Wiki Tutorial

Wiki Intro

A little history

The first wiki was create in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, and it was called Wiki Wiki Web (Wiki in Hawaii means quick!).

Interview with Ward Cunningham

Wikis are about speed and easiness of writing and publishing on the Web.

Also about collaboration. According to Ward Cunningham ‘People discovered that they can create something with other people, that they don't even know. But they come to trust and they make something that surprises them in terms of its value’.

Consequently wikis have been used extensively as environments for online collaboration. Examples of this are:

• Wikipedia
• Wiktionary
• MMD&C - PZI wiki
• Digital Craft wiki
• Lostpedia - about TV show Lost
• Uncyclopedia - the content-free encyclopedia

Enough for talking lets start playing with the wiki.

Wiki editing

account creation

In order to start contributing to this wiki, like in most wikis, you need to create a user account. Do so by clicking on Create Account, in the top right corner or the wiki.

editing

How to write on the wiki?

Writing on a wiki is not not very different from writing a blog.

You have a Read and Edit mode.

Edit lets you enter content and make changes to existing content.

While you are editing, you can preview your changes in the Preview window.

Once done editing save the page, otherwise your contribution will be lost.

text formating

Although there is a specific syntax to format the text, you can use the menu to do much of the formating you need. In case you are interested to get to know the syntax here is cheat-sheet with the most important syntax.

You can experiment with writing and formating your own User page. You can get go to this page by clicking in your username, next to the little person drawing. The user page, is normally used to say something about you, but can also be a nice testing ground.

Attention: to create line breaks you need to leave at least one empty space between one line of text and the next.

Titles

You can make titles with different hierarchic levels by using "=" as follows:

=Main Title=

==Sub Title==

===Sub-sub Title===

===Sub-sub-sub Title===

You can place content under each of these section

The result when the page is saved will be:

Main Title

Content under Main Title

Sub Title

Content under Sub Title

Sub-sub Title

Content under Sub-sub Title

Sub-sub-sub Title

Content under Sub-sub-sub Title

page creation

How to create a page?

In a wiki the information is organized into pages or articles ( no great distinction between the two). If you want to say something about something for which there isn't a page, you create that page and start writing its content.

To create a page use the chain icon on the menu, as wiki page are essentially internal links. The result will be: [[name of new page]] .

quick page creation

Other option to create a page is to type the new page name in the URL bar.

For instance

http://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/mediawiki/index.php/MYNEWPAGE

where MYNEWPAGE will be the title of you page

You can now save you page and see that the link that you created to the new page is red.

• Red link = previously non-existing page.
• Blue link = existing page.

Lexicon - an existing page

external links

To link to external webpages, use the world icon.

You'll be presented with: [http://www.example.com link title] and simply need to replace them with url and title(optional)

Audio-visuals

uploading images

You probably want not only to write, but also to use images, audio and video on the pages you'll be developing.

Wiki allows the following formats:

Medium	Formats
image	png, gif, jpg, jpeg, svg
audio	ogg, mp3
video	ogv, webm, mp4

To upload you can use the picture icon on the menu. It asks you for the file name of the file you are going to upload (they must match) and a caption, if you to say something about that image, video, or audio.

When at this upload menu, instead of "caption" select "none" as the format of your upload.

[[File:myimage.png|My caption]]

This action doesn't upload the file, it only inserts a bit syntax that allow you do the upload the file. In order to do so, you need to:

• Save the page you are working on
• Click on the red link of the file you want to upload
• Follow the instruction to upload your file

Important notes on images:

• always leave an empty line before and after an image, no matter if it is preceded or followed by another image or text
• Do NOT include links inside image captions

image captions

Captions can be added to images by using a vertical bar

[[File:myimage.jpg|Caption under the image]]

Youtube/Vimeo videos

To include, you need:

• the ID of the video you want to include in you page
• to write {{youtube|id}} for Youtube or {{vimeo|id}} for vimeo. Where the id is the sequence of numbers and letters that follow ?v= in Youtube videos url, and vimeo.com/ in Vimeo videos)

Example: {{youtube|A1YYv_J2csk}} {{vimeo|68841788}}

will results in:

Categories

We are using categories to structure the process of creating the content.

