Help:Editing - Wikinews, the free news source

Help:Editing - Wikinews, the free news source
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This is a copy of
m:Help:Editing
using Wikinews-specific templates. Don't edit this page, except to replace the contents with the current version of that master page. To make changes applicable on all projects, edit the master page; to change Wikinews-specific content, edit the templates; to make demos work, copy templates to this project, and images to
Wikimedia Commons
. Please see the
history of the master page
for author details. Please note that all meta content is licensed under the GFDL. As a result this page is licensed under the GFDL. -
Edit this template
General
To edit a
MediaWiki
page, click on the "
Edit this page
" (or just "
edit
") link at one of its edges. This will bring you to a page with a text box containing the
wikitext
: the editable source code from which the server produces the webpage.
The edit link of a page showing an old version leads to an edit page with the old wikitext. This allows
restoring the old version
. However, the edit link of a
diff
page gives the current wikitext, even if the diff page shows an old version below the table of differences.
After adding to or changing the wikitext it is useful to press "Show preview", which produces the corresponding webpage in your browser but does not make it publicly available yet (not until you press "Save"). Errors in formatting, links, tables, etc., are often much easier to discover from the rendered page than from the raw wikitext.
If you are not satisfied you can make more changes and preview the page as many times as necessary. Then write a short
edit summary
in the small text field below the edit-box and when finished press "Save". Depending on your system, pressing the "Enter" key while the edit box is not active (i.e., there is no typing cursor in it) may have the same effect as pressing "Save".
You may find it more convenient to copy and paste the text first into your favorite
text editor
, edit and spell check it there, and then paste it back into your
web browser
to preview. This way, you can also keep a local backup copy of the pages you have edited. It also allows you to make changes offline, but before you submit your changes,
please make sure nobody else has edited the page
since you saved your local copy (by checking the
page history
), otherwise you may accidentally revert someone else's edits. If someone
has
edited it since you copied the page, you'll have to merge their edits into your new version (you can find their specific edits by using the "
diff
" feature of the page history). These issues are handled automatically by the Mediawiki software if you edit the page in your web browser.
See also
MediaWiki architecture
Dummy edit and null edit
If the wikitext is not changed no edit will be recorded and the edit summary is discarded.
dummy edit
is a change in wikitext that has no effect on the rendered page, such as changing the number of
newlines
at some position from 0 to 1 or from 2 to 3 or conversely (changing from 1 to 2 makes a difference, see below). This allows an edit summary, and is useful for correcting a previous edit summary, or an accidental marking of a previous edit as "minor" (see below).
To refresh the cache of some item in the database a lesser kind of dummy edit, called a
null edit
, may be sufficient: one that does not cause any change in the wikitext, and no entry in the history, in Recent Changes, etc.: this can be done by opening the edit window and saving; a section edit is sufficient. See also
A category tag in a template; caching problem
Minor edits
When editing a page, a
logged-in
user has the option of flagging the edit as a "minor edit". This feature is important, because users can choose to
hide
minor edits in their view of the
Recent Changes page
, to keep the volume of edits down to a manageable level.
When to use this is somewhat a matter of personal preference. The rule of thumb is that an edit of a page that consists of spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a "minor edit". A major edit is basically something that makes the entry worth revisiting for somebody who wants to watch the article rather closely. So any "real" change, even if it is a single word, should be flagged as a "major edit".
The reason for not allowing a user who is not logged in to mark an edit as minor is that vandalism could then be marked as a minor edit, in which case it would stay unnoticed longer. This limitation is another reason to log in.
The wiki markup
In the left column of the table below, you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects are achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column.
You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the
Wikinews:Sandbox
Sections, paragraphs, lists and lines
What it looks like
What you type
Start your sections with header lines:
New section
Subsection
Sub-subsection
== New section ==

=== Subsection ===

==== Sub-subsection ====
Newline
A single
newline
has no
effect on the
layout.
But an empty line
starts a new paragraph.
(

disables this paragraphing until

or the end of the section)
(in Cologne Blue two newlines and a div tag give just one newline; in the order newline, div tag, newline, the result is two newlines)
A single
newline
has no
effect on the
layout.

