Wiki FAQ
This is the FAQ for the OUSFG Wiki. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to add them below!
- Q: Should comments/additions to a page always be signed or initialled?
- A: No; Wiki Signatures should be used sparingly. The acid test is "would signing this contribution make the page better?": most contributions have value and meaning in themselves, and so do not need to be signed. Contributions where signing are important are ones where the identity of the speaker is important, which isn't as often as you might think; for example "I think this book is rubbish", although definitely an opinion, doesn't really benefit from a signature, whereas "Let's all go back to my place after the Christmas Party" definitely does. Overuse leads to a more News Group-ish feel, which is at odds with the idea that Wiki Is A Website.
- A: The use of Wiki Signatures is a thorny matter, and of course one where objective judgement is difficult or impossible. Even on Wards Wiki, it isn't fully resolved. It's probably an interesting question that will be mulled over by philosophers of the generation to come.
- A: It doesn't matter that much; useless signatures can be removed later, when the page is edited.
- My personal experience: i started off signing everything, then started signing less, then pretty much stopped completely. It did feel weird, but i think it made by contributions much better: more focused on the topic, less focused on me. -- Tom Anderson
- Perhaps we should discuss When To Sign? It should certainly form part of the Wiki Etiquette rubrics, and might be worth putting on the Wiki Text manual... It doesn't really fit under Wiki Text, but it surely does under Wiki Etiquette.
- Q: Is there enough editing going on at the moment?
- A: No! The writing of new stuff is of course vital to a wiki, but it has to be balanced by editing of what's already been written. The two processes are as life and death, to some extent.
- Q: What happens to a page if it becomes orphaned (ie when there are no more links to it)?
- A: Nothing. It stays there; if you make a link to it (by using its name), the link is live, not question-marked.
- Q: Does it matter that an orphaned page stays there?
- A: No. A page does no harm merely by existing.
- Q: Is it possible to delete a page once it's been created?
- A: Delete the page's content and replace it with the single Wiki Name 'Delete Me'; this won't delete it, but it will mark it for future deletion. One day, it will be possible to delete pages directly.
- Q: Is there an easy way of creating a site index, to check that you're not creating a redundant page?
- A: You can get a list of all extant pages (working out how is left as an exercise to the reader), but this may not be hugely helpful. You can also do a Wiki Title Search, which is likely to be much more useful. In addition, you coould try to find a similar page by looking for links in obvious places: indices (see Category Index), categories (see Category Category) and other major pages (those a small number of links from the Front Page, or frequently changed, etc).
- A: Anyway, if two pages are redundant, then eventually, someone will notice and edit them together.
- Q: Should I worry about making mistakes?
- A: No! One of the wonderful things about wiki is that almost all mistakes can be corrected later. If you're not sure whether to write something or not, do it; if it turns out to be a mistake, fix it, or let someone else fix it.
- Q: Where is the correct place to add comments - wherever they're directly relevant on the page, or (say) at the bottom of the page?
- A: Wherever is most appropriate. Think of how you respond to mail or news posts; respond to particular items directly, and make general comments at the bottom of the page (well, in news it's often at the top, but there you go - bottom is probably better on wiki).
- Q: Where do you ask if you have a general question about the Wiki? Where does general discussion take place?
- A: You can ask a question here, if it feels like the right place. Alternatively, create a new page, linked from, say, OUSFG Wiki (for content questions) or Twic I (for technical questions). Questions, answers and discussions are free to spin out into their own pages and flocks of pages.
- Q: Do we need a Wiki FAQ?
- A: Definitely.
- Q: With regard to Wiki Names - are they guidelines on how they should be capitalised in instances where there is more than one possible variant? For example, Wiki Howto vs Wiki How To.
- A: It's not really important. Probably the most important consideration is that it should feel natural to type, but that's probably obvious. In the specific case of Wiki Howto, the page was modelled after the HOWTO documents that are part of the Linux documentation; there, HOWTO is treated as a single word.
