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Frequently Asked Questions
From Sci-Mate Wiki
| Authors : 25.11.2007 - Christopher Dyer - Sci-Mate |
[edit] How do I edit a page?
- It's quite easy. Simply click the "Edit this page" tab located at the top of the page or the other edit link across from headings on the right hand side of the page, and type away as you see fit. See Cheatsheet to learn about basic syntax for making links, using bold and italics, linking to images, and many other things....
[edit] But I have problems editing with my browser!
- This is quite common. We have found Firefox to be the best PC browser an Camino the best for Macs. Neither are perfect. Please report bugs in the Feedback-Wiki: Sci-Mate Bugs.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_make_links.3F" name="How_do_I_make_links.3F"></a>
[edit] How do I make links?
- A <a title="Help:Link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Link">link</a> is just the name of the page surrounded by double square brackets ( and ). It's also possible to make the link display text that is different from that of the link itself:</dd>
- page name</dd>
- page names -- suffix text will display as part of the link</dd>
- display name -- the <a title="Wikipedia:Piped link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Piped_link">piped link</a>: hide the page name and display something else (but use this sparingly, and never "click here"!)</dd>
- page name or Page -- the "pipe trick": the part in parentheses and the comma and words after it will not be displayed. Note that you don't need to put underscores ("_"), to act as space separators like you see in links. Spaces will work fine.</dd>
- Apostrophe: If an <a title="Apostrophe" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe">apostrophe</a> is used in a page title, it must be of the vertical typewriter variety, or the page may not link.</dd>
- page name</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_insert_a_new_line.3F" name="How_do_I_insert_a_new_line.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I insert a new line?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=4">edit</a>] How do I insert a new line?
- Normally, Wikipedia doesn't start a new line when you press the Enter key. If you press the Enter key twice, Wikipedia will start a new paragraph. To force a single new line (for instance, when you want to insert a poem) insert the <a title="HTML element" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_element">HTML element</a>
<br />after the line.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_rename_a_page.3F" name="How_do_I_rename_a_page.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I rename a page?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=5">edit</a>] How do I rename a page?
- Registered users with a little bit of editing history under their belts can move a page; this moves the page content and edit history to a new title, and creates a redirecting page at the old title. This method is better than just copying and pasting the content by hand, as it preserves the article's history, as required by our license. Use the "Move this page" link. Once you have moved a page, please click the "What links here" and fix the links to the old page (which will be labelled as a redirect in the "What links here" list). See <a title="Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_rename_%28move%29_a_page">How to rename (move) a page</a> for more details.</dd>
- Images and other media files cannot be renamed. You may save a copy of the file to your computer, rename it there, and then upload it with the new name. Fix any links to the old file to point to the new one, then tag the old file with an "images for speedy deletion" tag: copy the template {{<a title="Template:Isd" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Isd">isd</a>|New image name}} into the image's description page (filling in the new image name). This will add it to the <a title="Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion">Images for Deletion</a> category, and an admin will delete it for you.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_delete_a_page.3F" name="How_do_I_delete_a_page.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I delete a page?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=6">edit</a>] How do I delete a page?
- First off, please don't blank articles. Such changes will most likely get reverted soon afterwards, so they are pointless, too.</dd>
- The procedure for deletions is explained at <a title="Wikipedia:Deletion policy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy">Wikipedia:Deletion policy</a>. Articles that should be deleted are most commonly nominated at <a title="Wikipedia:Articles for deletion" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion">Wikipedia:Articles for deletion</a>.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_edit_a_redirect_page.3F" name="How_do_I_edit_a_redirect_page.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I edit a redirect page?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=7">edit</a>] How do I edit a redirect page?
- The easiest way to edit the redirected page is to click on the link you see at the top of the page after being redirected: "redirected from ...". For example, if you try to go to the <a title="William Jefferson Clinton" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jefferson_Clinton">William Jefferson Clinton</a> page, you are redirected to the <a title="Bill Clinton" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton">Bill Clinton</a> page. At the very top of that page, you will see a message: "(redirected from <a title="William Jefferson Clinton" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jefferson_Clinton">William Jefferson Clinton</a>)", Click on the <a title="William Jefferson Clinton" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jefferson_Clinton">William Jefferson Clinton</a> link, and you will edit the redirect page. See <a title="Wikipedia:Redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirect">Redirect</a>.</dd>
<a id="How_long_should_the_ideal_article_be.3F" name="How_long_should_the_ideal_article_be.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How long should the ideal article be?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=8">edit</a>] How long should the ideal article be?
