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Technical Reference -> Terms -> Editing WikiStructure

Contributing to the Wiki

Thank you for wanting to help with the wiki, but before you start, it is very important that you have a basic understanding of how to edit a wiki, and how it works

Here are a few basic wiki-specific tags and concepts:

1. In a wiki, you don't need HTML. Instead, use the Wiki markup equivalents.
2. Want to link to another page? Take the name of the page (not the URL!) and put them in double square brackets, like so: [[Example]]. After saving the page, it will look like Example. This is called an internal link.
3. If you want preformatted text, don't use <pre></pre>, but simply start the sentence with a single space.
4. If you create a new page, add it to a category. To do so, first go to category:categories and from there, find the category that would be best suited for your article. Then add the text [[Category:NameOfCategory]] to your page. If after saving, the name of the category shows up in red text at the bottom of the page, then you chose a non-existant category, and you should check the exact spelling of that category.
5. To add an internal link to a category, add a colon before the word "category", so that it looks as follows: [[:Category:NameOfCategory]]. If you neglect to add that colon, then your page will be added to that category instead of creating a link.
6. Want a table? Use Wiki markup! It's faster, and smaller. To convert existing HTML tables to Wiki markup, you can use the online tool at http://www.uni-bonn.de/~manfear/html2wiki-tables.php which does a pretty good job.
7. NEVER EVER just empty a page. The information, no matter how outdated it may be, may still hold value for some people. If you believe that a page should be deleted instead of being archived, add the text {{delete|Your reason for wanting the page deleted}} to the top of the page, and save it. A sysop will then review your proposal to delete, and if accepted, will delete the page.

For more info on how to edit Wiki pages, see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Editing

There are a lot of pages in the opensim wiki today, many of which aren't really up to snuff.

One of the ways to start to get a handle on this problem is to get volunteers to go through and tag pages with some of the following tags:

{{obsolete}}

{{needsexample}}

{{delete}}

{{content}}

(See below for examples of how this is rendered on the wiki)

They mean the following

• obsolete - this page had good information at one point, but it is too out of date to really have value now. We need to capture the information in another page, or do major work to bring the page up to date

• content - this page has a little bit of information, but it's very incomplete. It probably can stay in the same place but needs more helping hands.

• needsexample - while the content of the page is good, it's too hard to understand without examples. We'd like to get examples into this page to make it more user friendly.

• delete - this page is so out of date that it's got nothing of value left in it on the wiki. It should just be deleted as it causes more confusion that anything else.

All are welcome to participate in this review and tagging of the wiki. Doing this will help us get a sense of where to focus, and what really needs work. I'll create a few more tags (like move) next week, as well as some better wiki guidelines so we can much more easily getting people involved in helping us have a world class wiki.

TODO

• Update Navigation links - Mark Malewski
• Check the WIKI for orphan pages and bad links - Mark Malewski
• Twist the developer's arms, and try to get updated content for WIKI pages - Mark Malewski
• Mind Map for the Wiki - SeanDague

See also WikiTodo

Wiki Office Hours

Wright Plaza on Thursday Afternoons at 19:00 GMT. Come there to help us make the OpenSim wiki a world class information resource for OpenSim. See Office Hours for up-to-date information about this meeting.

Tags

The following macros should be used to tag pages that are not up to par. This will help us keep a list of things needed to improve the wiki. Don't worry too much about marking a page incorrectly, tagging these pages makes them show up under various Categories and wiki admins will clear tags if they aren't appropriate.

Pages That Need Fixing

Tag: {{obsolete}}

Tag: {{archive}}

Tag: {{needsexample}}

Tag: {{content}}

Pages that need deleting (use sparsely!)

Tag: {{delete|Reason}}

Informational Tags for Pages

Purpose: This is used on pages that represent future proposals, so that people don't get confused that this is the way that opensim currently works. Tag: {{proposal}}

Purpose: To be used on the pages of deprecated functions. New page is to be created with replacement function. Suggest copying over the content of the page of the deprecated function, and make modifications in the content of the new page.

Usage: {{deprecate|<MM DD YYYY>|<newname>}}

Example: {{deprecate|Nov. 21 1997|NewArticle}}

Purpose: To be used on pages dealing with 3rd party add-ons, modules, and so forth, so as to clearly, uniformly, and effortlessly mark them as 3rd party software.

Usage: {{thirdparty}}