Quickie Wiki Intro Part II

Welcome Again! This is the sequal to the Quickie Wiki Intro which gave you an introduction on how to log into the Wiki, create a userpage and use templates to add your userpage to appropriate categories. Part II is supposed to show you how to create an article as well as some basic editing techniques and Wiki etiquette.

How To Create An Article

Create An Article In 3 Steps

So in case you'd like to create an article in the Wiki, you'd need to ensure that an article with the same topic isn't already in existence. To do so, you can either use the Wiki search^[1] or - recommended - use Google for it. You can filter Google search results to the ones connected to the SL Wiki by entering

site:wiki.secondlife.com KEYWORD

in the searchbar of google.com with KEYWORD beeing the word or phrase you're searching for. So in case you'd like to write an article about Linden Bears, you'd browse to Google and enter

site:wiki.secondlife.com Linden Bears

You can now have a look at the search results and browse to the pages to edit them in case they are not in someones userspace. We'll come back to that later.
If there is no article about your particular topic and you're sure that your article belongs here^[2], you'll need to decide on the right namespace for it, depending on the content you'd like to contribute. For beginners, there are only two interesting namespaces: main namespace and userspace. So a general rule is: Userpages in userspaces. Your page would count as a userpage in case it's somehow personalized to you.
For example: If Mia Linden would want to write an article with the name: Mia's guide on how to create a Linden Bear she'd need to place it in her userspace. However, an article just about Linden Bears would be best in the mainspace.
Depending on the namespace you chose, you can enter one of the following URLs in your web browsers navigation bar:

mainspace: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Your_Articlename

userspace: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Your_Username/Your_Articlename

with Your_Articlename - you guessed it - beeing the name of your article, with underscores instead of blanks. The Wiki will tell you that the page you're trying to access hasn't got any text to display, but that you're able to edit - and therefor: create - it. Press the provided edit this page link to access the editor and to start with your article.

Procedure in short:

1. Search if your proposed article is already existing
2. Decide on the right namespace
3. Create the article

Link And Categorize

While there is always the possibility to find your article via the internal or an external search engine, it is highly recommended to link it at related articles too. Visitors who are interested in one topic might also be interested in a related topic and therefor easily stumble upon it, in case it's linked. Have a look at Help:Contents on how to create links in the Wiki^[3].

A nice way to sort and list articles of a certain topic are categories. You read about them in the Quickie Wiki Intro already and used templates to add your userpage to them. Categories will be displayed at the bottom of a page and list all pages which are in the same category, trying to sort them by name^[4]. Besides the use of specially designed templates, you can always register your page to a category by just writing

[[Category:NAME OF THE CATEGORY]]

Although it looks like the syntax for a internal Wiki link, this code will not result in a simple link to the category^[5] but will register your page and display the category on the bottom of it. Therefor, it doesn't matter where to place the code on your page. However, it is considered as a good style to add it down on the bottom, so future editors can easily find it. To find the right category for your article, you can browse related articles and look at which categories they are registered, so they might fit for your article as well. There is also a list of all current categories in the Wiki^[6].

Move And Redirect

Even after some thoughtful thinking, it might happen that you missplace an article or find a name which describes it better. So you got the ability to move your (and almost any other)^[7] article with the move link right next to the history link on top of the page. This will result in the whole page, including it's editing history, beeing moved. A redirect to the new spot will be created on the old page, so users who don't know the new article name will automatically be redirected to the new one. You can also manually create redirects from one page to another by entering

#REDIRECT [[NAME]]

with NAME beeing the name where the page is supposed to redirect to. Please use this code only on empty pages.

NOTES / TO-DO

• how and where to link the article + categorizing
• how to move an article
• how to redirect to an article
• how to upload and link a picture

• intro to the watchlist

• how to read an articles history
• userspace etiquette
• how to use discussion pages

• common syntax misstakes
• editors basic toolbox

Footnotes

1. ^ Besides the basic search in the left sidebar, there is also a more advanced Wiki search at Special:Search.
2. ^ Please refrain from advertisement or spam.
3. ^ Note that there is a different syntax for internal and external links.
4. ^ The sorting by articlename is only the default option. You can force your article beeing treated differently by defining a sort parameter. Read more at MediaWiki Help:Categories.
5. ^ You would need to write [[:Category:NAME OF THE CATEGORY]] in order to just create a link.
6. ^ You can of course create your own ones as well. The right namespace would be the Category namespace: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Your_Category
7. ^ There are only a view articles which aren't allowed to be edited or moved from normal users. These pages are listed at Special:Protectedpages.

Related Topics

• Quickie Wiki Intro
• Help:Contents
• Template:Ediquette
• MediaWiki Help:Contents