- Since one can link from page to page to page, how long should the ideal Wikipedia article be? A good rule of thumb would be less than 5000 words, unless the subject really, really needs much exposition. However, for a subject that is that complex, one can link several shorter articles together, using a hub page to tie all articles together.</dd>
- For example:</dd>
- Foo
- History of Foo</dd>
- Physical Description of Foo</dd>
- Relationship with Bar</dd>
- Modern Cultural Icons and Foo</dd>
- Foo and You: Making it work in the long run</dd>
- Minimum Foo-Tree, the Gidsy-David Algorithm.</dd>
- Physical Description of Foo</dd>
- History of Foo</dd>
- If you write one long article, you will need new headlines anyway. If you write a long paragraph, then you need to add new linebreaks. <a title="Wikipedia:Build the web" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Build_the_web">The structure of Wikipedia is a web</a>, instead of a text that you read linearly.</dd>
- See <a title="m:Wiki_is_not_paper" class="extiw" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_is_not_paper">m:Wiki is not paper</a> for further discussion.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_figure_out_how_big_an_article_is.3F" name="How_do_I_figure_out_how_big_an_article_is.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I figure out how big an article is?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=9">edit</a>] How do I figure out how big an article is?
- Search results give the size, for example "Knot theory (3220 bytes)". If search is disabled, copy the content of the edit box into an editor, save it as a text file, and check the properties of the file. Some variation is possible depending on whether a new line takes one or two bytes.</dd>
- When the article size reaches 32 KB, a warning is displayed at the top of the edit screen, as that size gives some Web browsers problems. It will likely give readers and editors problems as well.</dd>
<a id="What_do_I_do_when_an_article_is_too_long.3F" name="What_do_I_do_when_an_article_is_too_long.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: What do I do when an article is too long?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=10">edit</a>] What do I do when an article is too long?
- See <a title="Wikipedia:How to break up an article" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_break_up_an_article">Wikipedia:How to break up an article</a>.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_determine_what_other_users_have_changed_in_an_article.3F" name="How_do_I_determine_what_other_users_have_changed_in_an_article.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I determine what other users have changed in an article?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=11">edit</a>] How do I determine what other users have changed in an article?
- Wikipedia's software can produce a list of all the changes between two versions of an article (either between two consecutive versions, or between an old and the current version), laid out in two-columns side by side with changes highlighted (here's an <a rel="nofollow" title="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&diff=0&oldid=644424" class="external text" href="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&diff=0&oldid=644424">example</a>. From the Recent Changes page you can click the "diff" link; from an article page itself click "Page history", then "cur" or "last" to see changes.</dd>
- To see the differences between two arbitrary versions of an article, see <a title="Wikipedia:URLs" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:URLs">Wikipedia:URLs</a>.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_convert_Unicode_characters_to_HTML_special_characters.3F" name="How_do_I_convert_Unicode_characters_to_HTML_special_characters.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I convert Unicode characters to HTML special characters?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=12">edit</a>] How do I convert <a title="Unicode" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode">Unicode</a> characters to <a title="HTML" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML">HTML</a> special characters?
- Edit the article just like you do UTF-8'd wiki sites.
- Then hit preview. You should get broken characters or <a title="Mojibake" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake">mojibake</a>, but don't delete them because they enable conversion of Unicode characters to HTML.
- While keeping broken characters, type articles. You probably want to copy the entire article before removing it then paste it after you get broken characters.
- (see also <a title="Wikipedia:Special characters" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Special_characters">Wikipedia:Special characters</a>, in particular the section CJK characters)</dd>
<a id="How_can_I_add_pictures_to_pages.3F" name="How_can_I_add_pictures_to_pages.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How can I add pictures to pages?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=13">edit</a>] How can I add pictures to pages?
