Powerbase:How To Edit A Page
Template:SpinProfiles:Help SpinProfiles is a wiki, meaning that anybody who has registered can easily edit any article and have those changes posted immediately.
Before you can edit, you'll need to quickly register with a valid email address, which is done to deter spammers and vandals. Once you've registered, editing a page is as easy as clicking the "edit this page" tab at the top of the window."
This page is the reference for Wiki markup which provides a guide on how to create sections, link pages, bullet point, write in bold and in Italics, as well as a whole host of other features.
Before you get started please familiarise yourself with the following guidelines:
- how to start a page
- informal tips on contributing to SpinProfiles
- layout conventions, at the Manual of Style
- Naming Conventions for articles themselves
- A Guide to Referencing
- A Guide to Sourcing
- A Guide to the use of Tone
- Copyrights
- Some important things to consider in relation to Libel
- Some pointers on Etiquette
- Search Engine Optimization of Articles
Contents
Getting started
It's very easy to edit a SpinProfiles page. Simply click on the "Edit this page" link at the top the page you wish to edit. This will bring you to a page with a text box containing the editable text of that SpinProfiles page.
Then type away, and press "Save" when finished! It is normally a good idea to preview your changes before saving it, just to make sure that it is as you intended it to be. The preview and save commands are found at the bottom of the page.
It is often more convenient to copy and paste the text first into your favorite text editor, edit and spell check there, and then paste back into the browser to preview. This way, you can also keep a local backup copy of the pages you authored so that you can make changes offline.
Each article has a corresponding "Talk" page where you can discuss its comments and debate editorial decisions if necessary. To see the "Talk" page, click on the "Discuss this page" link.
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 were 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 Sandbox.
Sections, Paragraphs, Lists and Lines
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
|
Start your sections with header lines: New SectionSubsectionSub-subsection |
== New Section == === Subsection === ==== Sub-subsection ==== |
|
A single newline has no effect. But an empty line starts a new paragraph. |
A single newline has no effect. But an empty line starts a new paragraph. |
| You can break lines without starting a new paragraph. |
You can break lines<br> without starting a new paragraph. |
|
* Lists are easy to do: ** start every line with a star ** more stars means deeper levels |
|
# Numbered lists are also good ## Very organized ## easy to follow |
|
* You can even do mixed lists *# and nest them *#* like this |
|
; Definition lists : list of definitions ; item : the item's definition |
|
:Lines can be ::indented :::several levels |
A manual newline starts a new paragraph. |
:A colon will indent a line or paragraph. A manual newline starts a new paragraph. |
IF a line starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a technical looking font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* ascii art;
WARNING If you make it wide,
you force the whole page to be wide and
hence less readable.
|
IF a line starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a technical looking font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
this is useful for:
* pasting preformatted text;
* algorithm descriptions;
* ascii art; |
<center>Centered text.</center> |
|
| A horizontal dividing line: above
and below. |
A horizontal dividing line: above ---- and below. |
|
Using columns is an efficient use of space. Just put everything you want in columns below a "<div>" tag
And make sure to close your columned-section with a "</div>". You can use this for bulleted or numbered lists or just lines of text, too. |
<div style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;"> * One * Two * Three * Four * Five * Six </div> |
| When adding a comment to a Talk page, you should sign it. You can do this by adding three tildes for your user name. You'll find a command near the top of your talk page that will insert this for you: - Sheldon Rampton
or four for user name plus date/time: |
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: ~~~~ |
Links and URLs
| What it is | What you put in | What you get |
|---|---|---|
|
Internal links | ||
| A simple internal link. |
Link to [[public relations]]. | Link to public relations. |
| An internal link with the same target but a different name. | [[Public relations|P.R.]] | P.R. |
| Simple endings to internal links are automatically blended into the link. | [[Spin]]ing and [[conservative]]s | Fearing and conservatives |
| when you click "Save page." | [[Tom Campbell (California politician)|]] [[SpinProfiles:Contributing|Contributing]] [[Portal:Telecom, Media and Intellectual Property Policy (U.S.)|]] |
Tom Campbell Contributing Telecom, Media and Intellectual Property Policy |
Links to pages that don't exist yet show up in red.
