Help:Editing

Please note that the guide is an official guide, and as such, this page is subject to constant improvements. The community can make suggestions by utilizing the talk page. Because of the mechanism of MediaWiki (Special:RecentChanges), we won't have to announce any addition/deletion to the guide.

InstallGentoo Wiki is powered by MediaWiki, a free software wiki package written in PHP, originally designed for use on Wikipedia. More in-depth help can be found at Help:Contents on MediaWiki and Help:Contents on Wikipedia.

This is a short tutorial about editing the wiki. Before editing or creating pages, users are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the general tone, layout, and style of existing articles. An effort should be made to maintain a level of consistency throughout the wiki.

You must be logged-in to edit pages. Visit Special:UserLogin to log in or create an account. To experiment with editing, please use the sandbox. For an overview of wiki markup, see Help:Cheatsheet.

Editing

Warning: Before you start creating/editing any page, make sure to heed the the general rules.

To begin editing a page, click the edit tab at the top of the page. Alternatively, users may edit a specific section of an article by clicking the edit link to the right of the section heading. The Editing page will be displayed, which consists of the following elements:

• Edit toolbar (optional)
• Edit box
• Edit summary box
• Save page, Show preview, Show changes, and Cancel links

The edit box will contain the wikitext (the editable source code from which the server produces the web page) for the current revision of the page or section. To perform an edit:

1. Modify the wikitext as needed (see #Formatting below for details).
2. Explain the edit in the Summary box (e.g. "fixed typo" or "added info on xyz" (see Help:Edit summary for details)).
   Note: All edits should (although not enforced) be accompanied by a descriptive summary. The summary allows administrators and other maintainers to easily identify controversial edits and vandalism.
3. Use the Show preview button to facilitate proofreading and verify formatting before saving.
4. Mark the edit as minor by checking the This is a minor edit box if the edit is superficial and indisputable.
5. Save changes by clicking Save page. If unsatisfied, click Cancel instead (or repeat the process until satisfied).

Reverting edits

If a page was edited incorrectly, the following procedures describe how to revert an article to a previous version. To revert a single edit:

1. Click the history tab at the top of the page to be modified (beside the edit tab). A list of revisions is displayed.
2. Click the undo link to the right of the unwanted edit. An edit preview is displayed, showing the current revision on the left and the text to be saved on the right.
3. Write the reason why you are undoing this edit to the edit summary field.
4. If satisfied, click the Save page button at the bottom of the page.

The wiki page should now be back in its original state.

Occasionally, it is necessary to revert several last edits at once. To revert an article to a previous version:

1. Click the history tab at the top of the page to be modified (beside the edit tab). A list of revisions is displayed.
2. View the desired revision (i.e. the last good version) by clicking on the appropriate timestamp. That revision is displayed.
3. Click the edit tab at the top of the page. A warning is displayed: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page.
4. Write the revision timestamp (displayed at the top of page) and a reason why you are reverting page state to the edit summary field.
5. If satisfied, simply click the Save page button to revert to this version.

Creating pages

When to make an article

Before creating a new page, please consider the following:

1. Is your topic worthy of a new page? Search the wiki for similar articles, and improving or adding a section to an existing article instead. Avoid creating stubs.
2. Is your content interesting? Do people on /g/ talk a lot about this topic? Does your content resolve common misonceptions, or answer common questions?
3. Is this the best place to put your content? Avoid adding information that would more easily be found, and more easily kept up to date, elsewhere on the internet. There are already wikis dedicated to Arch and Ubuntu. Don't try to beat them at their own game.

How to make an article

Creating a new page requires selection of a descriptive title and an appropriate category.

Please read Help:Article naming and Help:Style#Title for article naming advice.

Also, your article should be informative, and the main things people will be looking for when browsing this wiki are:

• What is (insert topic here)?
• Why should I use (insert topic here)?
• How do I use (insert topic here)?
• Where can I get (insert topic here)?

and last but not least

• What (insert topic here) does /g/ use or recommend?

These are the questions you should try to answer while writing your article.

To add a new page to some category (say "My new page" to "Some category") you need to:

1. Create a page with your new title by browsing to https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/My_new_page (remember to replace "My_new_page" with the intended title!)
2. Add [[Category:Some category]] to the bottom of your page

Note: Do not create uncategorized pages! All pages must belong to at least one category. If you cannot find a suitable category, consider creating a new one.

Formatting

Text formatting is accomplished with wiki markup whenever possible; learning HTML is not necessary. Various templates are also available for common formatting tasks; see Help:Template for information about templates. The Help:Cheatsheet summarizes the most common formatting options.

Headings and subheadings

Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see distinct topics being discussed, you can break up an article by inserting a heading for each section. See Help:Style#Section headings for style information.