- Q: If anyone can edit the wiki, what's to stop it being destroyed by villains/drunks/roleplayers/accident?
- A: Nothing and everything. There's nothing that would actually stop the damage being done, although we're quite well defended by obscurity and the fact that vandalising a wiki isn't a particularly exciting thing to do, as it's so easy. Our main protection is our ability to repair damage. The first line of defence is us, the Wiki Zens; if we find minor vandalism, we can fix it. More serious damage (deletion in particular) can be pasted over using the Wiki Backups. A future feature of Twic I will be Wiki History; the history of every page will be tracked and made visible, allowing changes to be easily reversed.
- Q: Why is it called a wiki (or in some cases a Wiki Wiki Web)? Cool name, but what's the etymology?
- A: 'wiki wiki' is Hawaiian for 'quick'; wiki was designed as (and still is) a quick way to write things on the web. See <http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWiki>.
- Q: I think the wiki's been defaced; what should I do?
- A: Repair the damage as best you can
- A: Get a copy of the last two Wiki Backups, so you've (hopefully) got a template for the repairs
- A: Tell Tom Anderson
- A: Tell everyone via Message Of The Day
- A: Trust everyone to rally round and fix it
- A: Track the perp down and punish the fool
- Q: Are recursive links (eg. Wiki FAQ) Bad And Wrong?
- A: Well, they make the Backlinks page look a trifle silly... see Recursive Occlusion, and since they're relatively easy to double-italic escape (WikiFAQ), avoid where possible, but if avoiding it, say in a list of Wikipages of which the source page is one, would look odd, then there's nothing intrinsically Evil Since The Dawn of Time about them.
- A: Really, that's a reflexive link, not a recursive one.
- A: It's arguably both. I did actually call it reflexive initially. However, Googling suggested that 'recursive link' is the accepted term. Language Is A Tool.
- Q: Is there a default way to create a wiki page for a one word term (eg. fantasy)? All in caps seems a bit shouty, but it's the only one that springs to mind...
- A: Try to pervert it into a multi-word term... i.e. Fantasy Fiction. In other examples, judicious use of the word 'The' is a godsend.
- A: Engage in the ancient sport of Wiki Name Wrangling.
- A: You can use all-caps (eg PANIC), but this isn't necessarily a good idea.
- Q: Should I start each page with a big heading duplicating the page title?
- A: No.
- Q: Okay, so how should I start a page?
- A: Ideally, with a paragraph which tells the reader what to expect from the page: people should be able to decide if it's something they want to read based entirely on that paragraph. Of course, if the whole page is only a paragraph long, this is moot.
- Q: Is there a way to get the <google:*> links to accept phrases rather then just words? Such a facility would be a great boon to the Google Meme Observatory, for example, where exact phrasing including common words often yields significantly better results.
- A: The easiest way is to link the words with hyphens, as in <google:pulsating-brain> (you can in fact use any punctuation for this, as in <google:pulsating.brain>); the more classical alternative is to URL-escape the speechmarks, like <google:%22pulsating+brain%22>.
- The former suggestion doesn't actually avoid the problem of Google excluding common words, but the last one does. Sorted.
- Q: Why the page blitz on acronyms and the like? Are we running short on space or something? I'll rather miss Category OUSFG Dictionary, at least.
- Yeah, what gives?
- (meta) This is probably not going to be a Frequently Asked Question; it belongs on Message Of The Day, perhaps.
- Q: How do I create a new page?
- A: Add a link to the as-yet-nonexistant page somewhere (on the most appropriate page you can think of, or else the Random Index), then click on the question mark which appears after the name.
- Q: Does wiki not recognize apostrophes in Wiki Names?
- A: No. It would be nice if it did, but things would get a bit complicated when you were using an apostrophe as a quote mark (eg 'this is a Wiki Name' - would that trailing quote go in the name or not?).
- How do other wikis render apostrophes in wikinames?
- Q: What will happen when two authors edit the same page at the same time and save it?
Category Wiki