Helping Out

From CM-SS13 - Wiki


Before you begin

  • The Special:SpecialPages page is the #1 weapon against unorganized or lacking wiki pages. It can be reached from the main menu cogwheel.
  • The Special:Version special page has useful information on what extensions are installed for more advanced knowledge on wiki syntax and functionality.
  • If you're not sure how to use wiki syntax, check out the official Mediawiki Formatting page.
  • Check out your "Editing" user preferences and make sure you have the enhanced editing toolbar enabled, among other optional tweaks.

Contributing

  • Place {{outdated}} at the top of a wiki page to display a banner showing that the page is outdated and needs help. View all outdated pages here - you're welcome to help update them.
  • Special:ShortPages might be looking for more data.
  • Special:WantedFiles are all linked images that don't have a file attached to them. In 90% of cases, you can let Sargeantmuffinman or TopHatPenguin know about these and he can upload the correct icon directly from source files. (Combined icons won't work for this, such as a human wearing armor, clothing, and holding weapons.)
  • Special:WantedPages are links to pages that don't exist yet, but someone feels it's needed.
  • If you upload a file, make sure it doesn't already exist by checking Special:ListFiles. It is crucial that existing files are replaced by uploading a new version - DO NOT upload another version of the file with a different name!
  • Tables have their own markup that is clean and easy to edit. Visit the official Mediawiki Help:Tables page for more info. There are also a few 3rd-party tools to assist with formatting, such as the Mediawiki Tables Generator.
  • Templates are extremely powerful wiki additions that help eliminate redundancy in markup and provide a clean, easy-to-edit layout for future contributors. Check out the templates we're using. For example, you can add {{tocright}} to any page to have the Table of Contents move to the right side of the page. Advanced templates can include ParserFunctions (using #if, #ifexp, #switch, etc) for calculation and string handling (e.g. item infoboxes that show a default "Image not found" image if one doesn't exist), leading to some very clean and professional-looking documentation.
  • Some other features include Magic Words, which can be useful in templates or in special cases, such as hiding the Table of Contents (TOC).
  • All other Mediawiki-specific Help pages are here if you'd like to learn more.

Cleaning

  • Special:LonelyPages has a list of pages that might need to be deleted or worked on (anything deleted can be restored).
  • Special:UnusedFiles might also need to be deleted (anything deleted can be restored).
    • Note: normal users are unable to delete pages, but Trusted users can.