Help:Contributing

Access and accounts

• Who can do what — logging in, getting an account

Contributing to classic wiki pages

Page management: creating, moving, deleting pages

• Creating a new page
  • Setup proper redirects in case something has multiple names
• Moving a page
• Deleting/recovering a page
• Copy internal reference — every ordinary content page shows a Copy internal reference button next to its title; it copies Page name to the clipboard, ready to paste as a link to the page anywhere on the wiki. (File pages have their own "Copy internal embed code" button for File:….)
• Copy internal mention — the per-entity pages (Source:, Person:, Collective:, FOSS:, Software:) show a Copy internal mention button in their toolbar (to the right of Copy internal citation on Source: pages). It copies a piped link to the page — Label, italic on Source: pages, e.g. Beloved.
• Subpages — a / in a title creates a hierarchy (e.g. Cheatsheets:LinuxCLI/ssh is a subpage of Cheatsheets:LinuxCLI), with a breadcrumb back to the parent. Subpages are enabled in every namespace except the main one. Create the parent page if it does not exist yet — the breadcrumb only links ancestors that exist (example: Cheatsheets:LinuxCLI).

Creating content

Learning the MediaWiki syntax

The MediaWiki syntax is easy to learn. However, it is unique and can be confusing at first even for editors familiar with markdown and HTML.

To get started:

• MediaWiki syntax 101
• Links
• Code blocks and syntax highlighting
• Languages and translation

Write in style

• Help:Contributing/styleGuide

Handle rich media content

• Help:Contributing/richMediaContent

Add math

• Help:Contributing/math — adding and embedding math: inline LaTeX in page text (MathJax) and reusable snippets (KaTeX)

Add quotation

• Help:Contributing/quotation — adding and embedding quotations

Add diagrams

• Help:Contributing/diagrams — PlantUML, GraphViz, Mscgen and Mermaid diagrams, written in the page text

Create dynamic content based on semantic data

• Help:Contributing/semanticDynamicContent

Cite sources

• Help:Contributing/citations

Create templates to reduce content duplication

• Help:Contributing/templates

Working with semantic data

• Items and properties — the data model, creating and editing entities, statements, merging and deleting
• Importing from external authorities — fetch authors, sources and collectives from public services
• Querying with SPARQL — analyse the data with the query service

Per namespace guides

Each name space has its own templates, conventions, and good-to-knows. They live under {namespace}:Contributing. (e.g., FOSS:Contributing)

Discuss on the forum

• Forum — multi-thread discussions for editorial and instance-dev plans

House rules

• House rules for this instance

API and bulk editing

• API and bulk editing — scripting and batch tools