Wiki 101

Learning and thinking
Wikiversity seeks to engage participants in explorations of those topics that they are most interested in. Wikiversity seeks to collect and organize information and make it accessible to learners, but Wikiversity is not just concerned with a collection of facts. Each domain of human knowledge and each collection of facts can be explored by making use of various organizational strategies and patterns of thinking. Wikiversity seeks to make explicit and learnable the patterns of thought that that experts find useful in the study of different subjects. Wikiversity is not about tests and grades. So how is anyone to judge if learning is taking place, if learners are thinking at Wikiversity?

Wiki 101
Wikiversity is devoted to the idea that Wikiversity participants should be active learners. In a wiki, a major activity is editing wiki pages. The wiki editing interface can be a source of confusion for new users. "Wiki 101" is a Wikiversity project devoted to the task of providing new Wikiversity editors with everything they need to start editing Wikiversity pages.

It is through the editing of wiki pages that we can, as a learning community, judge if learning is taking place within Wikiversity. Did something you saw at Wikiversity make you think? If so, share your thoughts and experiences by being a wiki editor.

Prerequisites

 * Introduction to Wiki - this project aims to function as a service project for the Wikiversity community and provide learning resources that will aid new Wikiversity editors.
 * Guided tour - Take this tour to get an overview of how Wikiversity works.

MediaWiki Handbook
The definitive guide to editing pages at Wikiversity or any of the Wikimedia projects is the MediaWiki Handbook. MediaWiki is the software that runs Wikiversity servers. You can open the handbook in a separate browser window or tab keeping it handy while editing away at Wikiversity.

Namespaces
Namespaces are ways to keep large sections of content organized. The following are some that Wikiversity editors should become familiar with:


 * 1) Main Namespace - This is where lessons and shared learning materials reside. These are the only content titles without prefixes.
 * 2) Help Namespace - Prefixed with  Help: , this namespace has a top-level table of contents at Help:Contents which links to other help pages. The Help link appears in the left navigation panel on every Wikiversity page.
 * 3) User Namespace - Prefixed with  User: , this namespace is where your userpage resides if you have created an account and logged in. Creating an account gives MediaWiki a way to provide you with a Watchlist, keep track of your contributions and many other features.
 * 4) Special Namespace - Prefixed with  Special: , this namespace contains many types of pages like Special:Recentchanges, Special:Allpages and many others. Just click on Special:Specialpages to see.
 * 5) Category Namespace - Prefixed with  Category: , This is how things are classified and organized at Wikiversity.
 * Template Namespace - Prefixed with  Template: , this namespace allows pieces of content to be used on several pages for messages, navigation aids, or other reusable information. A template is "called" by placing a tag like  in the page you are editing.
 * Image Namespace - Prefixed with  Image: , this namespace holds pictures and image files that anyone can Upload to Wikiversity. See Special:Newimages for examples.
 * 1) Talk namespaces - Prefixed with  Talk: , this namespace is for the discussion area that goes with each article in the main namespace. For prefixed pages, the prefix is appended with  _talk  to link to its discussion page. Examples: User talk:CQ (my user talk page), Template talk:Translators, Image talk:Wiki.png, ...
 * 2) Wikiversity namespace - Prefixed with  Wikiversity: , this namespace is for pages that are about Wikiversity and its administration. It is known also as the project namespace. Examples: About, Welcome, newcomers, Introduction, ...
 * 3) Portal namespace - Prefixed with  Portal: , this namespace is for navigating general areas of interest through what we call portals. Examples: Portal:Education, Portal:Practical Arts and Sciences, ...
 * 4) School namespace - Prefixed with  School: , This namespace is for major areas of interest and general study organized in a more traditional form. Examples: School:Medicine, School:Computer Science, etc.
 * 5) Topic namespace - Prefixed with  Topic: , This namespace is for Department, Divisions or specialized areas of interest or study. They are usually linked to Schools and/or Portals. Examples: Topic:Web Design, Topic:Translation, Topic:Public International Law, etc.

Learning to work within and among namespaces is essential to understanding how Wikiversity is built, organized and maintained.

Text formatting
Text formatting is easy with MediaWiki:

Bold renders Bold Italic renders Italic Bold Italic renders Bold Italic

Adding a space before some text renders:

A space before some text renders the text in a gray box like this one

See the MediaWiki Handbook for much more information about starting new pages, text formating, creating sections and subsections, and all sorts of tips and tricks.

Linking pages
Linking pages is usually as simple as surrounding a word with square brackets: Some word or phrase. If you link to a page that does not exist, you produce a red link. Clicking on a red link automatically opens the editor at that page. If the page exists, you will see a blue link.

Make sure you are linking to the correct page. For example, Public International Law produces a red link because the actual article is at Topic:Public International Law. You can hide the fact that it is in the Topic namespace by adding a pipe (|) at the end like this: Public international law causing it to appear like this: Public International Law.

