Standish Wiki:More about editing
From Standish Wiki
One of our goals for the Standish Wiki will be consistency. This will allow our visitors to find the information they require across our website with as few problems as possible. Whilst some of our presentation will be common to wikis in general (often due to the nature of MediaWiki and its extensions), other areas are specific to this wiki, and have been developed around the articles we wish to display.
For this we use a number of techniques, including templates to provide a uniform way of displaying common elements, and a common layout to improve.
Whilst other help pages will help in teaching the editing of a wiki in general, the purpose of this page is to guide editors in the way our wiki specifically is structured and built.
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Templates
Templates are used on the site to cut down the amount of code on a page, and to maintain the Style Guidelines across our wiki. We use a number of templates on our site, all of which can be found on our Templates category list. These include:
- Succession templates
- Infobox templates
- Messages and warnings
- Amenity Maps
- Other templates
Succession Templates
Succession templates are used within the History section to indicate the lineage of the Standish Family. A list of the succession templates we use can be found in the Succession Templates category list, and full documentation may be found on Wikipedia.
Infoboxes
Infoboxes are the boxes of information we have on wiki pages, usually on the top right of the page. We use several types of Infobox, depending upon which section of the site they are displayed.
More information can be found on the Infobox Templates page.
Messages and Warnings
We have a Warning template which produces a red box with a warning triangle and a line of text. It can be called by:
{{Warning|Warning Message}}
produces
This can be used for many situations; currently it is used to indicate that the organisation needs hours entering into the Business Hours Infobox, using the Hours Required template.
{{Hours Required}}
produces
Amenity Maps
For locations that are used for multiple entries, a map template may be produced. These are listed in our Map template sub-category, and can be included using
{{Community Centre Map}}
Other Templates
We use a number of other templates on our website:
History Box template
The History Box template provides links to preceding and succeeding articles within the History section.
{{History Box
| year =
| pre_year = <!-- optional -->
| pre_text = <!-- optional, or shows blank -->
| succ_year = <!-- optional -->
| succ_text = <!-- optional, or shows blank -->
}}
Logo template
Most organisations on our site, such as shops and services, have a predefined logo, which we display at the top of our page. Where organisations do not, we will usuallly make one up using their name, or shopfront, or letterhead.
Rather than displaying these as an image such as
[image:MegaCorp.jpg|center|MegaCorp Ltd. logo]
we now use a template, Template:Logo. This uses the syntax
{{logo|MegaCorp.jpg|MegaCorp Ltd. logo}}
Whilst initially similar, the Logo template also allows a third parameter:
{{logo|MegaCorp.jpg|MegaCorp Ltd. logo|red}}
This final parameter allows the logo surround to be set to the same colour as the logo background. The logo is displayed within a full width box, and setting this to the same as the background colour is (IMHO) more stylish. The above code would show the MegaCorp logo within a full width red box.
The colour defined above will display a standard web red: this may not match the colour of the logo. Alternatively, for an exact match, we would use a web colour syntax, such as:
{{logo|MegaCorp.jpg|MegaCorp Ltd. logo|#ff0000}}
The above is a standard way of displaying web colours. #ff0000 is red (the hash says that this is a web colour, and the rest is split into 3 2-digit hexadecimal numbers, ff, 00 and 00, representing the colours red, green and blue. ff is hexadeciaml for 255, which means maximum red, no green and no blue.)
The default background coilour is white; if no colour is entered then the background will remain white.
If in doubt about the use of the colour, leave it white and, if necessary, contact Steve Bradburn to edit it.
Redirects
Redirects are handy if you wish to transfer visitors from one (or more articles) to another. For example Edmund de Standish, Hugh de Standish and Jordan de Standish all redirect to Edmund, Hugh and Jordan de Standish, because there is just a single article about all three.
The other use is for alternate spellings or names, and to remove leading words like "The...". For example, The Black Bull redirects to Black Bull, so that visitors may enter either term to go directly to this entry. Some entries leading with "Standish..." are also redirected: Community Forum leads to Standish Community Forum; other entries which begin with initials (such asJ.G. Palin (Chemist)) also have additional redirects (as Palin (Chemist)).
To redirect from one term to another (which already exists, eg "MegaCorp Ltd.") start a new page for the term (eg. "The MegaCorp") and enter
#REDIRECT [[Mega Corp Ltd.]]
Discussion pages
Each and every page on our wiki also contains a "discussion page". These pages are useful to allow editors to discuss the page in question. The aim of this is to achieve community consensus over the content of the page. Rather than two editors adding and removing a section (sometimes repeatedly), a discussion page conversation can be used to decide whether the section is relevant.
A common misconception is that the discussion is about the subject of the page; it isn't. For example, a page about MegaCorp Ltd. may have on its discussion page a conversation between editors about whether to include a list of the products supplied by MegaCorp, but should not include a conversation about the quality of the products themselves.