In short each page needs to be given at least 2 Categories within parameters.

For each page you have to choose the category that best matches the page you are working on.

Categories	About	(child)Categories	Notes
Categories: Print / Web
Category:Status	Informs about the state of production of a page	WriteMe, EditMe, Ready to be published, Published

Choose the categories

Choosing the categories is easy.

• While editing go to the Categories Menu at the bottom of the page you are editing, just above the Save Page button
• The menu contains all the parameters and corresponding categories.
• Expand the parameters and choose the right category for each parameter.

Categories Menu, with the categories for all parameters chosen

State parameter

State deserves a bit more of attention since it informs us on the state of the page in question.

The following table explain the 4 states, their meaning and who gets to uses them:

State	Meaning	Who gets to use
01 WriteMe	Means: page is being developed http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/mediawiki/images/2/2a/Construction.gif	Who: Authors/Contributors of that page
02 EditMe	Means: page development is concluded. All content is as its authors want it to be. Page is ready to be reviewed by the Editors	Who: Authors/Contributors of that page
03 Ready to be published	Means: Page's reviews and corrections by the Editors are conclude. Page is ready to be proofread by the Proofreader	Who: Editors
04 Published	Means: Page's proofreading is concluded. Page is ready to be published	Who: Proofreader

WARNING: The right use of categories is crucial for the functioning of the project!

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Chaging pages' titles

Pages' titles can be changed by using the function Move in the top right corner in a dropdown menu next to the star.

The Move page permits you to attribute a new name to the current page

Keeping track

How does one keeps track of changes?

via Category Pages

Say you are an Editor and you want to see if any new pages were tagged with the State Category "02 Edit Me", so you can start editing this page.

You can see all the pages that are under that category, by going to "02 Edit Me" category page.

All Category Pages are accessible on the left sidebar. Just expand it and you'll find the the Category you are looking for.

via mailing list

The Mailing list can help with this process on notifying and keeping track of relevant changes in the wiki.

When one makes a change of a State Category, she can notify the whole team of this change via the Mailing List, so that other can carry on the work.

See how to use the mailing list in Mailing list

Communication

How do collaborators, editors, proofreaders, coordinators and designers communicate withing this ecosystem ? Say one totally disagrees with what is said in page where she is collaborating.

There are several ways to go about it.

mailing list

The disagreement can be handled over the Mailing list.

discussion/talk pages

Discussion or talk pages (synonyms) can also be used to communicate between users.

Discussion Pages are the backstage for the content of a page. They provide a space of discussions, remarks, etc can be expressed between users, without spilling on to the page content itself.

You can access by clicking on the top left corner the Discussion link. See if there is something on this page's discussion page.

Discussion pages' content can be view by anyone who visits the wiki, but wont ever become visible in http://hackersanddesigners.nl/

history

How to go back in time to previous versions of a page?

The history of a page (top right "View history" link) shows:

• the list of changes that happen to that page
• when they happened and which user did them
• compare different edit
  • seeing what was changed between them
  • see the page as it was in a given revision
  • edit (or simply copy) the content of that given revision

Say that in your most recent version(revision) you deleted something you need again. To recuse that content:

• go to "View history" page of the page you are working on
• on the left hand side select the revision where you still had your deleted content
• Click "Compare Selected Revisions"
• On the left column where says "Revision as of ..." click Edit
• Navigate the content and find the piece of content you are looking for
• Copy it
• Go back to your page by clicking the "Page" icon

problems

editing conflicts

You might experience editing conflicts while editing the wiki

help

There are several ways to ask for help in editing.

• Mailing list
  • Maybe the most direct is the mailing list for the project.
  • See how to use it in Mailing list

• Mediawiki
  • the website on Mediawiki (the software on which Hackers & Designers wiki runs) provides a lot of information
  • http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
  • What you'll be looking for will probably be under "Using MediaWiki"

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