Tips for newbies: Writing in the ATS wiki

There do exist some of this already, but, anyway, I tried to put together a brief little "crash course", or such, for those who may not have tried writing in a wiki before. Here's most of what is on that "newbies tips" page I made (slightly improved here):

Some tips for newbies

You can't ruin anything in tinWiki since it's really easy to revert an article or page to an earlier version of that article or page. You see, all pages have their own version history list, where everything done in a page is kept, and from where all previous edits can be brought back very easily.

• tinWiki is a website. More specifically it's an online encyclopedia wiki.
  
• tinWiki isn't a forum (or blog host), so you don't write "posts" or "threads" here. In tinWiki you write articles—encyclopedic articles.
  
• tinWiki is not simply a place for publishing articles, but a place for collaborative writing of articles.
  
• First versions of articles don't have to be "perfect" (or even close...)
  
• You write articles, don't paste articles found on the web. tinWiki should preferably get original material, even if there is material legal to copy&paste.
  
• Feel free to make a first version of an article—you can always come back later to improve it, or someone else will improve it.
  
• Write article text by using original phrasing of your own (except when quoting people, naturally).
  
• Name your sources (write a list at the bottom of the article).
  
• tinWiki is an encyclopedia. You spell out words, so it's "do not", not "don't". (P.S. This page here is a Help page, and an unusual one at that, not an encyclopedic article...)
  
• Write from a neutral point of view, not from a first-person point of view. Don't say "I", and don't say "you". Instead, rewrite to a neutral-point-of-view language. (Example: Instead of saying "I think you'll agree that tinWiki is a great website" say "tinWiki is considered by some people to be a great website".)
  
• Do not sign articles you initiate, since they are not your personal articles. Article text you write and then publish in tinWiki is published under this license, and can—and will—be edited by readers interested in improving and contributing to the article (which is also much of the point in using a wiki as encyclopedia).
  
• The first sentence of the article should state immediately what the topic is. Example from article tinWiki: "tinWiki is a collaborative encyclopedia." Please let articles begin with a sentence of that type.
  
• How to start a new page if none exists already for the topic you are writing about: type the title into the "search" box in the sidebar and press the Enter key on your keyboard. Next, click on the red link that comes up, type in some article text, and click Save. :-)

Read all that twice and you know the tinWiki editing basics. Wiki codes and formatting is not very important, it can easily be fixed later, but here is one: formatted headers are made by keeping the header on its own line and putting two equal signs on each side of the header, like this:

== Some header or other ==

If you need any more tips and hints, feel free to browse the help pages and manuals, and contact other tinWiki users through the message writing features (useful links are in the sidebar on the left hand side of all tinWiki pages).

Link

---

tinWiki continues to improve every day. Feel free to do some editing here and there, and also to register if you wish (real name does not have to be given, and is optional). By registering (and logging in), you hide your IP address in the edit history list, and you will also get a user page that is only yours to write what you want in. :-)

Optimist


edit: link problem

[edit on 23-4-2008 by Optimist]

Really rough guide___________________________________________

This guide is to show some of the basic commands needed when writing for TinWiki. This set of examples is explained more in depth on the site itself

main TinWiki page
back to ATS

finally

There you have it, that's basically it. All you gotta really worry about is page layout, content and presentation...easy as that


==Really rough guide==

'''This guide''' is to show some of the basic commands needed when writing for TinWiki. This set of examples is explained more in depth on the site itself
*[[http; //tinwiki dot org/wiki/Main_Page main page]]
*[[http; //abovetopsecret dot com back to ATS]]

===finally===

There you have it, that's basically it. All you gotta really worry about is page layout, content and presentation...easy as that



[edit on 12-6-2008 by Extralien]

[edit on 12-6-2008 by Extralien]

i wonder if there are any "taboo" topics to not be posted?

im interested in taking part in tinwiki, and im wondering if "slang terms" like....'forum troll' are allowable into tinwiki. I mean - of good nature, and strictly unbiased, of course, but still outlining what a forum troll is/does, etc.

Im not specifically talking about JUST forum troll - its just the first "random" thing that came to mind.