Sometimes it is necessary to create a redirect from one page to another. For example, Wikiversity links to Wikiversity which is a REDIRECT to About. Notice that when you get to Wikiversity:About you see "Redirected from Wikiversity" which is the #REDIRECT page.

You can link to articles outside of Wikiversity. Wikipedia - Some Wikipedia article Meta-Wikimedia - An article at Meta Wikibooks - A title at Wikibooks This is called Interwiki linking is an easy way to link to existing articles at Wikiversity sister projects.

Finally, you can link to external resources like this: Google Which renders: Google Notice that we use one square bracket instead of two and that the url can contain no spaces. The first space encountered acts to separate the url from the face that we want to appear. Always use courtesy and common sense when linking to outside sites. See external link for more info

Lists and listings
You can add a bullet to an item by simply adding an asterisk (*) to a new line:
 * Bulleted Item

You can create a bulleted list like this: *Item *Another item *Yet another item Renders:
 * Item
 * Another item
 * Yet another item

A numbered list is created using: Which renders:
 * 1) Item
 * 2) Another item
 * 3) Yet another item
 * 1) Item
 * 2) Another item
 * 3) Yet another item

It is customary to make lists with descriptions:
 * 1) Item - Description of item
 * 2) Another item - More detailed description of a numbered item that may use more than one line.
 * 3) Yet another item - Very terse and lengthy description of yet another item that may include a number of sentances. You may not add a line break or paragraph break and expect your numbering to be continued. It will start over.
 * 4) Still yet another item - Not starting a new paragraph or break allows this numbered listing to continue.


 * 1) Item - A paragraph break restarted the numbering
 * 2) Nested item 1 - nested item using ##
 * 3) Nested item 2 - another nested item using ##
 * 4) Another Item - counter returns to higher level with #
 * 5) Start a set of nested bulleted items using ##
 * 6) * nested bulleted item using ##*
 * 7) * nested bulleted item using ##*
 * 8) Start another set of nested bulleted items using ##
 * 9) * nested bulleted item using ##*
 * 10) * nested bulleted item using ##*
 * 11) Yet another Item - Counter keeps its place in a mixed hierarchy of items

These are some commonly used listing basics. See the MediaWiki Handbook for much more about lists and listings.

Table basics
Tables are frames that can be easily created using wiki syntax to make sets of data more logical and aesthetically pleasing. The basic syntax is: Which renders:

Not too pretty yet. MediaWiki includes some table attributes using a predefined classes, such as class="wikitable" that we add to the table's opening tag: {| class="wikitable" By simply adding the wikitable class, the same code gives us:

A bit nicer, eh? If we really want to get fancy, we can customize with more table and style attributes: Which renders:

These color atrributes were made with Named Colors, but other web colors and methods can be used. A host of other attributes can be used to alter the look and feel of a table. There are as many ways to make tables as there are Wiki editors! See the MediaWiki Handbook for more.

Explore
Take a look at the code used on the Main Page and its subpages:
 * 1) Main Page/Welcome
 * 2) Main Page/Communications and community
 * 3) Main Page/Related links

Use the edit tab, but please don't change these without clearance. Look for table elements and how they work together to form the Main Page at Wikiversity.

Don't be shy about studying the code that drives Wikiversity, just hit cancel when you are done. It's best not to edit high-traffic pages but if you do accidently "mess up" a page, notify one of the Custodians. (...and be more careful next time).

Templates
Sometimes it is desirable to create templates that can be reused on many pages. These are created in the Template namespace and can be quite complex for even experienced editors.

One of the simpler types is a reusable list. Template:Wikiversitysister-list is an example of a handy way to show all of Wikiversity's sisterprojects. Simply add the code to a page. It renders:

Referring to a template
A way to refer to a template and the tag that calls it without transcluding it is like this: Wikiversitysister-list which renders: Wikiversitysister-list Notice that the text inside the curly brackets links to Template:Wikiversitysister-list.

Page templates
Sometimes it is handy to create whole pages from templates called "boilerplates". These are usually used for Schools, divisions and departments. See Category:Page creation templates for ideas on how to create whole pages from templates.

Explore
Go to Template:Wikiversitysister-list and click edit. Notice the combined use of table attributes, interwiki links, embedded HTML tags and other tricks to get the list to render the way its author intended. Please do not make any changes to this template. Hit cancel after youve had a long look.

If you want, you can copy and paste the code into the Sandbox or a subpage of your user page. (See Sub pages and Userboxes for more about subpages and userboxes.

Template documentation
Instructions on how and where to use a template should appear on its associated  Template talk:  page. Example: Template talk:Wikiversitysister-list. Unfortunately, many Wikiversity templates remain undocumented.

Userboxes
Userboxes are a popular tradition around Wiki sites. They are often artistic, witty and complex to create. User oops is a cute one: 

Explore that one. Notice the extensive use of MediaWiki variables such as and.

Template Taskforce
If you wish to learn more about creating and using templates, consider joining the Wikiversity Template Taskforce.

Advanced editing
This lesson touched on some basic editing principles. When you want to go further, See (and help to develop) more Wiki and MediaWiki lessons.