Help out with the Wiki

[Deano Stormblessed]

Hey guys,

I would like to help out with the wiki. I don't mind making summary pages of each chapter for all Brandon's books, with link to the annotations, as well as updating character pages and such.

The only problem is I don't know how to use the wiki pages. If someone helps me out, I wouldn't mind helping out.

[Beligaronia]

If you want to help go for it. Don't worry too much about wikicode, it'll be reasonably easy to codify anything you do after it's there. (For me, since I'm lazy, the hard part is getting it written in the first place.)

Basic wikicode can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup.

If you want anything specific just ask us (we'll be happy to help).

To start editing, go to the page you want to change and click edit at the top of the page. this should open up a text box and you can make changes from there. If you want to see how everything looks then click "show preview" before saving.

[Andrew the Great]

I'm already doing summaries for Way of Kings, though you're welcome to edit them or add new ones that I haven't done yet.

I don't know of anyone doing summaries on any of the others, though I know that there were plans for these to happen eventually. Look around. Go to the main page of the wiki (link can be found in the thread "For your Convenience" in the wiki subforum - I recommend bookmarking it. Alternatively, you could just click the wiki tab at the top of any page....). Click the books link on the main page, and see if there are summaries for any given book you want to write them on. Look at the Summary page for Way of Kings for formatting if you want.

To create a link in a wiki, you put whatever you want to link to in two sets of brackets. So, for example, if I wanted to link to the page called The Stormlight Archive, when I was editing the page, I would put [[The Stormlight Archive]].

If you want to create a new page, there are a couple of ways to do it, but the easiest way is by clicking on a red link. Red links refer to pages that haven't been created yet, and when you click them, it takes you straight to an editing page to create them.

Formatting isn't terrible difficult. You use equals signs for headers.

==Section Header (Includes line - Use Sparingly)==

===Smaller Header===

====Smaller Header====

Etc.

: is an indentation, though it's not a very big one, and you won't need it often. Use * for bullets in lists, and if you need any of these symbols in your text you just surround them with nowiki tags.

<nowiki>*******</nowiki>

I think I did that right.

If you're wondering what needs created, there's links on the front page where you can find wanted pages and stub articles. These need to either be created or have content added.

You can also categorize articles by adding [[Category:(Insert Category Here)]] at the bottom of the page. For example, on Odium's page, you might have [[Category:Cosmere]] [[Category:The Stormlight Archive]].

Tracking down citations for the various confirmed facts is appreciated as well. Add references to these right after the statement that refers to them. The format for this is <ref>Short Summary of What source is</ref>, and then you have to add <references /> to the bottom of the page.

For example, the citation of Brandon confirming that Endowment is indeed the name of the Shard on Nalthis:

Nalthis

(Text of article here). Brandon has confirmed that there is at least one Shard, Endowment, present on Nalthis. <ref>Barnes and Noble Q&A with Brandon</ref>

(Rest of Article Here)

<references />

(Categories Here)

That should be enough to get you going. Note that all of the information that I've just given you is available on the wiki, and that if you get lost, it's pretty easy to find a page that uses the formatting you're looking for, hit the edit button, and see how it's done.

I should also probably mention that it's very important that you either don't include speculation in your articles, or you separate it from the known facts and clearly label it as speculation. Several of the current pages have Speculation sections for the purpose of discussing common theories. I only mention this because I have a tendency to include my speculations, and then I have to go back and fix them.

Happy editing! Feel free to ask any questions you may have, though I may or may not know the answers.

[Deano Stormblessed]

Awesome starting with WoA since I just started reading it yesterday and only at end of part 1.

EDIT: How would I put pictures in (for the chapter headings)? Andrew, I think that the WoK will need the picture headings for each chapter. They seem to have some sort of importance.

[Beligaronia]

If you have a copy of any of the images, along the sidebar there will be a link labeled Upload file. That'll let you upload from your computer to the wiki.

Probably for code you want something like: [[File:File.png|200px|thumb|right]]

Which would give you an image at the right of the page. You may need to play with the size till it works with what you want.

[Deano Stormblessed]

hmm, could be problematic as my scanner isn't really working. Well, if anyone knows a way to get the images from the book headings to the computer an easier way, or knows a place they are already uploaded, this could help, otherwise I'll tackle this obstacle at the end.

[Andrew the Great]

And I just don't have a scanner at the moment, being in a dorm room as I am. I agree that we should probably put the chapter headings in there. They add quite a bit, and they look pretty.....yes, I'm a little ADD.....

However, I'm wondering if this is a copyright issue? Using some of the text of the book falls under Fair Use, I know, and if we were commenting on the graphics extensively and/or analyzing them, I know that that falls under Fair Use as well, but I'm not sure if posting them in the summary pages would. I think it'd look great, but I don't want to break copyright law....

[Deano Stormblessed]

Maybe someone should get into contact with Brandon/Peter and get approval? Or do we have to contact the publishers?

[Brightness Enna]

How do we put pictures in? I found one on Google Images I want to use (yes, it's public domain), but I don't know how. I know there's a code, and you have to upload the picture somewhere else... How do I do that?

[Chaos]

See Help:Images; that should have everything you need, enna.