Is there a "how-to" guide for working on the wiki?

[Sam Redstone]

Hi gang. It's me, Sam, the least productive "wiki editor" on this entire site! (Grand total of zero articles so far!) :rolleyes:

That's because I still don't have the slightest idea how to add articles to the wiki. I have spent the past half-hour or more reading everything I could find on this site, but I didn't find anything that said "go here, click on this, type the ship stats in here, then click on this," etc.

So I hope you will forgive my stupidity, but I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do. Is there any kind of a step-by-step guide for beginners? All I can find are "templates" and examples and stuff... I even downloaded some kind of spreadsheet file that contains some stats for the ATF Skirnir. None of these resources say anything about how to use them to make articles.

I just figured if there were some instructions on HOW to help, then more people COULD help, and it would mean less work for everyone.

Thanks!

[Mokonzi]

Hmm, I didn't respond to this... argh! Sorry for the delay matey. Just working on updating the site, then will come back and post more for you...

[ThanRo]

I would suggest that you get one of the easier articles (the Mako Enhanced for example) and study it. There you can get a first view of the elements of a wiki article.

I would also say that the best way of learning is just writing an article. If you are a more creative writer then you can just took one of the articles I have written. Just take a look at the Osaka. The templates are already done but since I'm not very creative there are only the basic informations.

If you run into problems just send me a pm.
And don't forget: Whatever you do, you don't have enough permissions to cause any damage that can't be corrected. :mrgreen:

[Tritous]

click wiki at the main nav bar (just below the TXU banner). When it loads the sub nav bar just below will have a link for create new article.

The tricky bits come in with formatting, templates and being consistent with the rest of the wiki: that's where you need to look at some other articles and use them as an example.

The REALLY tricky bit comes in trying to figure out how to add it into the right category in the wiki. I can never remember how to do it and have to keep working it out from scratch each time, but first step is getting the basic article made.

I hope this helps you get a headstart

[Sam Redstone]

Thanks, that gives me a place to start. At least I know what to click on first. :)

I don't understand at all about "categories," but I guess I can fall out of that airlock when I come to it. Soooo.... making a wiki entry is more or less like posting a new forum thread? The only wikis I've tinkered with in the past have worked very differently from a forum post. Take for example fallout.wikia.com ... I was expecting something more like that. Maybe that's why I was confused and wasn't looking in the right place.

Also, how do I know whether or not a specific ship already has a wiki entry? I would hate to do a lot of work just to create a duplicate of something already done! The only way I can find to look at ship entries is by clicking on "ships (http://www.thexuniverse.com/showwiki/Portal:Ships)"... which takes me to a list of forum topics arranged by date added. There's 54 pages of the stuff... do I need to read every page and write down all the entry names in order to know what's been done already? There's got to be a better way, and I'm just missing it.

I was thinking there must be a page with, for example, all the races, and you could click one race to see all their ships at once... and another page with all the classes of ships, and you could click on "M5" for example to see all ships in that class. Something like the way that Roguey's site is laid out here (http://x3t.roguey.co.uk/ships/index.php?inMod=0&tab=race) and here (http://x3t.roguey.co.uk/ships/index.php?inMod=0). Am I just missing it? Having to poke through 54 pages of thread titles to find ships entries is not very user-friendly... especially when they're not arranged alphabetically, or by race, or by class, or by anything at all besides the date they were added.

Thanks for the helpful replies!

P.S. ThanRo.... "And don't forget: Whatever you do, you don't have enough permissions to cause any damage that can't be corrected. :mrgreen:" You made me LOL... ;)

[ThanRo]

Thanks, that gives me a place to start. At least I know what to click on first. :)

I don't understand at all about "categories," but I guess I can fall out of that airlock when I come to it. Soooo.... making a wiki entry is more or less like posting a new forum thread? The only wikis I've tinkered with in the past have worked very differently from a forum post. Take for example fallout.wikia.com ... I was expecting something more like that. Maybe that's why I was confused and wasn't looking in the right place.