Headings must start from second level, and can be created like this:

== Second-level heading ==

=== Third-level heading ===

==== Fourth-level heading ====

===== Fifth-level heading =====

====== Sixth-level heading ======

Note: First-level headings are not allowed, their formatting is reserved for the article title.

If an article has at least four headings, a table of contents (TOC) will be automatically generated. If this is not desired, place __NOTOC__ in the article. Try creating some headings in the Sandbox and see the effect on the TOC.

Line breaks

An empty line is used to start a new paragraph while single line breaks have no effect in regular paragraphs.

The HTML <br> tag can be used to manually insert line breaks, but should be avoided. A manual break may be justified with other formatting elements, such as lists.

wikitext	rendering
This sentence is broken into three lines.	This sentence is broken into three lines.
This is paragraph number one. This is paragraph number two.	This is paragraph number one. This is paragraph number two.
* This point <br> spans multiple lines * This point ends the list	This point spans multiple lines This point ends the list

Bold and italics

Bold and italics are added by surrounding a word or phrase with two, three or five apostrophes ('):

wikitext	rendering
''italics''	italics
'''bold'''	bold
'''''bold and italics'''''	bold and italics

Strike-out

Use strike-out text to show that the text no longer applies or has relevance.

wikitext	rendering
<s>Strike-out text</s>	Strike-out text

Indenting

To indent text, place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline marks the end of the indented paragraph.

wikitext	rendering
This is not indented at all. :This is indented slightly. ::This is indented more.	This is not indented at all. This is indented slightly. This is indented more.

Note: Use indentation only when strictly necessary to obtain the desired layout. In talk pages, use it to indent replies.

Lists

Remember that wiki syntax does not support multi-line list items; every newline character ends the list item definition. To start a new line inside a list item, use the <br> tag. To enter a multi-line code block inside a list item, use Template:bc and escape the content using <nowiki> tags. See also Help:Template.

Bullet points

Bullet points have no apparent order of items.

To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Multiple *s will increase the level of indentation.

wikitext	rendering
* First item * Second item ** Sub-item * Third item	First item Second item Sub-item Third item

Numbered lists

Numbered lists introduce numbering and thus order the list items. You should generally use unordered lists as long as the order in which items appear is not the primary concern.

To create numbered lists, use the number sign or hash symbol (#). Multiple #s will increase the level of indentation.

wikitext	rendering
# First item # Second item ## Sub-item # Third item	First item Second item Sub-item Third item
# First item # Second item #* Sub-item # Third item	First item Second item Sub-item Third item

Definition lists

Definition lists are defined with a leading semicolon (;) and a colon (:) following the term.

wikitext	rendering
Definition lists: ; Keyboard: Input device with buttons or keys ; Mouse: Pointing device for two-dimensional input or ; Keyboard : Input device with buttons or keys ; Mouse : Pointing device for two-dimensional input	Definition lists: Keyboard Input device with buttons or keys Mouse Pointing device for two-dimensional input or Keyboard Input device with buttons or keys Mouse Pointing device for two-dimensional input
Use additional colons if a definition has multiple definitions: ; Term : First definition : Second definition	Use additional colons if a definition has multiple definitions: Term First definition Second definition

Definition lists must not be simply used for formatting, see W3's examples.

Code

To add code to the wiki, use one of the code formatting templates. Alternatively, simply start each line with a single whitespace character, for example:

 $ echo Hello World

See also Help:Style#Code formatting.

Tables

Tip: See Mediawiki Tables Generator to automatically generate tables.

Used effectively, tables can help organize and summarize swaths of data. For advanced table syntax and formatting, see Help:Table.

wikitext	rendering
{| class="wikitable" |+ Tabular data ! Distro !! Color |- | Arch || Blue |- | Gentoo || Purple |- | Ubuntu || Orange |}	Tabular data Distro Color Arch Blue Gentoo Purple Ubuntu Orange
{| class="wikitable" ! Filesystem !! Size !! Used !! Avail !! Use% !! Mounted on |- | rootfs || 922G || 463G || 413G || 53% || / |- | /dev || 1.9G || 0 || 1.9G || 0% || /dev |}	Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 922G 463G 413G 53% / /dev 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /dev

Links

Links are essential to help readers navigate the site. In general, editors should ensure that every article contains outgoing links to other articles (avoid dead-end pages) and is referenced by incoming links from other articles (the what links here special page can be used to display incoming links).

Internal links

You can extensively cross-reference wiki pages using internal links. You can add links to existing titles, and also to titles you think ought to exist in future.

To make a link to another page on the same wiki, just put the title in double square brackets.

For example, if you want to make a link to, say, the Linux article, use:

[[Linux]]

If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can add an alternative name after the pipe "|" divider (Shift + \ on English-layout and similar keyboards).

For example:

[[GNU/Linux|Linux]] is mostly used by servers. 

...is rendered as:

Linux is mostly used by servers.

