Class:Section 68, ENG112/Guide to Wikimedia Usage and Syntax

From UMassWiki

Contents 1 Introduction to MediaWiki 1.1 Becoming a member of Umass Wiki 1.2 Learning to Navigate 2 Creating Content 2.1 How to create a page 2.2 How to delete a page 2.3 How to link a page 2.4 How to recover a page 2.5 How to make a headline on a page 3 How to Stylize Your Page 3.1 Using Bold Text 3.2 Using Italic Text 3.3 Using Bold AND Italic text 3.4 Creating Text Bullets 3.5 Using Block Indents 3.6 How to Avoid MediaWiki's text-formatting 3.7 Using HTML Markup to Stylize 3.7.1 How to Add Line Breaks 3.7.2 How to Center Text 4 How to add a picture 5 General Guide to Responsibly Editing Pages

Introduction to MediaWiki

Hello, and welcome to Mediawiki!

While the Mediawiki software may seem awkward and arcane now, you will soon grow acustomed to using it. Heck, maybe you will even grow to love it! While you may not realize it yet, you're participating in something revolutionary and democratizing. Akin to Wikipedia, you will soon have fully hypertextualized creative-control at your fingertips, complete with ability to post pictures and format text. Mediawiki gives freedom of expression to everyday people like you or me, leaving out the media middle-man. In our case, we will wield this power of the press to create a hypertextualized learning forum and take advantage of it to the fullest extent possible.

Keep in mind that while classes (such as yours) utilize this Wiki, it also serves as an encyclopedia for information on issues pertaining to the general UMass community. To that end, you are encouraged to venture out into the "main" section. Please: create and edit pages at will, add pages on pertinent events, RSO's, fraternity's etcetera! Like with a coral reef, the vitality of your class Wikispace rests upon the activity level on the general Wiki.

Also, note that User:GMorehou's company Smart Cat Media takes ownership of all content placed on the general Wikispace, reserving the right to use it, even for profit where related to UMassWiki. Smart Cat Media does not take ownership of content you post in the class or user space. All content posted on the general wikispace as well as class and userspaces is released under the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5] license, which allows anyone the right to redistribute and build upon your work on a non-commercial basis. An exception to this rule is if you add the template {{ClassCopyright}} to the top of your page. Doing so will exempt your work from being released under a Creative Commons license. There is little reason to do this, however, unless you prefer that nobody else be able to (legally) repost or alter your essay. Such a motion may be ill received by your peers or even prohibited by your course facilitator. Please read UMassWiki:Copyrights for more information on this subject.

• If you are thinking you may want to publish something that has been posted on the Wiki, do not worry. The "non-commercial" clause of the Creative Commons license only applies to others. You, as the content creator, are free to monetarily exploit your content.

Introductions and disclaimers aside, let's begin our tutorial:

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Becoming a member of Umass Wiki

To make edits to class pages, you need a valid login. To get one, click "log in" on the upper right side of your browser window. Choose a Username, and a password.

Please, carefully consider your Username. It will be publicly seen by all who visit your userspace, communicate with you, and read your work. For confidentiality reasons, you may choose to create a "user handle," insteading of using part or all of your real name. Indecent and or obscene names are forbidden, and any User with such a name may face deletion at the discretion of GMorehou or the class facilitator. GMorehou has installed an extension to Mediawiki that will allow Username changes, but this is not likely to change your signatures. You would have to seach the wiki and change them yourself. so play it safe - moving your stuff is a pain! Plus, there are many edgy and endearing handles that do not contain an expletive or epithet. Watch out for inadvertantly embarassing names, such as Ahol19 :D

Learning to Navigate

• Navigation is achieved through the "navigation" pane on the left side of your browser.
  
  • To get to your class area, click "UMassWiki classes."
  • To see recent changes to the Wiki, click "Recent Changes."
  • To get an idea of the content found on the "main" part of the Wiki, click "Random Page"
  • To return to the Wiki's "home page," click "Main Page."

• Once on a page, you will see some tabs at the top of your screen.
  • "Discussion" is where you can leave comments about the page/essay, or contact a user.
  • "Edit" is where you alter the page you are currently at.
  • Clicking "History" allows one to see the previous stages of the page in question.

• Above those are a few more tabs (they will only appear if logged in)
  • (Your Username) Clicking that will imediately bring you to your userspace.
  • "mytalk" Clicking this takes one right to their discussion page.
  • "my contributions" Clicking this presents a list of the last 50 edits you have made to the wiki.

Creating Content

This portion of the FAQ will adress how to create pages, delete them, link them, add images, and other core editing tasks

• It assumes you are already comfortable with navigating the Wiki, and builds upon that knowledge. If you get lost, reviewing the navigation segment or just clicking links may prove helpful.

How to create a page

Without pages, we have no content. Therefore, it is pertinent that you master this skill. Indeed, you will be expected to put each assignment on a discrete page linking from your userspace.

