Help:Contents

From ScoutWiki, For Everyone, Everywhere involved with Scouting and Guiding...

This help page is made to help you to start contributing to this scoutwiki. Some of the most frequently asked questions are answered here.

Pages, pictures, categories and tables

How to edit a page?

Everybody can contribute by editing pages. You only need to be logged in. Changing an existing page is done as follows:

  • Editing the entire page at once: On top of the page, click on the tab "Edit". A screen appears in which you can alter all sections of the page at once.
  • Editing one section at a time: In longer articles, you can sometimes see the text "[edit]" at the upper right corner of a section. When you click on it, you can just edit that section. This is especially useful when the entire page is very large.

How to change the title of a page?

The title of a page can be easily altered as logged in user. Click on the tab "move" on top of the page. A screen appears in which you can enter the new title, that you think the article needs to have.

Only do this when you are sure of what you doing! After you have altered the title, please check the pages which were pointing at the previous title, and redirect them to the new title. You can find the list of those articles using the button "what links here", which can be found at the left side of the page.

How to remove a page?

A "normal" user does not have the rights to remove a page, but you can nominate page for removal. If you think a page does not belong on the scoutwiki, edit the article and place {{delete}} (including the brackets!) on top of the content. The page will be investigated by the administrators and removed if considered necessary.

How to make a new page?

A new page can be made in three different ways:

  1. Typ in the address bar the following text:
    http://en.scoutwiki.org/index.php?title=article (with the name of your future article instead of the word "article").
  2. Typ the name of your future article in the search bar and click on "OK"
  3. Click on a red link on the subject you want to write something about
(If you use this third way, you are at least sure that somewhere on scoutwiki there is already another page pointing at your new page. This makes your new page easier to find. In the list of wanted pages you can find a list of all red links that are already present in the entire scoutwiki)

Now an empty page appears. If you click on the tab "Edit" on top of the page, an empty screen appears where you can type your text. When you are finished, click on "save page" and your contribution is saved!

Be aware of the following when making a new page:

  • Do not submit copyrighted work without permission
  • Try to give your article a suitable category (e.g. "Scout campsites") by adding the category in the end line of your article. In the case of the campsites example, this looks like [[Category:Scout campsites]]. Try as much as possible to place your article in an existing category. Is this not possible, make a new category yourself or let someone of the more experienced scoutwiki contributors do it.
  • Do not press the "save page" button too soon, but always check your page first by "show preview".

How to make a new category?

Categories are important in sense of hierarcy in wiki and they help searching similar articles. View also List of Categories. A new category can be made as follows:

  1. Typ in the address bar the following:
    http://en.scoutwiki.org/index.php?title=Category:nameofcategory (with the name of the future category instead of "nameofcategory")
  2. Create or edit an article and place below the article the text [[Category:nameofcategory]]. A red link appears below the article in the article bar. Click on it.

Probably an empty page appears, with at most one or two articles which are already placed into this not-yet-existing category. The category page can be filled as follows:

  • Place an introductory text which describes what kind of articles will be placed in this category
  • Place this new category inside another, parent category, in the same way an article is placed inside a category. If you are totally clueless of the category to choose, take "Category:Scouting". This is the main category of this English scoutwiki.

Do not press the "save page" button too soon, but always check your page first by "show preview".

How to make a new portal?

Think of a suitable name for your portal, and make it in the same way as you would make an article. Choose a name of the form "Portal:Portalname" with the name of your portal instead of "Portalname". An example of a portal to use as a template is available.

How to upload a picture?

Logged in users can upload a picture in the following way:

  • Click on the button "upload file" on the left of the page
  • Click on the button "browse..." to find the picture of your desire
  • Describe your files
  • Press "upload"

Think of the following:

  • Don't upload files which are very large!
  • Make sure not to violate copyright laws
  • Name the picture in a clear, unique way (so don't choose something very general like "troophouse.jpg" or "knot.gif")

How to make a page of my own scouts group?

Follow the following two steps:

  1. First, add your group to the groups database by using the page Groups:Home
  2. Then, read the help file on Groups:Help

How to edit using Wiki Mark-up language?

Making headers

Sections can be given a header to distinct them from other sections. This can be done using the "=" sign as follows:

==Header level 2==
===Header level 3===

Usually, header level 2 is used as a top level header, because of the extreme size of header 1.

Making numbered and bulleted lists

A list can be made by using the asterisk sign ("*") as the first character of a line as follows.

Typing the following:

* Entry number one
* Entry number two

results in this:

  • Entry number one
  • Entry number two

When the "#"-sign is used instead, a numbered list is created instead of a bulleted list.

Bold and italic text

Using accents creates bold and/or italic text.

Typing ''italic'' (two accents on each side) results in italic.
Typing '''bold''' (three accents on each side) results in bold.
Typing '''''bold and italic''''' (five accents on each side) results in bold and italic.

Linking to internal pages and external websites

Adding links to pages inside the wiki (so called "wikilinks") can be done by using brackets in the following way:

Typing [[Scout Law]] results in Scout Law; a direct link to the ScoutWiki article "Scout Law"
Typing [[Scout Law|law for all scouts]] results in law for all scouts; it is still a direct link to the ScoutWiki article "Scout Law"

If you desire to make a link to an external website, you can do this in three ways:

Typing [http://www.wosm.org] (a link surrounded by brackets) results in [1]
Typing [http://www.wosm.org WOSM] (a link followed by a short description, surrounded by brackets) results in WOSM (notice the space between the URL and the description!)
Typing http://www.wosm.org (link without any brackets) results in http://www.wosm.org

Sign your contributions on talk pages

You can sign messages with your user name and the date & time by typing four tildes (like this: ~~~~). Your user name and the date and time will appear automatically when you click on "save page". If you type three instead of four tildes, only your user name appears. When you type five, only date and time appear.

Joining the ScoutWiki Network with a new language

If you have an existing scoutwiki which is to some extend active, your wiki can be added to the existing network. If you want to start a new ScoutWiki in your own language, this is also possible. For the exact regulations and rules, please contact the Scoutwiki Association at the ScoutWiki Forum.

I have another question... what to do now?

Depending on the type of question, you can do three things:

  1. Ask your questions to all visitors of this scoutwiki, at the Camp Fire
  2. Ask your question to the entire scoutwiki community, at the Scoutwiki forum
  3. Search for an answer yourself at the largest wiki of the world, en.wikipedia.org