I guess my over-all question is:

Outside the realm of smut, gross, and vulgar, are there any taboo articles to be written?

Hey I edited my user page,here it is(tinwiki.org...:Jkrog08)tell me what you think and if I did the headers right.Thanks.

[edit on 6/26/2008 by jkrog08]

[edit on 6/26/2008 by jkrog08]

reply to post by Andrew E. Wiggin


Andrew E. Wiggin,

I'm not sure there are any taboo topics, as such. In addition to what you mention, sure there are many topics that aren't wanted, but that's basically because tinWiki isn't a general encyclopedia but has a fairly narrow area of focus. If a topic is relevant to the area of focus, it's most likely very appropriate to write an article about it in tinWiki. If there's some perspective in which the topic of forum trolls relates to what tinWiki is supposed to present information about, then sure there can be a forum troll article. It may be that some topic is more appropriate to cover in a section inside an existing article, but my immediate thought right now is that the specific example you give of forum trolls is perhaps something that could be good to have a page of its own about. The reason is that forum trolls could be thought to in some cases be deliberate efforts to derail and destroy some free and open debate about, say, a political topic, or that type of situation. The Internet is fairly big now, as far as communication and information gathering and sharing, and so in a conspiracy theory type of view, forum trolls could probably be said to be a somewhat significant topic in society in general these days. At least that's what I was able to come up with as 'explanation' right now.

I'm not sure if this answers your question. There aren't really any topics that, if otherwise relevant, are forbidden to discuss 'in case it might upset the people' or for fear of some magical disastrous results following talk of the topic, or any such types of reasons. Another thing is that I should perhaps check a dictionary to see exactly what a 'taboo' is. :-)

If this didn't really clear up what you were wondering about, let me know and I will try and answer better.

Optimist

reply to post by jkrog08


jkrog08,

Congratulations. Your user page looks good. :-) Yes, the headers are indeed correctly done, as far as I can tell. One tip I can offer you, though, is on link formatting. Pages within tinWiki itself may be linked to simply by writing the page name (not the full URL) and surrounding that with two sets of square brackets. Example: [[User:Jkrog08]]. That would be a link if this were written inside a tinWiki page. If you're interested in creating a bullet list, simply add an asterisk * at the beginning of each line.

By the way, links to some tinWiki pages don't work too well here, probably because of colons in the URL. A 'trick' to solve this is to use tinyurl.com and then post the tinyurl URL instead, which is basically a redirect. Here's such a link to your user page. Again, congratulations, your page looks really nice.

Optimist

Question........how do I get my pictures to show up and not be links??

Heres my new page I am asking about:tinwiki.org...

Let me know anything else you see that needs improving,thanks.

reply to post by jkrog08


I believe it is because you are linking the images to wikipedia. The images will need to be hosted elsewhere, preferably on ATS. I do not think wikipedia allows hotlinking. Anyhow, as I said, we would prefer you host any images on ats, as with sites like imagesac and such, you are restricted with bandwidth. Once the image is viewed a certain amount of times, it is taken away. And that just looks horrible on the page. Also, don't forget to post any images you use on the image information page.

As for how to post an image, for putting an image on the right side of the page use this code:

[[Image| Image=Image url< br/ >Image desription]]

To post images on the left, just post the link to the image url.

edit: I put spaces around the br/ part as the message board is not displaying it.

[edit on 6-29-2008 by William One Sac]

So should I not post images then?

I thought you put images in left or right like this:

[[Leftsideimage|Image=url [br/]description]]

**Also used brackets since it wouldnt let me use the other sign on here

[edit on 6/29/2008 by jkrog08]

No, images are good. They make the article more visually appealing. Just use the ats member upload.

You are right, you can use that code for left sided images, but I have found it to be quirky.

Edit to add a sentence

[edit on 6-29-2008 by William One Sac]

Okay,could you direct me to link explaining how to use ATS to host the pics,I dont know how

This LINK covers how to upload an image. Basically you just go to your member center, click on member uploads, then click browse to get the images off of your computer onto the ats servers.

Edit to say: if you still are having trouble doing this, upload them to photobucket and I will move them over to ats when I get a chance.

