View source for Common Actions

Some things that you might want to do that are not exactly usefully documented in the official help. In no particular order.

== Links to Guidelines and Explanations ==
* [https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/2312880/wiki-guidelines-reminder Reminders on Various Conventions]
* [https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/1514205/wiki-note Guidelines on Linking and New Pages]
* [https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/2335822/fun-with-the-wiki-fellow-wiki-editors-or-even-just-people-who-are-data-geeks-like-me-might-find-t On Minor and Unnamed Characters]

== Conventions for Chatcaavan Characters ==
* If more than one character has shared a title in the series (on camera), then there needs to be a separate page for the title that explains it and links to all the characters who've served as that title.
* If a character has switched titles within the series, then his page should be '''First Title (Most Recent Title''').

So, for instance, there have been three Seconds on camera, so we need a '''Second (Title)''' page that links to all three. The Usurper's Second began life as Command-East, so his page is '''Command-East (Second)'''. The Worldlord became Second afterwards, so his page is '''Worldlord (Second)'''. (The very first second, whose origins we don't know, is named as he was later in the series, '''Second-who-Was.''')

== Formatting ==

This is a place where I find the official help pages... not too bad! They have examples and everything! So I can just link:

* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting General Formatting] - Basic formatting for things like italics, bolds, simple lists, special characters, etc.
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Lists Lists] - Fancier stuff you can do with lists.
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables Tables] - I don't know whether we'll use this, but it's there.

Also to find templates you can copy to start new pages, specific to this wiki, try this page:

* [[Templates]]

== A Short Guide to Links ==

To make a basic link to something in the wiki, just put the page name in two square brackets, like so: 	&#91;&#91;Alliance&#93;&#93;. It will look like this: [[Alliance]]. If you want to name or format it somewhat differently, you can do so like this "The Queen Ransomed is a &#91;&#91;Chatcaava | chatcaavan&#93;&#93; winged female. That would render as this: "The Queen Ransomed is a [[Chatcaava | chatcaavan]] winged female." If the page has not yet been created, it will show up in red; you can click it and put something on that page to create the page. (It's a good practice to do a quick check for duplicates before you do this, because if the page you want does exist under a different name, you can just link to that.)

For long pages, you may find it useful to be able to link to a specific subheading. For instance, if you wanted to link to the Alliance's history and not make people go to that page and scroll, you could link to [[Alliance#History]]. To make this prettier, you can use a pipe as above, like so: "Read more about the &#91;&#91;Alliance#History | history of the Alliance&#93;&#93;." That will render like this: "Read more about the [[Alliance#History | history of the Alliance]]."

To link to an external page, do this: &#91;<nowiki>https://mcahogarth.org/</nowiki> Studio MCAH&#93;. That will look like this: [https://mcahogarth.org Studio MCAH]

There are a lot more things you can do with links, but that's the basics. More here: [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Links Help on Links at mediawiki.org]

== Categories ==

To add a page to a category, you format it like this: &#91;&#91;Category:Alliance&#93;&#93;. Note that this will add the category to a footer at the bottom of a page, so category links shouldn't go inside sentences or paragraphs the way links to pages do. Like with pages, if a category link is in red, that means it hasn't been created yet, and you can click to create it. Most categories will ultimately go within other categories, which is done by putting a link to the parent category in the subcategory. For example, &#91;&#91;Category:Alliance&#93;&#93; is inside the Organizations and Polities category, which was done by adding &#91;&#91;Category:Organizations and Polities&#93;&#93; to the Alliance category's page. If you aren't sure how to categorize something, though, you can leave it uncategorized and someone will come along and fix it.

In general, categories serve two purposes: navigation (e.g., helping people find things) and referencing/reporting (being able to dynamically generate lists, like 'all the members of this Eldritch house' or 'every book that Alastar Virgil shows up in' or 'every short story in this particular collection' or 'every image of an Octopi' or 'all the timelines'). When creating categories, it's a good idea to consider what purpose that category has: is it for navigation, for reference, for reporting, etc.

== Creating New Pages vs Adding to Old Ones ==
Guideline on this is "if the topic can support multiple headings". So, for instance, right now I would put shock-staves on the [[Alliance Military Technology]] page, but if I wrote up some canonical data about their history, or some guy who used them famously, and it started getting to the point where I needed a history section, and a warnings section, and a military vs civilian versions section, then I'd make a new page for them.

It's a good idea to perform a search before creating a new page--it's possible the topic you're trying to create a page for already exists as a page with a slightly different name, or as a subsection of an existing page.

== Citations/References ==

Preliminary note: Citations don't need to be complete; book or book and chapter is fine. Page numbers should refer to the paperbacks, not the ebook-generated count. In general, the location data and/or page numbers for ebooks aren't very useful, as they vary quite a bit across editions, devices, etc. When in doubt, just list the chapter, or story name for short stories (or even just the book if you know that and not the chapter).

