Page History: Wiki Basics (or What's all this, then?)
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Page Revision: 2008/07/15 22:22
Welcome to the wonderful OWWM Wiki! All hail the great and powerful Wiki!
So, if you're reading this you're probably asking yourself "Self, just how can I contribute to this wonderful font of knowledge?" Well, Bunky, I'm glad you asked.
Create an Account
The very first thing that you'll need is an Account for the Wiki. Yes, I know you already have an account for owwm.com and another for owwm.org. Maybe one day the stars will align and you'll only need one account for the whole OWWM world. But that day isn't today. Sorry.
To get your free / no obligation / newly minted Account, simply click on Create Account in the Navigation box over on the left-hand side of your browser. You will be asked a couple of painless questions and your Account will be created. You can use the same username and password that you use elsewhere in the OWWM metroplex.
With your spiffy new Account, you're now free to run roughshod throughout the Wiki. Don't worry; inadvertent, incorrect, or malicious edits can be rolled back, so there's little actual damage that you can do. But do take care, you really do have the power to change most anything in the Wiki at this point.
The Sandbox¶
If you've never done the Wiki thing, you might want to stop by the
Sandbox. This is a place where you can try things out away from prying eyes. Changes made in the Sandbox aren't saved (but let's keep it clean, shall we?).
If you go over to the
Sandbox now that you're a logged-in, full-fledged Wiki member, you'll see "Edit this Page" up at the top of the Article between "Discuss (0)" and "History". Click on "Edit this Page" and you'll be brought to a window that has the contents of the Article laid out before you. Within this window, you are free to add / remove / modify the Article contents. You can also cut, copy, and paste text between the Edit window and your other applications.
If you'd like to see what the Article looks like after your (no-doubt brilliant) editing work, just click on the Preview button below the text box. You'll get a fair representation of what users will see displayed below the editing box.
Basic Formatting
Entering text into the Wiki is as easy as typing, but making it look the way you want takes a bit more effort.
Don't tell anyone, but I swiped this from the Wiki's
Help - Page Formatting page:
- Writing
'''bold''' produces bold - Writing
''italic'' produces italic - Writing
__underlined__ produces underlined - Writing
--striked-- produces striked - You can use any combination, for example
--striked '' '''bold''' and italic''-- produces striked bold and italic
Note that the tic marks are single quotes (probably next to your Enter key) rather than apostrophes (up next to your 1 key).
Please be aware that the Wiki software has its own ideas about how to handle Enters, Line Feeds, Carriage Returns, and whitespace. In short, the Wiki will ignore a single Enter/Carriage Return at the end of a line unless the next line is blank. So if you type this:
This is a test.
This is also a test.
You'll see this:
This is a test.
This is also a test.
Also, the Wiki will strip out multiple spaces, leaving only one space between each word or sentence. So this:
This is a test. This is also a test.
Turns into this:
This is a test. This is also a test.
Edit an existing Article¶
An easy way to dip your big toe into the Wiki pool is to modify an existing Article.
Edit the Main Page¶