Help:Editing primer

This page will go over information on how to preform functions necessary for editing that aren't just editing exiting content. See Help:Handout for important information that all editors need to understand.

For information on how the markdown of MediaWiki pages work, see Help:Formatting.

Creating pages

Creating pages is simple, yet unintuitive. One simply uses the search bar at the top right of any page and makes a search for the page (spelling and character-case matter) they would like to exist. A new page will appear telling the editor the page does not yet exist and ask if they wish to create it. The editor will then click the red text that is the new page name, and then edit normally. Once the first edit to the page is published the page goes live.

Renaming pages

Unlike traditional word processing systems, such as Google Docs, MediaWiki uses the title of a page as it's internal database identifier. Page names are not cosmetic. The changing of a page's name in any way is called, in MediaWiki terminology, moving the page. This is because the edit history and meta data have to be moved to the new page name as well. This is accomplished by hovering your mouse over the button that says "More" and selecting "Move".

Redirects and page name importance

Something to keep in mind when moving a page is that any links on the wiki which point to it will, by default, break. So if a page titled Gummybears is moved to Gummy bears any page with a link to Gummybears will lead to a now non-existent page. This issue is mitigated by, when using the move tool, ensuring the checkbox for "Leave a redirect behind" is ticked. This then makes Gummybears automatically redirect a viewer that goes to it to Gummy bears. This is generally the acceptable means of handling this issue in 99% of cases. If a situation comes up where this is not desirable, then every page that links to Gummybears will need to be manually edited to lead to Gummy bears.

Non-regular editors of the war game wiki are encouraged to seek guidance from an administrator or seasoned contributor before moving pages.

Protected pages and files

Very rarely, an administrator will determine that some kind of page on this website requires that only an administrator edit it. An editor will know if a page is protected and they lack permissions by seeing the button "View source" rather than "Edit" or "Edit source". Bigger wikis use this on high-traction pages to avoid misinformation and to maintain a stable version. For this wiki, it's usually pages relating to policy, files which are official or widely used where changing them is unlikely to make sense, and templates that if not edited carefully can result in a negative cascade effect that makes the website unreadable. While such issues are easy to resolve, they may be hard to catch given the low-traction nature of the wiki, and so it's determined that prevention is the superior option.

If there is a page that an editor wishes to manipulate, but cannot, they are to contact an administrator for assistance. Editors can also ask to become an administrator (see the relevant card at Help:Handout) if this becomes a frequent problem.

Using images

Any image that an editor wishes to use must be manually uploaded to the wiki. This is done by going to Special:Upload.

Notice how there is a big box of information at the top of Special:Upload that says "Important File Uploading Guidelines". This should be read in it's entirety. In short, when you upload a file, you must select a license that most appropriately fits the file. This way this wiki knows the copyright rationale of any given file if a copyright holder reaches out to complain about the file being hosted here. You must also, if you aren't the sole creator of the file, provide a link to where you got the file and who owns the copyright of the file in the "Summary" box.

Once an image is fully uploaded, it can be added to a page in the VisualEditor by clicking "Insert" on the toolbar followed by "Images and media" then locating the relevant file. For information on how to do this in markdown, see Help:Images.

Minor edits

You may notice there is a checkbox that says "This is a minor edit" when editing. The intent of this feature is to allow those that review page history to differentiate between edits which are negligible, such as fixing spelling, punctuation, or grammar, from edits which actually add, remove, or edit content. This is marginally useful on larger wikis, but for the purposes of this wiki, it is irrelevant.

It is ultimately immaterial if an editor uses it or not.

Edit summaries

An edit summary is a box available near the "Save changes" button that gives editors an opportunity to describe briefly what their edit is doing. This makes it simpler to review page history and see how a page changes over time. This is strongly desired. While this is not enforced strictly, if problems begin to arise out of an editor making strings of edits without summaries making them difficult to review, administrators may contact the editor and mandate their use.