The syntax to create a page is as follows:

• [[/testpage|testpage]]
• And here is the page that code creates: testpage

Both brackets are required, as is the slash. If you inadvertantly forget the slash, or have a space before your slash, your work will appear on the main Wikispace, not your Userspace. This is VERY bad, and gives User:GMorehou, our Wiki administrator, ulcers. For more information on why posting content on the main area is unacceptable, head to help:namespaces. It gives a shout out to PBR and has funny graphics, so do check it out.

How to delete a page

To delete any page, just add the text template {{SpeedyDelete}} to your page. This is called "nuking," and alerts User:GMorehou that you want the page deleted. Once this is done, User:GMorehou will come and delete the page upon his next log on. When he logs on and removes the page, it cannot easily (if at all) be recovered, so use the template with caution. Oh, and keep in mind, the command IS case sensitive! As for location? Anywhere in the page will work, but it is advisable to place it at the top of your document for visibility's sake.

How to link a page

What is a Wiki, if not an amalgam of hypertextualized links. Think of it as a website, but without the complex syntactical structure of HTML. To that end, create as many hyperlinks as you can, until our Wiki resembles a neuronal map. This was the dream of the web's progenitor's; let's make it a reality!

Assuming the page in question already exists, and is on a persons's userspace (It most likely will be for class tasks...), here is the syntax used to link to a page:

• [[User:Dkinzler/Lyrics_to_Siege%27s_Conform]]

• The above shown code creates this link: User:Dkinzler/Lyrics_to_Siege's_Conform

If you spell the link wrong or mix up the case (yes, links are case sensitive), a new page will be created. In such a case, add a {{SpeedyDelete}} to that new page. Since many links (especially those with spaces in them) have complex names, you may find it prudent to cut and past link names, so you don't foul up.

How to recover a page

At some point, you may find that a page has either been vandalized by another individual, or that you have imadvertantly deleted content. If this happens, you can recover a previous version of the page in question by going to that page and then proceeding to click on the "history" tab, which is located at the top of your browser window. It will show the last 50 edits to the page in question, ordered by date of modification. Modifications tagged with "m" are minor edits. Once you find the edit which contains the needed information, cut and paste it into the latest revision. Alternately, as in the case of vandalism, you can revert to an older version of the page by going to it through history, and selecting save. It will replace the defaced version. Note that this cannot undo a page that has been deleted by the template {{SpeedyDelete}}

How to make a headline on a page

Headlines are essential to well-organized Mediawiki content, so master them. Most importantly, they automatically create a table of contents, visible at the top of your page. Any visitor can navigate to a specific part of your site by simply clicking the desired hyperlink in this table of contents. Anything within a headline will be cataloged and put into the table of contents. Also notable is that they put the enclosed headline text in a large and bold font; easy for visitors to see. The most basic type of headline is just two equals sides on each side of your headline text.

The syntax for making this kind of headline is:

==Insertyourheadlinehere==

• Of course, you can use any text you want between those two equals signs. Mine was just an example.

• To create a subheading, use three equal signs on each side. This will create a sub-section on your table of contents. It is useful for large documents such as this one, as it delineates sub-topics. I have used them for discrete topics, such as page creation.

The syntax for a subheading is ===Insertyoursubheadlinehere===

How to Stylize Your Page

Unlike a word proccessor, Mediawiki's edit box will not format the text in the way you type it in. To format things as you wish, you have to use programming commands. There is one way to partially avoid Wikimedia's formatting, however, which will be discussed at length later in this tutorial.

Using Bold Text

For bold text, encapsulate your phrase with THREE apostrophes on EACH side of text you want bold.

• Example: '''Let's Be Bold'''

• The result of this is: Let's Be Bold

Using Italic Text

For italicized text, encapsulate your phrase with TWO apostrophes on EACH side of the text you want in italics. nd out

• Example: ''MLA sometimes requires italics.''

• The result of this is: MLA sometimes requires italics.

Using Bold AND Italic text

For bold And italic Text, encapsulate your phrase with FIVE apostrophes one EACH side of the text you wanted stylized.

• Example: '''''Let's be bold AND fancy!'''''

• The result of this code is Let's be bold AND fancy!

Creating Text Bullets

To create text bullets, insert an asterisk. Use them for creating lists and outlines, as well as to give documents an extra bit of visual "punch."

Eg. the code: *Kid, your gonna shoot your eye out! produces the result...

• Don't shoot your eye out!

Keep in mind that the asterisk must be in "column 1," the leftmost region of the screen, for this command to work. Otherwise, it will render as an ordinary ASCII type asterisk. If you want to indent a bullet, put two asterisks at the beginning of your line. Note that bullets can only be indented when below another bullet.

Eg. the code: **Mothers do know best: look at your shattered glasses! produces the result...

• (you need a single asterisk statement for this to work...hence this line...)
  • Mothers do know best: look at your shattered glasses!

(sorry for the bad/obscure joke...)

Using Block Indents

To indent a whole block of text, place a colon before the text passagge you wish to indent. Extra colons equal extra "tabs."

