USAFA Folklore:Editing FAQs
From USAFA Folklore
This USAFA Folklore Wiki information page outlines the questions that come up often, usually from users, with regard to the Wiki editing process. If you have general questions about editing pages on the Wiki, please put them on the Talk Page of this article and someone will answer them.
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How do I edit an existing article?
- Go to the article you are interested in editing by entering the article title in the "search" box at left and pressing "Go".
- When you are on the page for the article you want to edit, simply click the "edit" tab located at the top of the page. This will open a text box, in which you can edit the article. See the Quick Editing Guide to learn about making links, using bold and italics, linking to images, and many other things.
- When you are finished editing, click the "Show preview" below the text box to preview how your edits will look.
- If you are satisfied with your edits, click the "Save page" button below the text box.
How can I discuss the contents of an article with other editors?
- Because a Wiki is, by definition, a collaborative project, discussion among editors is encouraged. Therefore, every article has a "Talk" page associated with it.
- To get to the talk page, go the article you want to discuss and click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. This will take you to the Talk page for that article. If there is no discussion for that article yet, you will be taken to a blank editing text box.
- If there is discussion, you will need to click the "edit" tab on the top of the Talk page To add or respond. Clicking "edit" will take you to an editing text box, much like that for a regular article. At this point, you can add your discussion in the same way as you would add or edit content in an article.
How do I start a new article?
Things to do before creating a new article
- Use the search box at left to see whether someone has written a similar article before you start one yourself. Choose the title carefully, then click "Search" (not "Go") to browse the database.
- Review any conventions or standards relevant to your article. These are located in the Guidelines category and on the USAFA Folklore:Standards page. This includes standards for the title of the article.
- Remember that the title that you choose is important, as other articles will link to your new article by this name.
Creating an article from the search box
- If you know what the title of your article will be, and it does not already exist (see "Things to do before creating a new page" above), you can create the article by typing the title into the search box at left and clicking the "Go" button (not the "Search" button). You will get an error message at the top of the page that says, "There is no page titled ':pagename'. You can create this page.' To create your article, click the "create this page" red link, and you will be taken to a blank editing page where you can enter the new text.
Starting an article from a red link
- It is possible to create a new article by linking to the non-existant article from an existing article. Often, links to non-existant pages are included in articles either in preparation for creating the non-existant page, or to encourage other people to create the page. If the article does not exist, the link to the non-existant page will be red. Clicking the red link will take you directly to the blank editing box for the non-existant article.
How can I add a picture to my article?
- Including pictures on a page takes several steps. First, the picture must be uploaded to the Wiki database. You do this by clicking the "Upload file" link in the toolbox to the left (below the search box). You will be taken to a page with three textboxes. In the first box, enter or browse to the current location of the picture you want to upload. In the second box, type the filename you want to use for the image on the Wiki (e.g., "Hamster.jpg"); if you do not choose a new name, the filename will default to the name of the original file. In the third box, type in a short entry with a description and/or the source of the photo. When you have done these three things, click, "Upload file". The file will be transferred to the Wiki database, and you will be shown a new page for your imaged (titled, e.g., "Image:Hamster.jpg").
- Once the file is uploaded, you can use the image on pages. To insert an image into a page, use the tag [[Image:Hamster.jpg]]. Please note that image names, including the file extension (.jpg, .gif, etc.) are case sensitive. See USAFA Folklore:Images for more information.
- Be aware that some images (most notably Contrails and Polaris Yearbook covers) have certain naming conventions for consistency. Please check those articles for the conventions before uploading a new scan of a cover.
- Please do not upload any pictures, such as those that are copyrighted, that the USAFA Folklore Wiki does not have the right to publish.
How do I put my article in a category?
- To place your article in a category, include a
[[Category:Categoryname]]tag at the bottom of your article. If your article belongs in several categories, inclue one entire category tag for each category. The categories will automatically detect the tags and include the tagged article title in its contents. - To specify how alphabetize your article, you must include a "sort key" after the category name, separated by a "
|" character. This is most important for articles about individuals. For instance, if you are categorizing the article about Lance P. Sijan in the Notable Graduates category, putting a tag that says[[Category:Notable Graduates]]at the end will, by default, categorize the article under "L" on the category page, because the article's name starts with an "L". To alphabetize the article by last name, you have to add a sort key, which looks like this:[[Category:Notable Graduates|Sijan, Lance P.]]. This way, the category will alphabetize the article under "S".
How do I rename a page?
- If you rename a page, please do so with caution, as many other articles may already link to the page you are trying to rename.
- To rename a page, click the "move" tab at the top of an article, then enter the new article name on the page that comes up. This will move the page content and the 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.
- Once you have moved a page, click the "What links here" link in the toolbox on the left and fix the links to the old page (which will be labelled as redirects in the "What links here" list).
- 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. If you do this, please fix any links to the old file so they point to the new one. If there is a need to rename such a file, please contact an administrator.
How do I delete a page?
- Generally, only system administrators can delete pages. Although Wikipedia has a fairly complex system for nominating and approving article deletions, the USAFA Folklore Wiki is not complex enough to warrant such a procedure. Thus, if you think an article should be deleted, please note it on the Talk Page for that article. The issue can be debated by users and (hopefully) a consensus can be reached on whether or not to delete the article. Please do not blank articles.
Some content on this page has been borrowed from Wikipedia's Editing FAQs.