- First, you need the right to publish the picture under the <a title="GNU Free Documentation License" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License">GNU Free Documentation License</a>. This means that either you created the picture and therefore own the copyright, or it is in the public domain. If the picture is located on a server you control, you can refer to that image from your wiki page by simply including its URL, like this:</dd>
http://my.webserver.com/image.png</dd>- and it will be included. (Note it will only be linked, not displayed.) If instead you want to upload a picture to wikipedia.org, you can use <a title="Special:Upload" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload">special:upload</a> as a logged-in user and once it is uploaded, you can refer to it in your wiki pages as above, by including its file name :
Image:NameOfImage.png.</dd>
- See also <a title="Wikipedia:Image use policy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy">Image use policy</a>.</dd>
<a id="How_can_I_delete_uploaded_items.3F" name="How_can_I_delete_uploaded_items.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How can I delete uploaded items?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=14">edit</a>] How can I delete uploaded items?
- Only <a title="Wikipedia:Administrators" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators">Wikipedia:Administrators</a> can delete uploads, but anyone can upload a new item with the same name, thereby replacing the old one.</dd>
- If you want to nominate an uploaded image for deletion, see <a title="Wikipedia:Images for deletion" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_for_deletion">Wikipedia:Images for deletion</a>.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_describe_images.3F" name="How_do_I_describe_images.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I describe images?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=15">edit</a>] How do I describe images?
- Click on the image to get the description page. Also, when you upload the file everything you put in the upload summary is placed into the <a title="Image description page" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_description_page">image description page</a>. See <a title="Image:Boat.jpg" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Boat.jpg">Image:Boat.jpg</a> for an example of what goes onto one of these pages.</dd>
<a id="Are_there_any_tools_to_make_editing_easier_.2F_faster_.2F_more_fun.3F" name="Are_there_any_tools_to_make_editing_easier_.2F_faster_.2F_more_fun.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: Are there any tools to make editing easier / faster / more fun?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=16">edit</a>] Are there any tools to make editing easier / faster / more fun?
- See <a title="Wikipedia:Tools" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools">Wikipedia:Tools</a> for a list of such tools. Among other things, you can find browser plugins for faster editing and searching, and tools for HTML importing, and editing enhancements for the blind.</dd>
<a id="How_do_I_cite_sources.3F" name="How_do_I_cite_sources.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: How do I cite sources?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=17">edit</a>] How do I cite sources?
- See <a title="Wikipedia:Cite your sources" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cite_your_sources#How_to_cite_sources">Wikipedia:How to cite sources</a>.</dd>
<a id="Is_there_any_way_to_see_how_many_people_have_viewed_a_particular_page.3F" name="Is_there_any_way_to_see_how_many_people_have_viewed_a_particular_page.3F"></a>
[edit] [<a title="Edit section: Is there any way to see how many people have viewed a particular page?" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&action=edit§ion=18">edit</a>] Is there any way to see how many people have viewed a particular page?
- Unfortunately, there is not. The <a title="Server (computing)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_%28computing%29">servers</a> that run the <a title="Internet" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet">Internet</a> store copies of Wikipedia in <a title="Web cache" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_cache">"web caches"</a> to speed up access to the material. Since many viewings will be of the cached copies and not of Wikipedia directly, there is no way to count viewings, because Wikipedia does not have access to those servers (which are owned by many different companies). Also, Wikipedia is free for anyone to download and display, and therefore many websites, such as Answers.com, autonomously provide their users with Wikipedia articles (see <a title="Mirror (computing)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_%28computing%29">mirrors</a>).</dd>
<a id="The_end_of_an_article_doesn.27t_appear.2C_although_it.27s_there_in_the_edit_screen._What_happened.3F" name="The_end_of_an_article_doesn.27t_appear.2C_although_it.27s_there_in_the_edit_screen._What_happened.3F"></a>
[edit] The end of an article doesn't appear, although it's there in the edit screen. What happened?
- This is normally due to a mistake in the <a title="WP:REF" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REF">markup for citing sources</a>; look for a <ref> tag without a matching </ref> tag ('closing tag'), and add that closing tag in the appropriate place on the page.</dd>