But an empty line
starts a new paragraph.
You can break lines
without starting a new paragraph.
Sufficient as wikitext code is
, the XHTML code
is not needed, the system produces this code.
You can break lines

without starting a new paragraph.
Lists are easy to do:
start every line with a star
more stars means deeper levels
A newline
in a list
marks the end of the list.
Of course
you can
start again.
* Lists are easy to do:
** start every line with a star
*** more stars means deeper levels
*A newline
*in a list
marks the end of the list.
*Of course
*you can
*start again.
Numbered lists are also good
very organized
easy to follow
A newline
in a list
marks the end of the list.
New numbering starts
with 1.
# Numbered lists are also good
## very organized
## easy to follow
#A newline
#in a list
marks the end of the list.
#New numbering starts
#with 1.
You can even do mixed lists
and nest them
like this
or have newlines
inside lists
* You can even do mixed lists
*# and nest them
*#* like this
or have newlines
inside lists
You can also
break lines
inside lists
like this
* You can also
**break lines
inside lists
like this
Definition list
list of definitions
item
the item's definition
; Definition list : list
of definitions
; item : the item's definition
A colon indents a line or paragraph.
A manual newline starts a new paragraph.
This is primarily for displayed material, but is also used for discussion on
Talk pages
: A colon indents a line or paragraph.
A manual newline starts a new paragraph.
IF a line of plain text starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a fixed-width font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* program source code
* ASCII art;
* chemical structures;
WARNING If you make it wide,
you
force the whole page to be wide
and
hence less readable. Never start ordinary lines with spaces.
(see also below)
IF a line of plain text starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a fixed-width font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* program source code
* ASCII horizontal dividing lineart;
* chemical structures;
Centered text.