When you want to use the plural of an article title (or add any other suffix) for your link, you can add the extra letters directly outside the double square brackets.

For example:

 See our list of [[List of recommended GNU/Linux software|recommended software]]s.

...is rendered as:

See our list of recommended softwares.

Links to sections of a document

To create a link to a section of a document, simply add a # followed by the section's heading.

For example:

[[Help:Editing#Links to sections of a document]]

...is rendered as:

Help:Editing#Links to sections of a document

Tip: If linking to a section within the same page, the page name can be omitted (e.g. [[#Links to sections of a document]]). Do not needlessly reformat same-page section links to hide the anchor symbol (e.g. [[#Links to sections of a document|Links to sections of a document]]).

Pipe trick

In some cases, it is possible to use the pipe trick to save writing the label of wiki links. The most important cases usable on the wiki are:

1. In article titles, it allows to hide some stuff. For example, [[Linux kernel|Linux]] is turned into Linux.
2. In links to different namespace or wiki, the pipe trick hides the prefix. For example, [[InstallGentoo Wiki:About|]] is turned into About and [[wikipedia:Help:Pipe trick|]] is turned into Help:Pipe trick.

When the page is saved, the pipe trick will automatically generate the alternative text for the link and change the wikitext accordingly.

Interwiki links

So-called interwiki links can be used to easily link to articles in other external Wikis, like Wikipedia for example. The syntax for this link type is the wiki name followed by a colon and the article you want to link to enclosed in double square brackets.

If you want to create link to the Wikipedia:Gentoo article you can use the following:

[[Wikipedia:Gentoo]]

Or you can create a piped link with an alternate link label to the Gentoo Wikipedia article:

[[Wikipedia:Gentoo|Gentoo Wikipedia article]]

Note: Using a piped link with an alternative link label should be reserved for abbreviating longer URLs.

See: Wikipedia:Interwiki links

The list of all interwiki links working on the wiki can be viewed here.

Tip: By default, all interwiki links to pages in Wikipedia are considered as a links to English pages. If you want to create a link to a page on some other language, you should add language prefix to the name of page. For example, to create a link to Russian page, prefix its name with ru:

[[Wikipedia:ru:Gentoo]]

result: Wikipedia:ru:Gentoo.

Note that it depends on the interwiki configuration for the target wiki, so it does not work on every wiki. It works for Wikipedia though.

External links

If you want to link to an external site, just type the full URL for the page you want to link to.

http://www.google.com/

It is often more useful to make the link display something other than the URL, so use one square bracket at each end, with the alternative title after the address separated by a space (not a pipe). So if you want the link to appear as Google search engine, just type:

[http://www.google.com/ Google search engine]

Note: If linking to another wiki or Wikipedia page, use #Internal links or #Interwiki links rather than external links! That is, if your link starts with https://wiki.installgentoo.com/ use an internal link; if your link starts with http://en.wikipedia.org/ use an interwiki link!

Redirects

To redirect automatically from one page to another, add #REDIRECT and an internal link to the page to be redirected to at the beginning of a page.

For example, you could redirect from "Cats" to "Cat":

#REDIRECT [[Cat]]

Thus, anyone typing either version in the search box will automatically go to "Cat".

Note that redirects are resolved internally by the server and will not make it any slower to open an article.

Note that redirecting an existing page to another can create double redirects, fix it.

Wiki variables, magic words, and templates

MediaWiki recognizes certain special strings within an article that alter standard behavior. For example, adding the word __NOTOC__ anywhere in an article will prevent generation of a table of contents. Similarly, the word __TOC__ can be used to alter the default position of the table of contents. See Help:Magic words for details.

Templates and variables are predefined portions of wikitext that can be inserted into an article to aid in formatting content.

Variables are defined by the system and can be used to display information about the current page, wiki, or date. For example, use {{SITENAME}} to display the wiki's site name (here it displayed as "InstallGentoo Wiki v2"). To set an alternate title header for the current page, another wiki variable can be used: {{DISPLAYTITLE:New Title}}. (But it's very restricted: you are only allowed to change first letter to lowercase and replace spaces with underscores — normalized title string must match with real page name, otherwise it will not work; use {{Lowercase title}} template to display first letter of title in lower case).

Templates, on the other hand, are user-defined. The content of any page can be included in another page by adding {{Namespace:Page Name}} to an article, but this is rarely used with pages outside the Template namespace. (If the namespace is omitted, Template is assumed.) For example, Template:Note, which can be included in an article with the following wikitext:

{{Note|This is a note.}}

...is rendered as:

Note: This is a note.

See Help:Template for more information.

See also

• Spam Guide to dealing with Wiki Spam
• Help:Article naming Name your article properly.
• Help:Style Styling guidelines for the wiki, so it can be consistent.
• Help:Discussion Discussion guidelines for talk pages.
• Help:Template For your templating needs.