Help:How to edit a page
From Theopedia
[edit] Use the wiki buttons
When you click the "edit" tab above, you will notice that at the top-left there are buttons. Move your mouse over each one, noticing that it will tell you what each button does. Use these buttons to familiarize yourself with the way wiki's link pages internally and externally, use pictures, bold etc... This will help you learn the syle of wiki's and learn to edit more quickly.
[edit] Copying Wikipedia articles
Because Theopedia is Public Domain and because of specific copyrights and overall respect, if anything is copied from Wikipedia it must be cited. Copies of entire articles from Wikipedia to Theopedia is unacceptable.
[edit] Creating a new page
There are two main ways to create a page. One is to click on a red link that takes you to the new article. From there you can click "edit" and begin adding to the new page. If a red link is not provided, there is another way to create a new page. Go to the search field on the left-hand side of the page. Type in the title you wish you article to have. If there are no related articles, notice the sentence at the top that says "No page with this exact title exists, trying full text search." Click on the link "this exact title" and it will take you to the page with the title that you searched with.
[edit] Adding a summary to your edits
Any time you make an edit there is a "summary" field at the bottom of the page. Theopedia prefers that you use this field to briefly state what edits were made to the article. This helps other users quickly detect what edits were made rather than having to look at every minor change. What you type in the summary field can be viewed under the "History" of the article, or on the "Recent changes" page. This will also help keep the history of the article organized.
[edit] Making sections and sub-sections
When you create sections for an article it will help with the overall organization and flow of the article. To creat a main section, use two equal signs ( = ) so that it looks like this:
- == New section name ==
To make a sub-section that goes underneath this one, add another = to each side, like this:
- === New sub-section name ===
And so on...
[edit] Creating a link to another page
To create a link to another page within Theopedia, simply put two brackets on both sides of the word you wish make into a link, like this [[Link]] . If you hit "Preview" and it comes out red, you have either spelled it differently than the actual title of the page, or it is a page that does not yet exist.
[edit] Creating a link but using a different term
If you want to make a link to "Atheism" but want to use the word "Atheist", simply type [[Atheism|Atheist]] . The link will appear on the article as "Atheist" while linking to the internal article titled under "Atheism".
[edit] Creating external links
To create a link to a page outside of Theopedia, only one bracket is needed. Copy the address and put one bracket on each side so it looks like this [http://www.---.com] . To give the link a name, write out the address, put a space after it, and then type the name out that you want it to appear as. It will look like this,
- [http://www.theopedia.com Theopedia] and will appear simply as "Theopedia" without the entire address.
[edit] Bullet points
To use bullet points (commonly used in conjunction with "External links" and "see also" sections), use an asterisk (*).
[edit] Using templates
There are different templates that Theopedia uses. They are pre-written and save time and space on pages. To make use of a template, it will look like this {{example}}. A commonly used template is a "stub". Rather than write out "This article is a stub. Please edit it and add information" it is much quicker to write {{stub}}. When you save the page it will automatically have the pre-written sentences. Other templates are: "Christianity", "sectionstub", and "cleanup".
Please see the List of templates for those which have already been created.
[edit] Redirecting a page
If there is an article that could possibly have two titles (or even more), you can create another article and redirect it to the main one. This also allows you to create links under more than one title that go to the same article. To make a page redirect, type "#REDIRECT" and then the page you want it to go to. The final product would like this - "#REDIRECT [[Jesus Christ]]".
Note: There should be no remaining content on a page that is "redirected" -- only the #REDIRECT command and associated link.
[edit] Creating and adding categories
Wiki's use Categories to help organize the information and to bundle articles together that can be placed within a broad category. For example, see Category:Jesus Christ. To create a new category, do the following:
- To create a category for say, "Sayings of Jesus", on the article (or articles) you want to bundle in this category click "edit", and then type [[Category:Sayings of Jesus]]. Place this at the bottom of the page. Repeat this for each article you want within the category. Then, click on the red link "Category:Sayings of Jesus" and write a brief statement about why they are categorized.
Note: some articles do and can have more than one category.
[edit] Making sub-categories
Some categories possess Sub-categories. For example, see Category:God. To create a sub-category, do the following:
- On the category page that you want to show a sub-category, click "edit", and then type in what category you want it to have as a sub-category.
[edit] Alphabetical order
It is sometimes important in categories to line up the list in an alphabatized order. For example, if you are dealing with an article called "The Death of Jesus" (say your category is "Jesus Christ") and do not want it to go under "T" but rather "D", perform the following:
- When you list the category as "Category:Psalms", add the straigt up and down line ( | ) to make it look like this, "Category:Jesus Christ | Death" with brackets on both ends as usual.
This can also be done when naming Theologians or Christian Philosophers. Simply add [[Category:Theologians | Calvin]] to make it go under "C" rather than "J" for John Calvin.
[edit] Signing your name on a Discussion (or TALK) page
To sign your name after leaving your thoughts on a Discussion section of an article simply type four tildes ( ~ ) to leave your name, date, and time stamp. Or, to simply leave your name, type three tildes. It is preferred that users use four.
[edit] Quoting Scripture
It is preferred on Theopedia that users quote from the NASB, ESV, and NIV. Paraphrase versions are not preferred, though are not banned entirely. Do not copy entire chapters from the Bible, as this violates copyrights for certain versions (e.g. ESV). Mix your quotes, and use discernment on what will help communicate the text most clearly. If no version is referenced it can be assumed that it is the ESV.
[edit] When to use capitals and when to avoid them
When creating a new page where the title words are a proper name (e.g. New Testament), capitalize the words as normally done. However, if the article title is not a proper name (e.g. Jesus walks on water), capitalize the first word only and do not capitalize the other words. Thus, the title (or link) should look like this, "Jesus walks on water", and not "Jesus Walks on Water". Internal links (links to other pages in Theopedia) are case sensitive, and if everyone follows this principle it will make the use of internal links much easier.
Note: apply this same principle when creating section headings within an article. For example, a section heading should look like this "External links", and not "External Links".
[edit] Adding a picture
If you want to add a picture, perform the following:
- Go to the left hand side of the page and click on "upload file"
- Follow the directions, and after you have finished uploading your file, remember the name of the file (e.g. JohnCalvin.jpeg). Note: some files are "jpeg" while others are "jpg" (they can even be .gif or other kinds, so pay close attention)
- On the article you wish to add the picture to, type the following:
- [[Image:name_of_your_image.jpg|thumb|right|175px|Name]]
- Whatever you called your image, place this name where "name_of_your_image" is. You can control the size of the image but making it 150px, or 300px. Lastly, where it says "name", you can add a description that will show up at the bottom of your image.
- For an example of what this will look like, see Ascension of Jesus.
[edit] Working with Table of Contents
Some articles look better if the table of contents is removed. To do this, simply type at the top of the page,
- __NOTOC__
This stands for "NO Table of Contents"
- __TOC__
Use this to place the Table of Contents in a better place in the article. By default, each article has a table of contents, but some may need the TOC moved for a better appearance.
