Help:Basics
Basic Wiki Structure
Basically, the Infovis:Wiki web is a collection of articles that can be organized in categories. Whereas articles do not necessarily belong to a category and can also be put in more than one category.
User Accounts
Currently, the system is configured as permitting anonymous editing. This means that a user does not have to be logged-in in order to create content or perform edits. But we encourage every contributor to this site to create his/her own user account because there are several advantages if doing so: First of all it ensures that edits can be tracked and assigned uniquely to a user. This way, attribution to prior authors is given by the automatic logging system. Moreover, you can customize your wiki interface, watch pages of interest and most importantly, also upload images. Creating a new user account is a matter of not more than a minute and can be done here: Special:Userlogin
More on user accounts: Meta-Wiki:Registered user
Articles
Articles are the basic building blocks of the wiki web. They are pieces of text that may contain images and timelines. The distinct feature of a wiki web is that it allows for web-based content creation and editing by every user.
Edit an Article
For editing an existing article, select the tab edit on top of the article. Next, the article can be edited using the special Wiki syntax.
Make sure that you do not use copyrighted material unless legible under the terms of fair use or the original author's consent (InfoVis:Wiki Copyright). Furthermore, each author might select other types of licenses like for example creative commons by including the type of license at the bottom of the article. Every editor has to comply to the license of the original author. Please contact the InfoVis:Wiki team in case of violations.
In case of using material of others, always GIVE ATTRIBUTION to the original authors! This is especially important for images. See Citation & Bibliography Format for details on the citation format.
More information on special styles and templates used in the InfoVis:Wiki can be found in the Style guide.
Below the text edit area, you should provide a short summary of your edits / additions and specify whether it has been a minor edit.
More information: Media-Wiki: Editing
Step-By-Step
- Select article that should be edited
- Select edit tab on top of the article
- Make edits and/or additions (Wiki syntax)
- Provide a short summary of your edit
- Define if it was a minor edit
- Select Save page for immediately saving your changes OR
- Select Show preview for getting a preview of the edited page followed by further editions and selecting Save page when the desired result is obtained.
Create a New Article
There are three basic ways for creating a new article:
- Creating a stub / Linking from an existing page (recommended)
- Enter desired page title in textbox on main menu and hit "Create" button
- Entering the page title in the address line
Creating a stub / Linking from an existing page
If you want to create a new article starting from an existing one, you just have to insert a wiki link pointing to the new article in the existing article:
[[<ARTICLE TITLE>]]
After saving the edit, the stub/link is colored red which means that the end point of the link does not exist yet. By clicking this link, the new article will open in edit mode and can be created.
Only this method ensures that pages are not "orphaned" and are pointed to. By using the other two methods below, it is up to the user to link the article (e.g. to a category).
The probably easiest method for creating a new article is by entering the desired title into the text box in the main menu (at the left of each page) and hitting the Create button.
Note: If an article with the entered title already exists, you are taken to this article.
Entering the page title in the address line
A new article can be inserted by typing the article's title into the address line:
http://www.infovis-wiki.net/index.php/<ARTICLE TITLE>
Note that you can use spaces and other special characters in the article's title - these characters are replaced automatically. After entering the new address, the new article will open in edit mode and can be created.
More information: Meta-Wiki:Editing#Links
Renaming / Moving a Page
An article can be renamed by selecting the move tab on top of the article. Here, the a new name can be entered for the existing article. In case an article has been moved/renamed, the article is still available using the original title, where a redirect takes the user to the new one.
More information: Media-Wiki: Moving a page
Categories
Categories are used to structure the content of a wiki web. A category can contain articles or further categories (sub-categories).
A listing of all existing categories can be displayed via selecting Categories in the Special pages menu. When selecting a category, an alphabetically sorted list of all articles that belong to this category, is shown. The category page itself can also be edited analogous to editing of an article. There, explaining text for a category might be inserted, or a category might be assigned to another one (sub-categories) - see below.
More information: Media-Wiki: Category
Create a New Category
First of all, there is nothing like a create new category function in InfoVis:Wiki. A new category is created automatically by assigning an article to a category (see next section). Analogous to that, a category is removed automatically, if no articles are assigned to it.
Assign an Article to a Category
An article is assigned to a category by putting a line of the following format into the text (usually at the bottom):
[[Category:<TITLE>]]
where <TITLE> is the name of the category.
As already mentioned, a single article can be put in multiple categories. This is achieved by inserting multiple category statements in the article.
Create a Sub-Category
Analogous to articles, a sub-category is created by assigning a category (child) to another one (parent). This is achieved by inserting a
[[Category:<TITLE>]]
statement at the category page.
Images
Images can also be uploaded and used in articles in the InfoVis:Wiki. You can only upload images, when you are logged in.
Upload
Images can be uploaded to the InfoVis:Wiki by using the Upload file entry below the main menu on the left. Here, a file can be selected for upload. Furthermore, an image description should be entered along with attribution of sources. See Citation & Bibliography Format for details on the citation format.
Insertion
Images can be inserted in articles in various ways:
- Inline image
- Thumbnail
- etc.
More information: Media-Wiki: Images and other uploaded files
ISBN Links
A special template for book references is available in InfoVis:Wiki. Using the simple line
{{ISBN|<ISBN number>}}
inserts links to the respective book at the websites of Amazon, Barnes & Noble as well as BooksPrice.
Example
{{ISBN|0201596261}}
leads to:
ISBN 0201596261
- Find this book on Amazon.com
- Find this book on Barnes & Noble
- Find this book on BooksPrice
- Find this book on Google Print
More information: Media-Wiki: ISBN links
Embedding Pages
To include to contents of an already existing page, you can use the following syntax:
{{:PAGETITLE}}
Note: The colon in front of the PAGETITLE is important. Otherwise, the system is looking for a template instead of an ordinary page/article.