To create a citation, there are two steps. First, in the main body of the text, use the &lt;ref&gt; tags to surround the citation, immediately adjacent to what you're citing. For example:

<blockquote>Glaseah have ears.&lt;ref&gt;A Jaguar Book, chapter 4&lt;/ref&gt; Humans also have ears but they're less fancy.&lt;ref&gt;A Jaguar Book With Humans, chapter 2 &lt;/ref&gt;</blockquote>

If you want the resulting citation list to appear in a specific section (like a Notes section), add the following at the bottom of the page:

<blockquote>&lt;references /&gt;</blockquote>

(It will still work if you leave off <references /> but it will stick it at the bottom of the page.)

The above would make something that looks like this:

<blockquote>Glaseah have ears.<ref>A Jaguar Book, chapter 4</ref> Humans also have ears but they're less fancy.<ref>A Jaguar Book With Humans, chapter 2 </ref></blockquote>

<references />

If you have multiple places on the same page that refer to the same chapter or page of the book, you can consolidate them so that a single footnote backlinks to multiple places on the page. To do so, specify a name for the reference the first time you use it, like this:

<blockquote>Glaseah have ears.&lt;ref name="SomeName"&gt;A Jaguar Book, chapter 4&lt;/ref&gt; Humans also have ears but they're less fancy.&lt;ref&gt;A Jaguar Book With Humans, chapter 2 &lt;/ref&gt;</blockquote>

(where SomeName is any name you like). In another paragraph, you could then use the same reference, like this:

<blockquote>Feathers are a feature of Glaseah ears.&lt;ref name="SomeName" /&gt;</blockquote>

The result would look something like this:

<blockquote>Glaseah have ears.<ref name="SomeName">A Jaguar Book, chapter 4</ref> Humans also have ears but they're less fancy.<ref>A Jaguar Book With Humans, chapter 2 </ref>
<br />
Feathers are a feature of Glaseah ears.<ref name="SomeName" /></blockquote>

<references />

== User Questions ==
Should go on the talk pages, not in the body of the page. You can reach the talk page by clicking on the "Discussion" tab in the upper left, over the page name (it is on the right of the "Page" tab). Most pages don't have talk pages, but feel free to make one if you want to leave a question or comment.

To sign your question (append your username and a timestamp), type four tildes (~).

== Automated Character Lists ==
Creating automated character lists for stories is a two-step process:

=== On the Character Page ===
Each page has, at the very bottom, under the references section, a category list. Add the following category on a character's page in order to add them to a story:

:: &#91;&#91;Category:NAME-OF-STORY Characters&#93;&#93;

Where 'NAME-OF-STORY' is the piece of fiction. So for ''In Good Company'', for instance:

:: &#91;&#91;Category:In Good Company Characters&#93;&#93;

For ''Alysha's Fall'':

:: &#91;&#91;Category:Alysha's Fall Characters&#93;&#93;

Etc. [[Alysha Forrest|Alysha's]] category section is a good example of a character page with many story categories. Scroll to the bottom to have a look.

=== On the Fiction Page ===
On the story page, this code should be copied under the "Characters" heading:

:: &lt;categorytree mode="pages" hideroot="on"&gt;NAME-OF-STORY Characters&lt;/categorytree&gt; 

So, for instance, for In Good Company:
:: &lt;categorytree mode="pages" hideroot="on"&gt;In Good Company Characters&lt;/categorytree&gt;

For Alysha's Fall:
:: &lt;categorytree mode="pages" hideroot="on"&gt;Alysha's Fall Characters&lt;/categorytree&gt;

Etc.

This will automatically generate the list based on the characters who are in that story category. (This list can sometimes take a few minutes to update, so don't be alarmed if it isn't immediate.)(sometimes a page edit or null page edit will help force this)

== Disambiguation Pages ==

If there are more than one use of a particular term--for instance, Second the book versus Second the Chatcaavan title--you can use a disambiguation page to resolve the issue. To do so, put the following at the top of the page: &#123;&#123;Disambiguation&#125;&#125;. This will add a line that looks like this to the top of the page: 

:: '''Pagename''' may refer to: 

where pagename is whatever the name of the current page is. It will also add the page to a hidden category called Disambiguation Pages. (Hidden categories don't show up in the footer of the page like normal categories, but are useful for maintenance and behind-the-scenes work.) 

Below the &#123;&#123;Disambiguation&#125;&#125;, create a list of pages that are being disambiguated, and if desired, a brief explanation. For example:

:: &#42; &#91;&#91;Second (Fiction)&#93;&#93;, the first book of the Stardancer series.
:: &#42; &#91;&#91;Second (Title)&#93;&#93;, the second-in-command of the Chatcaavan emperor.

Which will look like this:

* [[Second (Fiction)]], the first book of the Stardancer series.
* Second (Title), the second-in-command of the Chatcaavan emperor.

