Help:Editing
This page will give some quick tips about editing, to get newcomers a starting point.
First, a basic understanding of a wiki is assumed. If you haven't already, maybe start with Introduction for an overview of Lotro-Wiki.
Basic Wiki Views
This section will explain features for interacting with wiki pages.
Viewing Tabs
At the top of this page, immediately next to the Lotro-Wiki logo, there are two tabs. Those appear on almost every page, with minor variations.
- Page: The default, reading view. The tab of this particular page is labeled "Help page". Another tab may read "Item", etc., but most often it simply reads "Page".
- Discussion: Also called talk page. This tab is kind of an attachment to the page, where editors can ask questions or discuss things relating to the page. And there may be comments made by editors when they were working on the page.
- Or use them to ask about accuracy, or a possible error, or to let people know your ideas for larger improvements to the page.
- Talk pages are not intended for game support.
Editing tabs
To the right of the "view tabs" there are three tabs; two of which relate to editing. There are a few more features we will not cover here.
- Read: This tab is equal to the "Page" tab; the default reading mode. Clicking on this tab while in edit mode will cause you to lose any unsaved changes, unless you have enabled the warning dialog in your preferences.
- Edit: This tab will open a wiki-editor, allowing you to edit all text and wiki-markup of the page. You may edit almost any page, but a few pages require special permissions.
Below the wiki-editor are three useful buttons, and a link to Cancel that will close the editor without saving anything.- Save changes is self-explanatory. However, before saving, use any of the next two buttons, please!
- Show preview will reload the page including any yet unsaved edits, giving you a preview of what the page will look like were you to save it in its current state, which is very useful in spotting mistakes and other page errors before committing a save. Below the preview of the page, the editor waits for continued editing.
- Show changes will open the "diff" view showing the difference(s) between the unmodified page and any yet unsaved changes, making it possible to verify the changes in detail. This is particularly good when editing complex wiki-markups, but also if you need to copy & paste from the previous version of the page.
- View history: This tab lists all the changes ever made to the page since it was created. Who did an edit, when, and the summary (comment) made when saving the edit. Also the difference from the previous, or any previous edit, and possibilities to undo or rollback an edit. This view is most useful to any editor and should indeed be in our toolbox.
Let's edit!
Let us open the editor by clicking Edit. Notice how this guide is written in plain text, though dotted here and there with some random symbols. These symbols are the aforementioned "wiki-markup" that tells the wiki-engine (the software) how to render the result. With such markup we can do anything from minor font formatting to complex image galleries, and more.
Here is a list of some markups that have been used on this page, briefly explained. But first, notice how markup very often encloses some text, and the text can be from a single character to a whole paragraph. Or the markup is the very first character on a line.
| Markup code | Outcome | Description |
|---|---|---|
| (empty line) | Denotes start/end of paragraphs | |
| ''text'' | text | Two apostrophes (single quotes) gives italic face |
| '''text''' | text | Three apostrophes gives bold face |
| '''''text''''' | text | Five apostrophes (i.e. three plus two) equals bold, italic text |
| [[Help]] | Help | Double square brackets creates a link to the given page. This only works for pages on Lotro-Wiki.com. |
| [[Help|Support]] | Support | Creates a link but with alternative (substitute) text. Notice the "bar" (aka "pipe") character between the page name and the displayed text. |
| == Text == | One to six equal signs on each side, enclosing text on a line of its own, gives a header, which in turn goes into the Table of Content (ToC) for the page. One equal sign being the largest (top-level) and six the tiniest (lowest-level) header. | |
|
* Apple |
|
An asterisk first on a line creates a bullet-list. An asterisk on the following line adds the next bullet to the same list, and so on. Prefacing a line with two, or more, asterisks will indent the level of the bullet-list accordingly. The end of the list is marked by the next row being empty or having plain text. |
|
# Apple |
|
A hashmark first on the line creates a numbered list. See bullet-list for details. Notice that bullet- and numbered lists are indented differently, which may cause problems. |
| Normal text : Indenting |
Normal text
|
A colon first on the line indents the text. This is most often used together with lists. And it is very useful to organise comments time-wise on talk pages; every new comment is indented one step further with another colon added. |
Those are just a few markups but they are the most common. Even if the editor has buttons for them, typing is much quicker than mousing.
- See also Wikipedia Tutorial and Editing.