Centered text.
horizontal dividing line
: above
and below.
(However, in most cases a section header is more useful. The horizontal dividing line should only be used if what follows is logically part of the same section; otherwise that part would be hidden in the TOC.)
A horizontal dividing line: above
----
and below.
Summarizing the effect of a single newline: no effect in general, but it ends a list item or indented part; thus changing some text into a list item, or indenting it, is more cumbersome if it contains newlines, they have to be removed; see also
w:Wikipedia:Don't use line breaks
Links, URLs
What it looks like
What you type
Sue is reading the
video policy
First letter of target is automatically capitalized.
Internally spaces are automatically represented as underscores (typing an underscore has the same effect as typing a space, but is not recommended).
Thus the
link
above is to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_policy, which is the page with the name "Video policy".
Sue is reading the [[video policy]].
Link to a section on a page, e.g.
List_of_cities_by_country#Morocco
; when section linking does not work the link is treated as link to the page, i.e. to the top; this applies for:
links to non-existent sections
links in redirects
interwiki links
[[List_of_cities_by_country#Morocco]].
Link target and link label are different:
answers
(This is called a
piped link
).
Same target, different name:
[[User:Larry Sanger|answers]]
Endings are blended into the link:
official positions
genes
Endings are blended
into the link: [[official position]]s, [[gene]]s
Automatically hide stuff in parentheses:
kingdom
Automatically hide namespace:
Village pump
The server fills in the part after the | when you save the page. Next time you open the edit box you will see the expanded piped link. A preview interprets the abbreviated form correctly, but does not expand it yet in the edit box. Press Save and again Edit, and you will see the expanded version. The same applies for the following feature.
Automatically hide stuff in parentheses:
[[kingdom (biology)|]].
Automatically hide namespace:
[[Wikipedia:Village pump|]].
When adding a comment to a Talk page,
you should sign it. You can do this by
adding three tildes for your user name:
Karl Wick
or four for user name plus date/time:
Karl Wick
08:10 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC)
When adding a comment to a Talk page,
you should sign it. You can do this by
adding three tildes for your user name:
: ~~~
or four for user name plus date/time:
: ~~~~
The weather in London
is a page that doesn't exist yet.
You can create it by clicking on the link.
To create a new page:
Create a link to it on some other page.
Save that page.
Click on the link you just made. The new page will open for editing.
Have a look at
how to start a page
guide and the naming conventions page for your project.
[[The weather in London]] is a page
that doesn't exist yet.
Redirect
one article title to another by putting text like this in its first line.
#REDIRECT [[United States]]
A link to the page on the same subject in another language or, more generally, to a page on another wiki:
fr:Wikinews:Aide
For more info see
MediaWiki User's Guide: Interwiki linking
[[fr:Wikinews:Aide]], [[:fr:Wikinews:Aide]]
"What links here" and "Related changes" can be linked as:
Special:Whatlinkshere/Wikipedia:How to edit a page
and
Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:How to edit a page
[[Special:Whatlinkshere/
Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] and
[[Special:Recentchangeslinked/
Wikipedia:How to edit a page]]
External links:
Nupedia
[1]
External links:
[http://www.nupedia.com Nupedia],
[http://www.nupedia.com]
Or just give the URL:
In the
URL
all symbols must be among: A-Z a-z 0-9 ._\/~%-+&#?!=()@ \x80-\xFF. If a URL contains a different character it should be converted; for example, ^ has to be written %5E (to be looked up in
ASCII
). A blank space can also be converted into an underscore.
Or just give the URL:
To link to books, you can use
ISBN
links.
ISBN 0123456789X See
Help:ISBN links
ISBN 0123456789X
Link to
Request for Comments
RFC 123
(URL specified in
mediawiki:Rfcurl
RFC 123
To include links to non-image uploads such as sounds, use a "file" link.
Sound
[[File:Sg_mrob.ogg|Sound]]
Use links for dates, so everyone can set their own display order. Use
Special:Preferences
to change your own date display setting.
[[July 20]], [[1969]] , [[20 July]] [[1969]]
and [[1969]]-[[07-20]]
will all appear as
20 July
1969
if you set your date display preference to 1 January 2001.
Images
What it looks like
What you type
A picture:
For many projects, only images that have been uploaded to the same project or
the Commons
can be used. To upload images, use the
upload page
. You can find the uploaded image on the
image list
A picture: [[File:Wiki.png]]
or, with alternate text (
strongly
encouraged)
[[File:Wiki.png|Wikipedia
- The Free Encyclopedia]]
Web browsers
render alternate text when not displaying an image -- for example, when the image isn't loaded, or in a text-only browser, or when spoken aloud. See
Alternate text for images
for help on choosing alternate text. See
Extended image syntax
for more options.
Clicking on an uploaded image displays a description page, which you can also link directly to:
File:Wiki.png
[[:File:Wiki.png]]
To include links to images shown as links instead of drawn on the page, add a colon before the link.
Sunset in Bangkok
[[:File:Bangkok skytrain sunset.jpg|Sunset in Bangkok]]
Character formatting
What it looks like
What you type
Emphasize
strongly
very strongly
These are double and triple apostrophes, not double quotes.
''Emphasize'', '''strongly''',
'''''very strongly'''''.
You can also write
italic
and
bold
if the desired effect is a specific font style
rather than emphasis, as in mathematical formulae:
However, the difference between these two methods is not very important for graphical browsers, and many people choose to ignore it.
You can also write italic
and bold if the desired effect is a
specific font style rather than emphasis, as
in mathematical formulas:
:F = ma
A typewriter font for
technical terms
A typewriter font for
technical terms.
You can use
small text
for captions.
You can use small text
for captions.
You can
strike out deleted material
and
underline new material
You can strike out deleted material
and underline new material.
Umlauts and accents:
(See
MediaWiki User's Guide: Creating special characters
è é ê ë ì í
À Á Â Ã Ä Å
Æ Ç È É Ê Ë
Ì Í
Î Ï Ñ Ò
Ó Ô Õ
Ö Ø Ù
Ú Û Ü ß
à á
â ã ä å æ
è é ê ë ì í
î ï ñ ò ó ô
œ õ
ö ø ù ú
û ü ÿ
è é ê ë ì í

À Á Â Ã Ä Å
Æ Ç È É Ê Ë
Ì Í Î Ï Ñ Ò
Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù
Ú Û Ü ß à á
â ã ä å æ ç
è é ê ë ì í
î ï ñ ò ó ô
œ õ ö ø ù ú
û ü ÿ
Punctuation:
¿ ¡ « » § ¶
† ‡ • - – —
¿ ¡ « » § ¶
† ‡ • - – —
Commercial symbols:
™ © ® ¢ € ¥
£ ¤
™ © ® ¢ € ¥
£ ¤
Subscript: x
Superscript: x
or x²
The latter method of superscript can't be used in the most general context, but is preferred when possible (as with units of measurement) because most browsers have an easier time formatting lines with it.
8.85 × 10
−12
C² / J m.
hectare
1 E4 m²
Subscript: x₂
Superscript: x² or x²

or in projects with the templates sub and sup:

Subscript: x{{sub|2}}
Superscript: x{{sup|2}}

ε₀ =
8.85 × 10⁻¹²
C² / J m.