• For Example:

<Nowkiki>

This text is slighty indented. Perhaps this may befit a block quote when following MLA rules. (There is a block quote command; <blockquote>, </blockquote>)

Let's really indent. This may be good for making Wiki discussions more readable.

Yes, you can indent ad nauseum :D

</Nowiki> Produces the result:

This text is slighty indented. Perhaps this may befit a block quote when following MLA rules.

Let's really indent. This may be good for making Wiki discussions more readable.

Yes, you can indent ad nauseum :D

• Note that this indent function will not allow you to indent a paragraph. Mediawiki has no provision for sinle-line indents.

How to Avoid MediaWiki's text-formatting

Say you have an essay you want to put in MediaWiki, but do not want to manually have to re-add paragraph breaks. There is an easy command to do this, which instructs MediaWiki to post your text without any coding. Sandwich all text you wish to remain unformatted in between the following clauses. Keep in mind, the slash on the closing "nowiki" is critical to not altering the formatting of the rest of your document. Also, to reiterate, this command contraindicts the usage of othe Mediawiki commands/coding within it's brackets.

• The command is <nowiki> selected body of text </nowiki>

• It's result would be

Let's try a command! {(SpeedyDelete}} See, it ignored the command!

Note that even this clause cannot get around Mediawiki's cardinal limitation, the inability to have text not be left-justified. As you witnessed, if you do not have alphanumerical charachters of some sort entered in the left most column, a dashed blu box will appear in front of the text with the space in front of it. Yes, this means you are precluded from using paragraph indents- a vestige from this software's enclopedia oriented (Wikipedia) [[1]] pedigree.

• Example:

I like blue boxes...

But not all the time!

As you now see, however, you can take advantage of this "limitation" to selectively make pertinant text stand out. It is very eyecatching!

Using HTML Markup to Stylize

If you happen to know traditional HTML programming code, note that much of it does work in Wikimedia, although it is considered "deprecated," or outmoded by native commands.

Some commands, however, are still useful.

How to Add Line Breaks

• To add a line break, use the command <br>

• Eg. Hello<br>I<br>like<br>carriage<br>returns

• It functions as seen below, dropping a line (or carriage return), even though your text is in the same row of the editor window.

Hello,
I
like
carriage
returns

How to Center Text

For reasons of visual impact, you may find a need to center text, especially for a title on a userspace.

Here is the command that does this: <center>Text you want centered</center>

As you can see below, it precisely centers the text on the screen...

Text you want centered

How to add a picture

Chances are, at some point you may find the need for an illustration of some sort, or, maybe you'll want your userspace to have an avatar, akin to Facebook. Since this section is of an unwieldy length, however, it is provided at the link below:

How to add a picture

General Guide to Responsibly Editing Pages

• If you are typing up a lot of information, do it in a word processing program, and then paste the text into your page. Computers crash, or you could accidently hit the "back" button on your browser; either incident causing you to lose your work. Plus, Wikimedia lacks a spell-checking provision.

• Leave a "summary" explaining your edit, especially if you are editing something that is not of your own creation. That way, it is clear to fellow Wiki users what you edited and why. For example, if somebody spelled a word wrong you might say "spelling: there-their." If the edit is minor, like the afformentioned one, click the button, "this is a minor edit." These options are located directly above "save page."

• Utilize "show preview" to check that a page is formatted as you intended, instead of "save page." This cuts down on the number of history entries; helpful if the need to revert a page ever arises.

• Only post "free" content, or content that you own the rights to. WikiMedia's software license prohibits the posting of traditionally (AKA. restrictively) copyrighted pictures and text. Things like journal abstracts, or pictures of pop-stars generally are restrictively copyrighted. In such cases, clear the copyright with the owner first (good luck :D), or create a link to the content. Anything licensed under "Creative Commons,"or "GNU" license, is NOT restricively copyrighted, and may be posted on our Wiki. This includes any and all content found on Wikipedia, as well as most of the open source software community's output. If you find restrictively copyrighted content on our Wiki, you are legally obligated by our Wikimedia usage license to remove it immediately. Please, do not abnegate this duty, lest User:GMorehou incur a lawsuit from some powerful corporation.

• Use links to keep a page from getting unruly. Placing all your essays on one page leads to an inordinate amount of scrolling, as well as slow page loads. Remember, it is possible that some viewers may only have dialup, or are surfing from older computers with little RAM. Be considerate to them!

If you want to include many, or large pictures, make sure to link!

• The UMass Wiki moderator wants all content on the "main wiki" to meet a PG13 standard. On class Wiki's and personal userspaces, more freedom is granted, but not a complete license to vulgarity.
  • Remember the Miller Test that the Supreme Court employs. Posts that are pornographic, scatolgical, loaded with non-quotational epithets, or otherwise obscene AND lacking in educational, artistic or informative merit may face deletion, even if they reside on your own person userspace.

• If you make a substantial edit to someone's Userspace, it is considerate to notify them by posting a note under the "discussion" tab.

• If you ever see a spelling error on a page, fix it. Same with unambigous grammar errors- unless the content is an essay.