Now, feel free to correct any typos on this page, or improve anything that wasn't clearly written. Just remember to always use the "Show preview" button before saving. But also, even if a mistake happens there is always the 'undo' or 'rollback' option, so don't be too scared.
Other Actions
See Article Management Tags for details on how to "tag" pages that need some kind of attention but you will not – or cannot – do anything about them at the time.
Renaming a Page
Renaming a page requires extra permissions and is actually called Move in wiki lingua. The page is moved to a new page with the new name. And in fact, the old page is deleted and remains in the delete log as it looked like at the move date.
See Requests for admin actions about the details but in short, place a move-request at the top of the page; {{Move|<target page>}}, where "target page" is the suggested new name. Add a comment next to the request if needed. Placing that markup will add the page to a category that administrators monitor decently often. (How that kind of markup works will be explained in a following help-page.)
Deleting a Page
Deleting a page requires extra permissions. If needed, place a deletion-request at the top of the page; {{Delete Page|<reason>}}. Don't forget to explain why you think the page should be deleted! See "renaming" above for more details.
Where to Start?
The two most common tasks at Lotro-Wiki are:
- Editing a page
- Creating a page
Create a Page
First of all, read Article Creation!!!
For the most common types of pages – such as NPCs, quests, etc. – there are ready-made tools. A few are available in the left-hand column and more are found at Category:Article Creation. We recommend using these create-article tools! They commonly help to avoid many mistakes and their help texts are up-to-date, which is not always the case with pages further away from their "templates" and "boilerplates".
For other types of pages, use one of the following tricks. Just an advice first, in the case the page name is not bound to anything in-game: It is easier to link to and search for e.g. "the [[Fancy Page]]" than "[[The Fancy Page|Fancy Page]]", so try to avoid any leading "The", if possible; the same is true for singular versus plural – adding an 's' to a link is simple but "removing" one is much more difficult.
- Search for the intended page name, properly capitalised. If the search finds such a page already existing, yeah... Otherwise, click the red link and begin editing.
- Create a link on any page and click "Show preview", without saving. Click the red link and begin editing.
Find Something to Update
Usually a new editor reads the wiki, finds a typo or error, and fixes it. Without the intention of becoming a regular editor. But then the next edit and the next follows, and the feeling; 'Hey, this is fun!'. And then the thought: 'Where to start?' Or maybe old interests guide the editor to the content that maybe needs more attention.
There are areas Lotro-Wiki certainly needs help with, but at the end of the day you should spend your time where you have most fun and get most energy back from. Or, just click Random page in the left-hand column and see if you stumble over something interesting to read, or edit!
Some tips:
- Read policy pages, guidelines, boilerplates and tips pages to understand how certain things are done at Lotro-Wiki
- Once you find something to update, take some time just looking at how the page is constructed and how the markups make the page look like
- Use browser tabs to be able to read or review other pages while having the editor open
- Look at what, or how, other editors have done, for example to similar pages (or by looking through the Page History, mentioned earlier)
- Get in contact with editors via chat, see details in the "welcome" message on your talk page
Playing-the-game tips:
- When playing, set up filters for one chat tab so that loot drops, etc., come through. Right-click that chat tab and select "Chat Logging/Start Logging" which will log to file and you will not forget details about which dropped what, etc.
- Loot drops - Play the game and check up on loot items, that they exist here on the wiki, and how and where they dropped
- Creatures - Defeat creatures and verify they exist here, and their location, etc.; in particular Lore-masters on par with their levels are more than welcome to update their stats
- Quests - Verify the quests exist here, the data of their info-box (quest-giver, location, etc.), and their text; maybe add or update their walk-through, stats of rewarded items, and so forth
- Gear stats - Verify that items in your inventory or character-window exist here, update their stats if needed
- Locations - Verify they exist here and their pages contain at least the most useful data (quests, deeds, NPCs, etc.)
- NPCs - Verify they exist here and the data of their info-box are accurate, verify listed quests and/or what they sell
Wanted at Lotro-Wiki:
See Category:Things to do for suggestions. At the bottom of that category you find categories that should be empty. If they are not, maybe you will find something of interest within them.
Tools & Reminders
Here is a "toolbox" with links to useful help pages beyond the scope of this page. You can add it to your own user page for quick access to it, if you find it useful.
| Tools for Editors | ||||||
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