1 [[hectare]] = [[1 E4 m²]]
Greek characters:
α β γ δ ε ζ
η θ ι κ λ μ ν
ξ ο π ρ σ ς
τ υ φ χ ψ ω
Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π
Σ Φ Ψ Ω
α β γ δ ε ζ
η θ ι κ λ μ ν
ξ ο π ρ σ ς
τ υ φ χ ψ ω
Γ Δ Θ Λ Ξ Π
Σ Φ Ψ Ω
Math characters:
∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞
≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥
× · ÷ ∂ ′ ″
∇ ‰ ° ∴ ℵ ø
∈ ∉ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇
¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔
→ ↔ ↑
∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞
≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥
× · ÷ ∂ ′ ″
∇ ‰ ° ∴ ℵ ø
∈ ∉ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇
¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔
→ ↔ ↑
≥   0 true.
To space things out, use non-breaking spaces -
 
 
also prevents line breaks in the middle of text, this is useful in formulas.
x²  ≥  0 true.
Complicated formulae:
{\displaystyle \sum _{n=0}^{\infty }{\frac {x^{n}}{n!}}}
See
TeX markup
$\backslash sum\_\{n=0\}^\backslash infty\; \backslash frac\{x^n\}\{n!\}$
For comparison for the following examples:
arrow →
italics
link
arrow →

''italics''
[[link]]
Use to suppress interpretation of wiki markup, but interpret character references and remove newlines and multiple spaces:
arrow →

''italics''
[[link]]
arrow →

''italics''
[[link]]
Use

 to suppress interpretation of wiki markup and keep newlines and multiple spaces, and get typewriter font, but interpret character references:
arrow →

''italics''
[[link]]
arrow →

''italics''
[[link]]

Use leading space on each line to keep newlines and multiple spaces, and get typewriter font:
arrow →
italics
link
arrow →
''italics''
[[link]]
Use typewriter font:
arrow →
italics
link
arrow →
''italics''
[[link]]
Show character references:
→
→
Commenting page source:
not shown in page
Used to leave comments in a page for future editors.

See also
commons:File:Cheatsheet-en.pdf
Templates
Some part of a page may correspond in the edit box to just a reference to another page, in the form {{
name
}}, referring to the page "Template:
name
" (or if the name starts with a namespace prefix, it refers to the page with that name; if it starts with a colon it refers to the page in the main namespace with that name without the colon). This is called a
template
. For changing that part of the page, edit that other page. Sometimes a separate edit link is provided for this purpose. A convenient way to put such a link in a template is with a template like
m:Template:ed
. Note that the change also affects other pages which use the same template.
Page protection
In a few cases the link labeled "Edit this page" is replaced by the text "Protected page" (or equivalents in the language of the project). In that case the page cannot be edited.
Position-independent wikitext
Wikitext for which the result does not depend on the position in the wikitext page:
interlanguage links
(see also above) - the mutual order is preserved, but otherwise the positions within the page are immaterial
category
specification - ditto
__NOTOC__, __FORCETOC__, see
Help:Section
Separating edits
When moving or copying a piece of text within a page or from another page, and also making other edits, it is useful to separate these edits. This way the
diff function
can be usefully applied for checking these other edits.
Error message
If, due to server problems, a save command results in an error message, either the saving has failed, or just the confirmation. Check e.g. My Contributions to find out.
See also
Help:Automatic conversion of wikitext
Help:Calculation
Help:Editing toolbar
Help:Html in wikitext
Protecting pages
Help:Starting a new page
Help:Variable
Parser testing
UseModWiki
and
Wikipedia:PHP script
HTML tag
External links
Special characters in HTML
Wikinews-specific content and links to other help pages
Help contents
Reading:
Go
URL
Namespace
Page name
Section
Link
Backlinks
Piped link
Interwiki link
Redirect
Variable
Category
Tracking changes:
Recent
(enhanced)
Related
Watching pages
Page history
Diff
User contributions
Edit summary
Minor edit
Logging in and preferences:
Logging in
Preferences
User style
Editing:
Overview
New page
Images/files
Image description page
Special characters
Formula
Table
EasyTimeline
Template
Renaming (moving) a page
Automatic conversion of wikitext
Talk page
Testing
||
rlc
Meta
Wikibooks
Wikicommons
Wikipedia
Wikiquote
Wikisource
Wiktionary
Retrieved from "
Categories
GFDL
Help
Pages using RFC magic links
Hidden category:
Pages with broken file links
Help
Editing
Add topic