixed to the name. See Help:Shared templates.