Help:Contents
From Wikianswers
| Using this Wiki | Asking questions | Editing | Answering questions |
Contents |
[edit] Using this wiki
Navigating this wiki is quick and easy, from the home page (which can be reached at any time by clicking on the logo or the text "Wikianswers") you can get to a list of all answered questions, answered questions by topic, unanswered questions and unanswered questions by topic. There is also a list of unanswerable questions, questions unanswerable at the present, fact or myths and questions that contain ideas for someone to create or do something.
[edit] Asking questions
To ask a question head to the main page and type your question in the box near the bottom of the page.
[edit] Editing
Like all wikis, you can edit any non-protected page. Your changes will be visible immediately. Just click the "edit" link that appears at the top of every page. Be sure to click "Save Page"' at the bottom of the edit window. Add a Summary to explain what you added and why.
[edit] Formatting
Most text formatting is usually done with wiki markup, so you don't have to learn HTML.
[edit] Bold and italics
Bold and italics are added by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):
- ''italics'' is rendered as italics. (2 apostrophes on either side)
- '''bold''' is rendered as bold. (3 apostrophes on either side)
- '''''bolded italics''''' is rendered as bolded italics. (2 + 3 = 5 apostrophes on either side)
[edit] Headings and subheadings
Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up your article by inserting a heading for each section.
Headings can be created like this:
- ==Top level heading== (2 equals signs)
- ===Subheading=== (3 equals signs)
- ====Another level down==== (4 equals signs)
- =====Another level down===== (5 equals signs)
If an article has at least three headings, a table of contents (TOC) will be automatically generated.
[edit] 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 (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.
For example: This is aligned all the way to the left.
- :This is indented slightly.
- ::This is indented more.
is shown as: This is aligned all the way to the left.
- This is indented slightly.
- This is indented more.
[edit] Bullet points
To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.
A brief example:
- *First list item
- *Second list item
- **Sub-list item under second
- *Isn't this fun?
Which is shown as:
- First list item
- Second list item
- Sub-list item under second
- Isn't this fun?
[edit] Numbered lists
You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or hash symbol (#). Using more #s will affect the level of indenting.
Example:
- #First item
- #Second item
- ##Sub-item under second item
- #Third item
Shows up as:
- First item
- Second item
- Sub-item under second item
- Third item
[edit] Dashes
-- and - will be rendered as emdashes or endashes depending on the context.
[edit] Links
Links are important on wikis to help readers navigate your site.
[edit] 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 Wikianswers page, it would be:
- [[Wikianswers]]
If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can add an alternative name by adding after the pipe "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards).
For example, if you wanted to make a link to Wikianswers, but wanted it to say "home page" you would write it as such:
- View the [[Wikianswers|home page]]...
It would appear as:
- View the home page...
[edit] Categorising
To put a page in a category simply add the category name (with the prefix category:) surrounded in square brackets ([[ ]]).
[edit] See Also
[edit] Answering questions
[edit] Naming the question
Pages should be named as the question but before creating the page please ensure all abreviation is removed, spelling checked, and grammer fixed if necessary.
[edit] Layout
Pages have a fairly simple layout, under the heading Question is the question and under the heading answer(s) some answers, if there are any yet, otherwise just leave it blank. At the very bottom is a category which can be chosen from the relevant page listed below.
Here is an example of a typical pages wikitext
==Question== What software runs Wikianswers? ==Answer(s)== MediaWiki see http://www.mediawiki.org Category:Answered Category:Answered Computing
[edit] Categorising
- Answered questions should be placed in Category:Answered and one or more of it's sub categories which are listed at Category:Answered, under the heading "subcategories".
- Unanswered questions should be placed in Category:Unanswered and one or more of it's sub categories which are listed at Category:Unanswered, under the heading "subcategories".
- Questions currently unanswerable should be placed in Category:Unanswerable at present only, to ensure other users do not get confused.
Any questions which cannot be answered ever should be listed at Unanswerable and no page be created for them.