Editing Guide

Getting started

Make an account

At the top right of this page, click on "Create Account".

Enter a username and unique password, and then confirm the password. You can enter your real name if you like, but it is not strictly necessary to make an account.

Then, the CAPTCHA question asked you in which city the Varia server is hosted? The answer is "rotterdam".

Then, click "Create your account".

Making a new page

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page

• It might be easiest to search for the pagename that you want to create, and if it does not exist yet, then you can click on the red link to create that page.

Renaming a page

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Moving_a_page

• MediaWiki counter-intuitively calls this "move page". With this logic, "moving" a page is the same as renaming it.

Editing a page

Editing can be done in many different ways, but we have found the following MediaWiki documentation useful: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Editing.

Below you can find a cheatsheet with commonly used wikitext mark up, accompanied with a few remarks on quirks we discovered while working with wiki-to-print.

But first of all, it's good to know is that there are two editors that you can use to edit your text:

Visual editor

• to use it, click Edit
• uses a WYSIWYG editor
• Visual editor user guide

Wikitext editor

• to use it, click Edit source
• uses a specific mark up language: wikitext
• Wiki syntax user guide

Cheatsheet + remarks

Headers

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting

• A header1 is written as: =Title here=
• Subtitles can be marked up as any other headers (header2 ==Title here==, header3 ===Title here===, etc.)

Images

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images

• If you have images, and you want to work with captions, we suggest to use frame or thumb as image formats, these make the caption show up.
  • In wikitext: You can add the image width (in pixels) and caption in the image element ([[File:Imagename.jpg|thumb|480px|caption here]]).
  • In the visual editor: click on the image > edit > caption.

Lists

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Lists

• Make sure that you add a line break before and after your list.

Links

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Links

Bibliography

• We have used lists in the past to structure bibliographies, using the * symbol at the start of each line.

Footnotes

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Cite

Quotes

• You can use <blockquote>Your quote here</blockquote>. Make sure this is separated from the body of your text with line breaks before and after the <blockquote> tags.

Categories

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Categories

You can create categories or add your page to a category, by adding the following syntax to your page:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]

• Often these category assigners are placed at the bottom of a page.

Using the Talk pages

Each page on the wiki is connected to a so-called Talk page or also sometimes called Discussion page.

This page can be used to discuss the content of the page, write comments, make suggestions, or leave other kinds of notes.

You can find the Talk pages by clicking on the double speech bubble icon on the left top corner, just under the page title and next to the star button.

The recommended use of the Talk pages is the following:

1. click on Add topic
2. formulate the subject of your comment/note
3. leave a message in the main text area
4. (optional, but recommended) sign off with your username + date stamp, using this syntax: ~~~~

Skins

The interface of MediaWiki's are called skins.

The default skin that is used on this wiki is Vector, but more skins are installed.

You can change the skin for yourself only, by following these steps:

1. Click on Preferences in the right-top corner.
2. Click on Appearance.
3. Select a skin from the list.
4. Click Save.

NOTE: This does not change the skin for everyone. It only changes for your user account.

Other links that can be useful

• Timezone settings of the wiki: under Preferences > Appearance > Time offset