Categories are tags for sorting of an article. On every article about an M3 there should be the category "Heavy Fighter". So, if you go to the category page for the heavy fighters you can see all M3-Fighters we have articles for. There are more category pages so theres a lot to explore.
Writing a wiki article is much like writing forum posts. The main difference are more possibilities to format it with tags. If you got more questions on editing articles you can just skype me.


Also, how do I know whether or not a specific ship already has a wiki entry? I would hate to do a lot of work just to create a duplicate of something already done! The only way I can find to look at ship entries is by clicking on "ships (http://www.thexuniverse.com/showwiki/Portal:Ships)"... which takes me to a list of forum topics arranged by date added. There's 54 pages of the stuff... do I need to read every page and write down all the entry names in order to know what's been done already? There's got to be a better way, and I'm just missing it.

I was thinking there must be a page with, for example, all the races, and you could click one race to see all their ships at once... and another page with all the classes of ships, and you could click on "M5" for example to see all ships in that class. Something like the way that Roguey's site is laid out here (http://x3t.roguey.co.uk/ships/index.php?inMod=0&tab=race) and here (http://x3t.roguey.co.uk/ships/index.php?inMod=0). Am I just missing it? Having to poke through 54 pages of thread titles to find ships entries is not very user-friendly... especially when they're not arranged alphabetically, or by race, or by class, or by anything at all besides the date they were added.

Thanks for the helpful replies!

P.S. ThanRo.... "And don't forget: Whatever you do, you don't have enough permissions to cause any damage that can't be corrected. :mrgreen:" You made me LOL... ;)

There is a better way to find articles. One way is of course to use the list like you did. But the list has multiple headlines. They are "Title / Article Creator", "Comments / Views" and "Last Post by". Just click on them and you see something surprising... :)
Another way to find specific ships are the search page. On the Advanced search page you can also search the wiki.

[D!S7RUG@7OR]

click wiki at the main nav bar (just below the TXU banner). When it loads the sub nav bar just below will have a link for create new article.

The tricky bits come in with formatting, templates and being consistent with the rest of the wiki: that's where you need to look at some other articles and use them as an example.

The REALLY tricky bit comes in trying to figure out how to add it into the right category in the wiki. I can never remember how to do it and have to keep working it out from scratch each time, but first step is getting the basic article made.

I hope this helps you get a headstart


Actually we've got almost everything imported and just a few articles needs to create new pages.
The begining it's a bit hard as the new editor needs to understand how to put things in the right place, to add the correct data where it belongs and also to be aware that templates are case sensitive in case of a typing mistake.
When you're stuck and need some questions to be answered, Private Message me Sam and i'll gladly answer them.

[Mokonzi]

Did you find you got all your answers matey?

[Sam Redstone]

(makes a "deer in headlights" face)

Who, me? Er, um...

You know, I never did figure out how to edit / create a wiki article here, no. It's still something I'm interested in doing eventually, but after a few attempts to figure it out, I sort of gave up and filled my time with other things. I would still like to know how it works, especially because when XTC is released publicly, I know we'll have a lot of work to do adding all the new ships.

We are going to have wiki entries for XTC stuff, yes? Will it have a completely separate section?

I do realize that I have an editor's badge and have edited a total of zero articles. LOL. I was kind of hoping nobody would catch me in my shameful duplicity. :rofl:

If there is anything that needs doing, just let me know. That's one thing I never did figure out, really, was how to tell whether a specific entry had been done or not. I never did find a page that simply lists all the ships with links to the articles, which in normal "wiki" usage would have RED links to articles that weren't done yet. Do we have anything like that?

... or is that something useful that I could do?

[Mokonzi]

They do... :)

Existing pages:
Heavy Fighters


List of fighters:
Heavy Fighters

I'll PM you with a task I need doing... it will get you into it. :)