Tess Juel: Adding some actual good (hopefully) advice

2023-05-28T09:30:48Z

Adding some actual good (hopefully) advice

Marck: Link to the top of the MediaWiki page instead of its end

2010-07-20T10:04:27Z

Link to the top of the MediaWiki page instead of its end

Riptex: New page: No help here really. For the official MediaWiki 'formatting help', go [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting#Other_formatting link here].

2008-01-27T02:47:21Z

New page: No help here really. For the official MediaWiki 'formatting help', go [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting#Other_formatting link here].

New page

No help here really.

For the official MediaWiki 'formatting help', go [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting#Other_formatting link here].

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:30, 28 May 2023
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	~~No help here really~~.	+	All you need to know about editing a wiki. Well, maybe not all, perhaps not even a lot. But a little bit at least.

−	See the ~~official~~ [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting MediaWiki '~~formatting help~~'].	+	== Formatting ==
		+	See the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting MediaWiki] documentation.
		+
		+	== Style and Page Structure ==
		+
		+	=== Use simple words! ===
		+	Remember that the reader does not know what you know and is not likely to understand fancy "tech talk". An ideal wiki article is easily understood by a ninety year old bloke who has never used his computer for anything but checking his bank account balance and watching pictures of his great-grandchildren and by a six year old school child who has barely learned how to read. That ideal is impossible of course but try your best!
		+
		+	There are some cases when this advice doesn't really apply, such as detailed software documentation, but even in those cases it's important to keep the info as accessible as possible.
		+
		+	=== Start with a summary ===
		+	Take a look at any wikipedia article. They always start with a short paragpraph, maybe only a sentence or two, suming up the most important info on the topic.
		+
		+	=== Focus on one topic ===
		+	Different topics need separate pages. It's obvious but easy to forget.
		+
		+	=== Use paragraphs and hiearchial headers ===
		+	Nobody is ever going to read that huge chunk of unformatted text you just dumped onto a page.
		+
		+	=== Consider page length ===
		+	There is no hard rule here but no matter how well a page is structured, the longer the text is, the harder the info is to find and comprehend. Maybe it's better to split the content into several pages?
		+
		+	=== Try to avoid duplicate content ===
		+	This is mainly for the benefit of other editors. If the same info is posted on several pages, there is a good chance one or more of the pages are overlooked if/when the info needs to be updated. Better to interlink.

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:04, 20 July 2010
Line 1:		Line 1:
	No help here really.		No help here really.

−	~~For~~ the official ~~MediaWiki 'formatting help', go~~ [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting~~#Other_formatting link here~~].	+	See the official [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting MediaWiki 'formatting help'].

Help:Editing - Revision history

Tess Juel: Adding some actual good (hopefully) advice

Marck: Link to the top of the MediaWiki page instead of its end

Riptex: New page: No help here really. For the official MediaWiki 'formatting help', go [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting#Other_formatting link here].