Tips for Creating & Editing Wiki Content
Creating Content
- To create a new page on the wiki visit the MediaWiki page Learn to create content.
Thinking about our audience
Our wiki platform is a space where each working group, committee, task force, etc. can develop its own content and so there may be some variation on format and style. However, whenever possible content should conform to established templates and styles as outlined in the User Guidelines and SPNHC publication style guidelines. Content is intended for SPNHC members and allied professionals. Useful information for writing technical entries, is given in thisblog post by Alan Hogg, a former conservator who went on to get his PhD in atmospheric science and now teaches writing for the sciences.
Inserting links
There are two frequently used types of links: an internal link which connects to another page within the SPNHC wiki, and an external link that connects to a site out on the internet.
- Internal link: Page Name displays a hyperlink to the desired page.
- If you want to replace the displayed page name in your sentence with other text, insert a vertical pipe and a blank space after the page name: spot test.
- External link: http://www.cloth.com displays the cloth website’s name as a hyperlink.
- As with the internal links above, adding a vertical pipe and a blank space after the url will allow you to display other text that will be hyperlinked to your desired internet page.
Note: with both these links, the blank space after the vertical pipe is critical to get the first word of the different text to appear correctly.
MediaWiki offers even more linking advice.
Notification of edits or updates
There are two easy ways to be kept abreast of edits on a wiki page of interest to you.
- 1. Use the WATCH tab in the wiki. First though you need to click on Preferences on the top header bar and make sure in your Email settings that you have entered your email and then checked E-mail me when a page or file on my watchlist is changed. Next, navigate to a page that is of interest to you and click on the Watch tab. Next time another AIC wiki creator edits your watched page you will receive an email update.
- You can also use RSS feeds to stay on top of things. You can track other people's changes by adding an RSS Feed to your browser-- When you are in SPNHC Wiki, click on the little orange RSS icon and the feed will come up. Or you can cut and paste the URL into your iGoogle page.
Adding Images
Citations
The small book icon in the WYSIWYG editor menu is an easy way to create insert citations which automatically collate to a Reference list at the bottom of the wiki page
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Editing Content
- For general information on editing visit the MediaWiki Learn to edit content page.
Entering Summary Information
“What am I supposed to put into that Summary field at the bottom of the Edit page? Is it important?”
Rather than reinvent the wheel please visit MediaWiki answer which is a bit long, but the gist of it is that putting even a short entry into the Summary field is very useful in helping colleagues understand the purpose of your edits. The wiki entry gives useful information on what and how to summarize.
Additionally entering information into the summary field is also critical when uploading an image or file into the wiki’s document library. To give you an example of why, try typing Forum into the search box on the wiki. You’ll see that there are several pages where Forum is in either the title or text of the page. Next, try an advanced search. Click on the check box next to File and then click on the Advanced Search button at the bottom of the page. You’ll see that this advanced search was able to retrieve several documents from Collection Forum that have been uploaded to the File Library. Even though the word Forum wasn’t in the file name, the search found it in the summary. Next time you edit on the wiki – give it a try!
Assigning categories
There are so many things to remember when setting up a new page but it is important to remember to assign a Category. It is quick and easy to do – you just insert it as an internal link with the Category: prefix e.g.. If you click on a category link it will take you to a page with a listing of all other pages with the same category tag, making it easy for a reader to browse through related articles.
- Check out an example of its use in the SPNHC by clicking on the [Practices] link on the left hand menu
- See the list of current categories on our wiki in the Special Pages > List of Pages > Categories (access Special Pages from the left hand menu)
Undo v. Rollback
The MediaWiki help pageprovides a very clear explanation of the differences in these two ways of reverting to earlier versions of the text.
In short, if you need to undo work you will probably want to use the Undo function rather than Rollback as it as it allows for more specificity and provides the ability to add a summary to explain your change (nice tie in with the Tip on Summaries on this page!). Knowing that you can revert to an earlier version of a page should hopefully give you confidence that you can’t “mess up” anything. Our site is secure but, if you ever notice vandalism on a page that needs to be removed, that should be reported to the SPNHC leadership or Wiki Committee Chairs User:BredaZimkus or User:JessicaCundiff immediately.
Formatting Tips
Indenting
Most text coming from a word processing document can be copied directly into a wiki page, but tab spacing doesn’t transfer. To create an indent at the beginning of a line, use a colon : Multiple colons at the beginning of the line will move the text further to the right, as if it had been tabbed over.
Embedding a YouTube link with preview window
As of May 2015 the AIC wiki has added a widget to allow for a preview window for YouTube videos to be placed on the wiki page. The widget syntax is {{#widget:YouTube|id=...|width=...|height=...}}. Copy the ID from the desired YouTube video.
An example is
{{#widget:YouTube|id=NXCDMLvtIqc}}
Validity Banners
Validity Banners may be used across the site to indicate stages of editing and peer review. A consistent format for these banners is sought. Check back soon for more information on this topic.
