Help:Wiki Basics

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This page describes the 'how to' for some basic wiki features, intended for first time wiki users (editors and translators). As a mediawiki platform, general wiki use is the same as other sites like Wikipedia. Googling "mediawiki" or "Wikipedia" along with a topic will likely lead you to more detailed guides on how to do something.

Also see the format guideline for translator and editor conventions, comments on page layout, and useful common formatting and wiki code.

Editing pages

Pages can be edited by clicking the "Edit" tab in the upper right. Sub sections of pages can also be edited by clicking the "[Edit]" link next to section headers.

Editing a page will open up the raw wiki text, along with a few other options discussed below.

Show Changes

This button gives you a side-by-side review of all the changes you made to a page. It is a good idea to check this for every edit just to make sure you didn't make accidental changes.

Show Preview

This button shows you what the page will look like after your edit. It is particularly helpful when changing formatting.

Summary

Summary is a description or justification of the edit that will appear in the page history. The details of the edit can be seen in the page history, so the summary text does not need to repeat the contents. If the edits have no particular theme and are just normal edits, then it is perfectly acceptable to leave it blank.

Example summaries (other than leaving it blank) might be:

minor typos

fixing navbar

adding new volume information

Best Practices

In many cases it's better to make fewer edits when possible. Therefore, if you need to edit multiple sections of page, in most cases, you should use the edit tab at the upper right of the page, rather than using the edit link on section headers multiple times.

If you notice a mistake and need to make another edit that is fine, but that can usually be avoided by checking Show Changes and Show Preview before saving the page.

At times, it is fine or even good to make multiple edits. One example might be if you are stopping reading for the time being and want to make corrections so far. Another example would be to highlight one set of edits for review that would otherwise be mixed in and hidden by a larger set of trivial edits.

Creating New Pages

Creating pages is done much the same as editing. Instead of editing an existing page, you type in the url for the page you want to create, or follow a red link from another page. However, in addition to checking the page content, you should also double check the page name before saving.

Naming New Pages

New project names are simply either the name of the series in romaji or the common English name, whichever the page creator chooses. Alternative languages projects append the language on to the end the name.

• English:

Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria
The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village

• Alt lang:

Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria - Français
The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village (Indonesia)

Pages related to a project are named with the project name as a prefix. In the case of chapters, the name should include both the volume number and chapter number.

• English:

Absolute Duo:Registration Page
Absolute Duo:Volume 1 Prologue
Absolute Duo:Volume 1 Chapter 1

• Alt lang:

Absolute Duo (Swedish):Registration Page
Absolute Duo (Swedish):Volume 1 Prologue
Absolute Duo (Swedish):Volume 1 Chapter 1

Alternatively, alt language projects may choose to use their own languages words in the title (registration page, volume, prologue, chapter, etc).

If you make a mistake naming a page, rather than create a new page, it's better to move the current, misnamed page (see below section).

Moving (Renaming) Pages

All registered users can "Move" a page to change the name of that page. The option under the "More" tab next to the History tab.

Moving a page will automatically create a redirect that will send anyone trying to access the old address to the new page name. Even though it's not required with redirects, depending on the circumstances, you may want to update any links to the old address to now point to the new page name.

Link Formatting

Links are added to pages as follows

• Internal links (to other BT wiki pages)

[[BT page name | text to display]]

• External links (to sites other than the BT wiki)

[link_to_external_site text to display]

Whenever adding links to pages that don't exist, make sure the page names follow the naming conventions, otherwise someone is likely to create a misnamed page in the future.

Deleting Pages

Normal users cannot delete pages, however users who belong to the Editor, Translator, and Supervisor groups can. If there is a page that should be deleted, you can mark it for deletion by adding the following text to the page.

{{Delete
|reason page should be deleted
}}

The page should be deleted eventually after adding that, but if the page needs to be deleted as soon as possible for some reason then you should also try contacting someone who can do the deletion directly and/or the admin contact page. But most of the time it's probably fine to just mark it as above and it will eventually be deleted.

Uploading Files

Most users won't have to do this, but files such as novel illustrations can be uploaded to the wiki. The procedure is different if it's a new file or a "better"/revised version one already on the wiki.

In most cases, the English project and the alternate language versions will share the same files .

New Files and File Naming

New files can be uploaded through the "Upload File" link under the "Tools" menu at the bottom of the left side-bar.

File names should be descriptive, including the series name or abbreviation, the volume, and the page number if possible. If uploading new files for a project, it's simplest just to copy the format of the already uploaded files (assuming they follow this general guideline).

Examples:

STnBD_V01_059.jpg
STnBD_V03_067.jpg
Horizon2B_0002-0003.jpg
Horizon4C_0109.jpg

New Versions of Existing Files

If uploading a new version or replacement for a file that already exists, you should use the "Upload a new version of this file" link available at the bottom of the "File History" section of the file page.

