Help:Administrators
From Wiscopedia
| Editing | Sourcing | Administering | Help:Images | Complex editing |
| Basic editing help. This is a resource for anyone but is especially aimed at new editors or editors unfamiliar with wiki formatting. | Help for sourcing. This includes basic guidelines on what kind of sources should be used and suggestions on how to cite sources. | These are instructions for administrators and editors interesting in making the nuts and bolts of Wiscopedia work. | Instructions on how to post images, what images should be used and help with image syntax. | Editing help for more advanced users. This includes template construction, categories and table construction. |
This page provides general instruction for administrators and editors interested in working behind the scenes on Wiscopedia. This section is written with the intent that general guidelines for the Mediawiki software are understood or read concurrently. A list of those instructions can be found on Mediawiki.org. This section is also largely meant to provide a running list of instructions and open tasks for editors and administrators.
Contents |
[edit] Templates
Category:Templates lists all templates used in the Wiscopedia project (aside from those generated by the software itself. A listing of those, along with the {{Tl}} template, can be found at Special:Uncategorizedtemplates). Some of these templates are meant to generate organizational categories quickly, such as {{Issue Center}} or {{Organizations}}. Other templates are functional, such as {{Quote}}. Still other templates are meant to do more than one function (Such as adding a page to a category and providing a message on the page itself)--examples of these are {{Help}} or {{Logo}}. Finally, some templates are foundational; these templates serve to help build other templates and generally are not deployed on project pages by themselves.
[edit] Organizational templates
These templates are created in order to help list pages for editors. Both the Issue Center and Organizations templates replaced editor maintained lists. While lists allow for added summary content, they are not self forming. In order to add an article to a list, the editor has to navigate away from the article itself and edit the list. Adding the article to the category only requires adding a small amount of text to the article. Similarly, if the article is deleted or moved, the category is automatically updated.
These templates, along with the categories they represent, should be created only when the category being generated will be meaningful. If the category will contain 1-2 entries, don't create it (unless it is a purely administrative category). If the category will hold all of the articles in Wiscopedia, don't create it. Categories should help users and administrators navigate the site.
[edit] Functional templates
Functional templates are designed to make some elements of Wiscopedia run more smoothly. They should be introduced sparingly and in a limited fashion. While these templates make life easier for experienced editors, use of complex templates makes editing pages somewhat difficult.
[edit] Hybrid templates
These should be the most common templates. They allow for complex, repeated tasks to be boiled down to a few keystrokes. Hybrid templates should be made and used wherever appropriate. Specifically, if you design a template for use on pages that need a particular element (such as images, sources, etc), this template should add the page to a category of like pages. Generating such a category helps editors fix common problems quickly and produces more effective interlinking.
Because hybrid templates may build on complex foundational templates, you should not attempt to modify existing templates or generate new templates without some idea of what the effect will be. Remember to use the preview button!
[edit] Foundational templates
These templates help build larger and more complex templates. You should not see these used by themselves on project pages. As the project grows larger, this list will grow larger. These templates will also grow more complex. As these templates are included in most templates (and therefore almost every page in the project), they will be protected from editing by non-administrators.
[edit] Test templates
This category should include testing templates. None of these templates should be linked to (included in) a project page.
[edit] Categories
[edit] Administrative categories
The Category:Soft redirects is an administrative category. It is automatically generated by the soft redirect template. In this case, the population of this category is designed to alert administrators to a potentially inelegant page; soft redirects should be replaced by internal links or direct links as time goes on. These categories should be created whenever they are required, the above limitations on size and scope don't apply. If you create an administrative category, note as much in the description. When writing the description, assume that you will never meet the administrator that succeeds you--be as precise as possible in describing the purpose of the category and its fate.
