Help:Contents
From Second Life Wiki
A helpful guide on posting to the wiki.
Contents |
[edit] General Wiki Philosophy
A wiki is a piece of software that allows a bunch of people to collaboratively build a website about something.
As such, you are free to edit whatever you like. You don't need to ask permission, just register an account and you're good to go.
However, common Wiki etiquette generally dictates that you try to keep the previously existing content intact: Try to add material, instead of removing, or replacing things. Always try to work with the existing stuff and never do anything drastic unless necessary.
[edit] Basic Guidelines
This wiki does adhere to guidelines where applicable. In short some of these guidelines are listed below...
Users will agree not to create the following:
- Common dictionary terms - we're not a dictionary, terms in the Glossary should only be terms related to Second Life or have a specific meaning that is different in Second Life.
- Pages that only host a link to another site (redirects are ok, but a link alone is not sufficient content, this wiki is not google or a link resource).
- Script commands (instead, link to the LSL Wiki, you can use the template: {{IW-LSL|link=article}} where article is the LSL wiki article you wish to link to )
- Redirects to orphans
- Pages that have been deleted by the administration (do not "resurrect" pages, contact an administrator if you feel a page was deleted in error).
The administration may exercise their right to delete the aforementioned pages and issue a warning at any time for any reason. However, some leeway may be granted to users. The administration may give users a grace period of 7 days to see if they or anyone else actually develops the page a bit further. Users that resurrect a deleted page will be warned. More than three deleted page resurrections, 24 hour ban. Ban time may be doubled with each incidence.
Users will also agree to adhere to the following guidelines:
- A stub has to be something that is at least a sentence long (preferably longer).
- Try to see if your content can fit in existing articles first.
- All articles must be related to SL in some way.
- User names have to be traceable to SL accounts (SL name could be given on a userpage if you prefer to use a regularly used screen name).
- Do not delete large amounts of information without giving reason in "Summary".
- Do not alter User and Talk pages in a way that may change their meaning (i.e. making it look like someone said something they did not).
- Do not revert pages reverted by a moderator (if you feel a page was wrongfully reverted use the Discussion page for that article to dispute it).
These guidelines are subject to change at any time and under special circumstances may be ignored.
This wiki also adheres to most Wikipedia Guidelines.
[edit] Organization
Before making any new posts, first try and find the best category where your addition would fit in.
If you do not find any category that you think suites your post, or you are unsure of which one to put it in, plop it in Misc History Articles.
Try to avoid creating new categories when they are un-needed.
[edit] New Entries
- To create a new page:
- Create a link to it on some other (related) page.
- Save that page.
- Click on the link you just made. The new page will open for editing.
- Please do not create a new article without linking to it from at least one other article.
- Do not create a new article unless you intend to add some content to it at that time.
[edit] Naming/Titles
When making a new page, be sure to check the spelling of your title, this is to avoid a lot of misspelled entries that need to be deleted (mistakes do happen however :).
Article titles can contain spaces. For example: "Town Halls" is a valid title.
Try and keep titles as short as possible, yet also informative about what the entry is about, i.e. "Yamato" instead of "Yamato Shangri La Village".
Titles can be lowercase or Uppercase, use your best judgment, uppercase titles generally look better (and are preferred) but in some cases are not wanted. Capitalizing the first letter of an article is common practice, words after the first depends on the context, with names of a person, place, or thing, you would generally capitalize all the words of the name.
Keep in mind when linking to articles that MediaWiki (the software used for this wiki) does not care about the capitalization of the first word of an article name, but it does care about those after, so the link "[[Philip Linden]]" and "[[Philip linden]]" will point to two different articles, but "[[teal]]" and "[[Teal]]" point to the same article.
[edit] Content
When making an entry based on resources that can be linked to and you have the links handy, please provide them at the bottom of the page (or wherever else relevant). Forum links, New World Notes, and google links are examples. It is helpful if Forum Links and NWN Links are labeled as such, example: "Forum Link: Blah".
Avoid creating new pages without content, stubs are ok if you do not have a large amount of information on that topic, but blank articles will be deleted. At the least provide a definition or description of what exactly the title of the article is.
Try and maintain a "neutral point of view" where expected. However there are some cases where a NPOV is not required, such as on your user page. An example of using NPOV is instead of "I have known about this sim for a long time" say something like "This sim has been known by some for a long time". Also avoid stuff like "This event really sucked and ruined my evening", instead use something like "Some people were not happy with this event, feeling it was badly executed".
[edit] Notability
Given that most new pages have been vanity pages, we are opening a discussion about Second Life Wiki:Notability Criteria. Please voice your opinion over there.
[edit] Corrections/Editing
To edit an entry/page, simply click "edit" at the top of each page.
Before correcting a page, Refresh the page you wish to correct, sometimes pages will remain cached for your browser and you may go to correct something that already has been corrected.
Also be sure to refresh the editing page, otherwise you may mistakenly recreate errors that have been fixed since your last edit of that entry.
If you're unsure of a correction or an edit, you can add a "(?)" next to what you're unsure about, i.e. "They then all ate large hams(?), on this date.(?)". Or if you're really unsure about something you can add a comment where appropriate. However it is preferred that you add a comment to the discussion page for that article, this keeps the main article "clean".
If you do correct something and you know the correction to be true, take out any comments or in corrections.
Please mark minor edits, such as spelling corrections, syntax fixes, etc. as "This is a minor edit" by clicking the check box under the editing text box on the edit page. Also it will help to provide a short Summary of the edit to inform others of what exactly was changed.
For more help on editing a page, such as usage of syntax, see Help:Editing.
[edit] Miscellaneous
To see changes made to a certain page click "history" at the top of that page.
To have an image displayed on the wikiHUD, make the first line of an article {{lk|}} with the UUID of a full permission texture between the | and the second set of braces. This will show a link to the second life app image on the wiki page, so that people can check to make sure the texture is appropriate, and in world will display that texture on the wikiHUD.
[edit] Questions? Help?
If you have a question or need help contact Oz Spade or Eggy Lippmann or post on the Historical Society Group Forums: SLUniverse Forum Link: SLHS Group Forums (these forums are actually rarely read, so you're better off leaving a comment in a Discussion page)
For more help see the Wikipedia Help or Wikimedia Help, both provide more information than you could ever want on Wiki stuff.