[edit on 6-30-2008 by William One Sac]

Oh(duh),I know how to do that........I always try and make things more complicated,lol............I'll go do it now,thanks.

Hey,I finished the Kraken page as well as edited all my other entries(pictures,format,etc).Here is the link to my user page:tinwiki.org...:Jkrog08#Content_I_have_.27.27created.27.27
You can view my entries there,also I will submit all artwork to the artwork page,thanks.~JKrog

Iv just completed my 1st tinkiki and started from the link at the top of this page and yet my points haven't come yet. Is there something I am missing as its saved. Here it is tinwiki.org...
Any help would be gladly appreciated

Hi smason202,

The reason you have not gotten your points yet is because I have not had a chance to read the article. I am going to read the article today though, so I will let you know how many points you are going to get for the submission.

Originally posted by William One Sac
Hi smason202,

The reason you have not gotten your points yet is because I have not had a chance to read the article. I am going to read the article today though, so I will let you know how many points you are going to get for the submission.

Hi William ahh of course Thank you very much for replying to me and letting me know. I am very impressed with this site already so thank you to you all at ATS

A sort of follow-up to the first post:


How should an encyclopedic article in tinWiki begin?

1. Write absolutely no title in the beginning—the page title is the article title.
   
2. Begin the article with one full sentence. There is no option to this.
   
3. The first sentence shall state immediately the topic. Example: If the page title is "Gold", then the first sentence is "Gold is a metal." Continue the introduction for a paragraph or two before any header is inserted into the article text.

Can I use images?

1. An image may only be displayed if you have in fact researched that it is legal.
   
2. Images must be hosted by you (or other tinWiki user). Do not link to an image file unless you uploaded it (or it already is used in tinWiki).
   
3. Before any image is displayed in an article, it shall be correctly listed and signed in the image description page—here.

How do I create the actual article text, then?

1. Think of tinWiki as a notebook—not as a scrap book. Do not paste material from articles you found on the web.
   
2. Research the topic first, then write an original article for tinWiki. The result does not have to look "professional". You are not being paid, here, anyway. :-)
   
3. Encyclopedic writing style is to write in plain, descriptive language.
   
4. Do not make claims that are unsupported. Write neutral, factual statements.
   
5. Also, avoid the word "you", and avoid questions. The reader should not "see" the writer, but only the facts.
   
6. Spell out your words. Do not write "don't", but instead write "do not".

The above is from a new template message I created the other day, which I created to have something ready for offering to new users who are learning how to write tinWiki articles. I'll be posting that in users discussions now and then if I see someone who might need some pointers, is what I'm thinking.

Hopefully I haven't been too bombastic in that little guide, or left anything out, or was unclear in my phrasing (English is not my first language).

Anyway, I hope you Americans have (had) a nice day today. :-)

Optimist

Hello..I have completed my first editing on TinWiki and I think I did a pretty good job on it and Im hooked to say the least and I cant wait to do more!!. I have come up with an idea to start my own from scratch this time, I am a lil nervous but I have so much knowledge to present to the community on my topic..Can somebody tell me how to start the entry and do I have to write the whole thing in one night?

I also wanted to know something else..Do you feel bad if you edit somebody elses work thats wrong?..For instance, If I am well versed on a topic in tinwiki and I did some tweaking last night but I also left some of the info because I felt bad..am I supposed to edit the entry and correct wrong information?..I just do not want to come in like a gangbuster and hurt somebodys feelings...Thanks

Tinwiki presents a (near) perfect place to compile all the info I’ve put together concerning what I find to be a highly important topic that’s only touched on in the news, etc.

Not only is the subject - at large misunderstood - but seems to be one of those topics creating a high level of controversy.

My question is - due to the controversy, what happens if someone *gets in there* and starts to trash what I‘ve put up.

I don‘t care someone changes my words, etc, I‘m not in this to be a hero.
But what do you do when again, a controversial subject falls into the hands of someone biased with an agenda?

Example: Abortion.
No, my subject is not abortion, but quite a good example.

Also, lol, where do I get my Tinwiki Editor posty for my avatar.

Great thread BTW.
Thanks!

peace