There are a couple of exceptions when you may need to upload the new versions as a new file instead. One is if the file extension is different, such as .png instead of .jpg, then it is only possible to upload as a new file (the file should be the same other than the extension). Another exception is if uploading an image typeset to a particular language, then you should upload as a new file, appending a language code at the end of the file name (ie BTS_vol_07_200_EN.jpg).

Note that if you are in one of those exceptions and are uploading a new file, then you will have to edit the appropriate pages to change them to the new file name.

Contacting Users and Discussions

Talk pages

The primary place to discuss topics related to pages or ask questions is the Talk page. The talk page for any content page can be found near the upper left by clicking the "Discussion" tab/button (next to the "Page" tab).

Questions or discussions related to editing pages should often be done here. These talk pages often work best when multiple people are working on a project or page together.

However, it can also be difficult for people to notice when a new question or discussion is opened on an inactive page. If a talk question on a talk page goes unnoticed, particularly if you have a question for a specific person, it may be good to post on that person's user talk page. A link to a user's talk page can be found in the history of a page he or she edited, or the link is often attached to comments on talk pages.

Posting on a user's talk page will usually send that person a notification, so he or she is more likely to respond to messages on a user talk page.

Signing messages

For comments on user talk pages, it is common to "sign" at the end of the comment with username and date. This is done automatically by posting ~~~~ at the end of the comment, which can be done quickly by clicking the signature icon in editing bar.

Forum

In general, most discussions that occur on talk pages could also occur in the forum, though some people may not frequent the forums as much as the wiki. The forum is more often used for discussions, suggestions, and admin topics relating to the site as a whole.

Note that posts from new users might take some time to appear since they need to be approved by forum moderators first (as spam prevention precaution). After 3-5 approved posts, your account should lose its new user status and your posts will become visible immediately, no longer requiring approval.

New users on the forum will also be unable to send private messages until losing new user status.

Reviewing Edits

Most pages are open for editing by anyone, therefore it is often important to make sure that any edits made are valid. There are a few important ways to do this.

Page History

Every content page has a "View History" tab in the upper right that allows you to view a summary of all edits made to a page. You can use the history to compare revisions between any two versions of the page and see all the edits made to a page. The "diff" button in page history does this for individual edits.

Recent Changes

The Recent Changes page lists all recent edits on all pages, and is particularly useful for people helping to monitor changes across the entire wiki.

Watchlists

A useful wiki feature allows you to receive notifications when changes are made to specific pages. You can mark a page for your watchlist by clicking the star icon in the upper right.

After marking a page, that page will appear bolded in the Recent Changes page and you will receive a notification for any changes to that page or its talk page (if you have that option checked under Preferences->User Profile). In addition, you can click "Watchlist" in the upper right to see a list of all recent changes to all pages you've added to your watchlist.

This feature can be very useful for anyone dedicated to a particular project who wants to monitor all changes on the given pages.

Related Changes

On the left sidebar, under "Tools," there is an link for "Related changes." This page will display all recent changes for a given page, and any pages linked from that page. It can be useful for checking all recent changes to a project; by using the link from the project page, you can see a list of all recent changes to the chapters.

User Contributions

In entries for a page history, there will be a "contribs" link to a page listing all user contributions for a user. This can be a useful feature, in particular for checking when a given user was last active on the wiki.

It can also be useful to check your own past edits; for your own contributions, there is also a "Contributions" link in the top right (the same on every page).

User groups

New users will typically not join user groups immediately upon registering for the site, but after users have contributed and/or need additional user rights, they can request to be added to user groups. See this forum thread for general eligibility and instructions.

Transclusion

Transclusion is a method for having the wiki automatically copy/add the text from one page into another. It is useful for full text pages, and for segments of code or text that are duplicated between many pages, such as navigation bars at the bottom of chapters.

Full Text Pages

Full text pages should use transclusion to add individual chapters, NOT copying the text directly from individual chapters. This is done so that when edits are made to a chapter, they do not be to be done to the full text page too.

If making a full text page, you can check another full text page for the proper formatting to use transclusions.

Noinclude tags

The tag <noinclude>text</noinclude> is used to mark a segment of text for the wiki to not include with a translcusion. On chapter pages, it is typically placed around the navbar at the bottom of the page so that the navbars won't be copied over the full text page.

Templates

Templates are an advanced wiki feature and are pages that are designed to only be used with transclusions. They can be passed parameters and use logical operators, similar to functions in programming. Templates can be used to accomplish things that couldn't be done otherwise, but are a more complicated feature; you can look up guides on mediawiki templates if needing to work with one.