|
[[National sarcasm society]] is a page that doesn't exist yet. | National sarcasm society is a page that doesn't exist yet. |
| You can redirect one article title to another by inserting this single line into the blank page you want to redirect from (the link goes where you want it to redirect to). This is useful for making sure that when other editors link to an article without checking the exact spelling, their link will still work. | #REDIRECT [[Thomas D. Delay]] | (See an example here) |
|
External links | ||
| A simple external link is made by putting a url (including the http://) within a single bracket. To name the link, put one space after the url and then type whatever you want (spaces and other characters are generally fine) and close it with a bracket. | [http://www.prwatch.org PR Watch] | PR Watch |
| An even simpler external link can be made by simply pasting the url into the editing window. However the use of brackets as above is the prefered method for use on SpinProfiles. | http://www.prwatch.org | http://www.prwatch.org |
Images
| What it looks like | What you put in |
|---|---|
A picture: 
|
A picture: [[Image:Experts_small.gif]] or, with alternate text (preferred) [[Image:Experts_small.gif|Trust Us, We're Experts book cover]] which will be
|
|
Clicking on an uploaded image displays a description page, which you can also link directly to: Image:Experts_small.gif |
[[:Image:Experts_small.gif]] |
|
To include links to non-image uploads such as sounds, or to images shown as links instead of drawn on the page, use a "media" link. |
[[media:Foolbush.mov|Movie]] [[media:Experts_small.gif|Link to image]] |
|
To link to a section on the same page, use a "#" sign and then paste in the title of the section you want to link to. WARNING: If someone changes the name of a section heading, the link will break, so use this sparingly. |
[[#Articles and resources]] |
Character formatting
| What it looks like | What you type |
|---|---|
|
Emphasize, strongly, very strongly.
|
''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 formulas:
|
You can also write <i>italic</i> and <b>bold</b> if the desired effect is a specific font style rather than emphasis, as in mathematical formulas: :<b>F</b> = <i>m</i><b>a</b> |
| A typewriter font for technical terms. | A typewriter font for <tt>technical terms</tt>. |
| You can and underline new material.
|
You can <strike>strike out deleted material</strike> and <u>underline new material</u>. |
|
Umlauts and accents: (See wikipedia:Special characters) |
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 õ ö ø ù ú û ü ÿ |
|
Punctuation: |
¿ ¡ « » § ¶ † ‡ • — |
|
Commercial symbols: |
™ © ® ¢ € ¥ £ ¤ |
| Subscript: x2 Superscript: x2 or x²
ε0 = 8.85 × 10−12 C² / J m. |
Subscript: x<sub>2</sub> Superscript: x<sup>2</sup> or x² ε<sub>0</sub> = 8.85 × 10<sup>−12</sup> C² / J m. |
| Greek characters: α β γ δ ε ζ |
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 ∈ ∉ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔ |
x2 ≥ 0 true.
|
<i>x</i><sup>2</sup> ≥ 0 true. |
Tables
| First header | Second header | Third header |
|---|---|---|
| upper left | upper middle | right side |
| lower left | lower middle | |
| bottom row | ||
<table border="1"> <caption>An example table</caption> <tr> <th>First header</th> <th>Second header</th> <th>Third header</th> </tr> <tr> <td>upper left</td> <td>upper middle</td> <td rowspan=2>right side</td> </tr> <tr> <td>lower left</td> <td>lower middle</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" align="center">bottom row</td> </tr> </table>
If your table doesn't look right, make sure that all <tr> and <td> tags are closed with corresponding </tr> and </td> tags. Do not indent lines, and do not include empty lines within a table. Otherwise, you will get spurious space above the table or even a browser crash.
Here's a more advanced example, showing some more options available for making up tables. You can play with these settings in your own table to see what effect they have. Keep in mind that though colors are possible, it's best to use them sparingly. Check the above tables to see what can be done to the text inside the cells.
| First header | Second header | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| upper left | right side | |||||
| lower left | lower middle | |||||
|
||||||
<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="center"> <caption>'''An example table'''</caption> <tr> <th style="background:#efefef;">First header</th> <th colspan="2" style="background:#ffdead;">Second header</th> </tr> <tr> <td>upper left</td> <td> </td> <td rowspan=2 style="border-bottom:3px solid grey;" valign="top">right side</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-bottom:3px solid grey;">lower left</td> <td style="border-bottom:3px solid grey;">lower middle</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" align="center"> <table border="0"> <caption>''A table in a table''</caption> <tr> <td align="center" width="150px">[[Image:Experts_small.gif]]</td> <td align="center" width="150px">[[Image:Experts_small.gif]]</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" colspan="2" style="border-top:1px solid red; border-right:1px solid red; border-bottom:2px solid red; border-left:1px solid red;">Two book covers</td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table>
If editing someone else's writing, leave a note
If you are editing or deleting someone else's writing, it's a common courtesy to leave a note on an article's discussion page (found by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the article) explaining your reasons why. It would probably then be a good idea to check back a little later to see if other editors have responded. Remember: be cool, be collaborative and talk things out. "Edit wars" are never fun and rarely productive. If a dispute does arise, see SpinProfiles Dispute Resolution page for guidelines on how to resolve it.