If the entries have not been created yet, they can be created as normal. Additional things can be added at will (for example, to add individuals with the title).

== Creating a Redirect ==

If you move a page and don't delete the page it came from (see [[#Renaming Pages/Categories (aka Moving Pages)]]) it will automatically create a redirect unless you tell it not to. If you want to manually create a redirect on a new or empty page without moving it, you can do so by adding the following text to the page top of the page: #REDIRECT &#91;&#91;Destination Page&#93;&#93;. For example, if someone creates a page for Uenuevin, and you want to redirect it to Emperor Kauvauc Ueneuvin rather than deleting it outright, you could do so by putting #REDIRECT &#91;&#91;Emperor Kauvauc Uenuevin&#93;&#93; on the Uenuevin page. Note that the redirect command must be on the first line of the page; it won't do anything if put elsewhere.

In general, redirects should be used when a character has a name change, or two valid names (like the Slave Queen/Queen Ransomed, or Lisinthir Nase Galare/Lisinthir Lauvet Imthereli); when an alternate name is used extremely frequently by wiki editors, so much so that it's a lot of work to clean up later (like Jahir for Jahir Seni Galare); or when there's a really common misspelling (like Persey for Persy). In general, though, creating a bunch of redirects pre-emptively (like every possible variant of a character's name or title) results in a lot of extra pages, and extra pages make searching/browsing for information more cumbersome, so best only to do so when the reason for the redirect is clear-cut.

== Uploading Images ==

You can upload any appropriate image you have permission to use. I've been using the following naming conventions:
* Covers: Cover-NameofStory-edition.jpg (or png). So "Cover-Second-secondedition.jpg" is the second edition cover for the Second story.
* Maps: Map-placename.jpg. "Map-Ontine.jpg"
* Other pictures: Illo-NameofThing.jpg. (Short for "illustration"). So "Illo-Kerinne.jpg"

== Renaming Pages/Categories (aka Moving Pages) ==

Technically, you can't actually rename a page or category, but in practice you can, it just takes a few steps. What you are essentially doing is (optionally) moving the existing contents of the page/category (including categories to which it belongs, in the case of pages and subcategories) to a new page with a new name, and then deleting the old category. If you are 'renaming' a category that has already had pages added to it, you (unfortunately) have to then manually fix the subpages (or at least if there's a way to automate that, I haven't found it yet).

Here is how you do it:

# Go to the page or category that you want to fix. For example, if someone made the page or category "Hroses" and you want to fix the typo to Horses, you would go to the "Hroses" page or category.
# In the upper right of the page, Select '''More''' and then '''Move'''. This will take you to the '''Move''' page. 
# On the '''Move''' page, select a namespace. This will default to the namespace of the thing you're moving, so if you're moving a page it will be '''(Main)''', if you're moving a category it will be '''Category''', and so on. Usually you will want to leave this alone and not touch it unless you're doing something complicated.
# Next to the namespace, type the new name. In the above example, you would type "Horses."<br /> '''Important''': If the page you are moving to already exists, the move will overwrite the destination page with the source page. This means that if the page already exists and you don't want to overwrite it--i.e., if Horses already existed and had useful content--you would not want to move the page. In this case, copy any existing text that you want to keep from the Source page (Hroses) and then manually add it to Horses (if there isn't any, this obviously isn't necessary). Then skip to step 7 to delete the misnamed page. (This isn't a huge deal as moves can be undone, and the wiki will warn you if you try, but it's worth bearing in mind.)
# For the other settings, the defaults are usually fine. (You can uncheck 'leave a redirect behind' if you won't want it to create a redirect, but if you're deleting the page anyway it doesn't really matter.)
# If you're renaming a category, you will need to relink all of the pages/subcategories that the category contains to the new category. (If you leave the redirect in place, you don't actually have to do this as the redirect will fix it for you, but you might want to.) You can do this right away by opening them up before you delete the page, or by going to [[Special:WantedCategories]] and then remove the old category from the pages and add the new one. Then proceed to the deletion step. If you're renaming a page, skip this step.
# Deleting the page depends on whether you have delete rights or not. If you do, go back to the source page (Hroses), select '''More''' and then select '''Delete.''' You'll be prompted to confirm and provide a reason. If you don't have the delete right, ask someone to help.

== Protected Pages ==

Certain pages may be marked as 'protected'--generally, this is because [[User:Jaguar]] (the author!) has a particular use in mind for the page and doesn't want it altered. If this is the case, the Edit link on the page will change to a View Source link, allowing you to see the wiki markup without modifying it. 

The Discussion/Talk page for protected pages can still be edited.

== Deleting Pages ==

Deleting pages can only be done by administrators. If you think a page should be deleted (i.e., you made it in error), drop a note on the Talk page and someone will come along and take care of it.


[[Category:Meta]]