Help:Editing: Difference between revisions

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".  

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 [[Sandbox]].

=== Links, URLs ===

 

<tr valign="top"><td>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 <nowiki>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_policy</nowiki>, which is the page with the name "Video policy".

<td><pre><nowiki>Sue is reading the [[video policy]].</nowiki></pre>

Link to a section on a page, e.g.

[[List_of_cities_by_country#Morocco]]; when section editing 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</td><td>

<pre><nowiki>[[List_of_cities_by_country#Morocco]].</nowiki></pre></td>

<tr valign="top"><td>Link target and link label are different: [[User:Larry Sanger|answers]].

 

(This is called a [[piped link]]).

<td><pre><nowiki>Same target, different name:

[[User:Larry Sanger|answers]]</nowiki></pre>

<td>Endings are blended into the link: [[official position]]s, [[gene]]s</td>

<pre><nowiki>Endings are blended

into the link: [[official position]]s, [[gene]]s</nowiki></pre>

Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: [[kingdom (biology)|kingdom]].

<p>Automatically hide namespace: [[Wikipedia:Village pump|Village pump]].</p>

<pre><nowiki>Automatically hide stuff in parentheses:

[[kingdom (biology)|]]. </nowiki></pre>

<pre><nowiki>Automatically hide namespace:

[[Wikipedia:Village pump|]].</nowiki></pre>

you should sign it. You can do this by

: [[User:Karl Wick|Karl Wick]]

or four for user name plus date/time:

: [[User:Karl Wick|Karl Wick]] 08:10 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC)

<td><pre><nowiki>When adding a comment to a Talk page,

: ~~~~</nowiki></pre>

<tr valign="top"><td>[[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 [[MediaWiki User's Guide: Starting a new page|how to start a page]] guide and the naming conventions page for your project.

<td><pre><nowiki>[[The weather in London]] is a page

that doesn't exist yet.</nowiki></pre>

[[MediaWiki User's Guide: Using redirects|Redirect]] one article title to another by putting text like this in its first line.

<td><pre><nowiki>#REDIRECT [[United States]]</nowiki></pre>

A link to the page on the same subject in another language or, more generally, to a page on another wiki:

For more info see [[MediaWiki User's Guide: Interwiki linking]].

<td><pre><nowiki>[[fr:Wikip�dia:Aide]], [[:fr:Wikip�dia:Aide]]</nowiki></pre></td>

<td>"What links here" and "Related changes" can be linked as:<br/>

[[Special:Whatlinkshere/Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] and

[[Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:How to edit a page]]

<td><pre><nowiki>

Wikipedia:How to edit a page]]</nowiki></pre>

<tr valign="top"><td>External links: [http://www.nupedia.com Nupedia], [http://www.nupedia.com]

<td><pre><nowiki>External links:

[http://www.nupedia.com]</nowiki></pre>

*In the [[en:URL|URL]] all symbols must be among: A-Z a-z 0-9 ._\/~%-+&amp;#?!=()@ \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 [[en:ASCII|ASCII]]). A blank space can also be converted into an underscore.

<td><pre><nowiki>Or just give the URL:

http://www.nupedia.com.</nowiki></pre>

To link to a bug in Mozilla's Bugzilla, use the <tt>bug</tt> template.

{{bug|322603}}

<pre><nowiki>{{bug|322603}}</nowiki></pre>

To link to books, you can use [[en:ISBN|ISBN]] links.

<pre><nowiki>ISBN 0123456789X</nowiki></pre>

Link to [[w:Request for Comments|Request for Comments]]: RFC 123 (URL specified in [[mediawiki:Rfcurl]])

<pre><nowiki>RFC 123</nowiki></pre>

To include links to non-image uploads such as sounds, use a "media" link.

<br/>[[media:Sg_mrob.ogg|Sound]]

</nowiki></pre>

<tr valign=top>

<td>Use links for dates, so everyone can set their own display order. Use [[Special:Preferences]] to change your own date display setting.

<td><pre><nowiki>[[July 20]], [[1969]] , [[20 July]] [[1969]]

</nowiki></pre>will all appear as [[20 July]] [[1969]] if you set your date display preference to 1 January 2001.

Clicking on an uploaded image displays a description page, which you can also link directly to: [[:Image:Wiki.png]]

[[:Image:Wiki.png]]

:<b>F</b> = <i>m</i><b>a</b></nowiki></pre><!-- that's not a mathematical formula, though -- sure it is, just because it's being applied to physics doesn't make it stop being mathematics -->

<tr valign=top>

<tr valign=top>

<tr valign=top>

<pre><nowiki><pre>arrow      &amp;rarr;

[[link]]</pre></nowiki></pre>

 

<pre> <nowiki>arrow      &amp;rarr;

  [[link]]</nowiki></pre>

<pre><nowiki><tt>arrow      &amp;rarr;</tt>

<tt>[[link]]</nowiki></tt></pre>

&amp;amp;rarr;</pre>

<pre><nowiki><!-- comment here --></nowiki></pre>