Help:Editing

This page was mostly copied from our master project: Wikipedia.

Welcome to the our editing guide! Please use this whenever you need help using the wiki markup!

Wiki markup
The wiki markup is the syntax system you can use to format a Cyclopedia page.

In the left column of the table below; you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects were achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column.

You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Hurricane Wiki:Sandbox|Sandbox. Try opening the Sandbox in a separate window or tab and keeping this page open for reference.

Examples
--> {| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" !What it looks like !What you type Start your sections as follows:
 * -valign="top"

New section 

Subsection 

Sub-subsection 


 * Start with a second-level heading ( == ); don't use first-level headings (=).
 * * A #Placement_of_the_Table_of_Contents_.28TOC.29|Table of Contents will automatically be added to an article that has four or more sections.
 * If appropriate, place subsections in an appropriate order. If listing countries, place them in alphabetical order rather than, say, relative to population of OECD countries, or some random order.

Sub-subsection
A single newline generally has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. Some editors find that this aids editing and improves the function diff (used internally to compare different versions of a page).
 * - valign="top"

But an empty line starts a new paragraph.

A single newline generally has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. Some editors find that this aids editing and improves the function diff (used internally to compare different versions of a page).
 * When used in a list, a newline does affect the layout (#lists|see below).

But an empty line starts a new paragraph. You can break lines without starting a new paragraph.
 * - valign="top"

You can break lines without starting a new paragraph. marks the end of a list item.
 * Please use this sparingly.
 * Close markup between lines, do not start a link or italics or bold on one line and close it on the next.
 * - id="lists" valign="top"
 * It's easy to create a list:
 * Start every line with a star (asterisk).
 * More stars means deeper levels.
 * A newline in a list
 * A newline in a list

marks the end of a list item.
 * An empty line starts a new list.
 * It's easy to create a list:
 * Start every line with a star.
 * More stars means deeper levels.
 * A newline in a list


 * An empty line starts a new list.
 * - valign="top"
 * 1) Numbered lists are also good
 * 2) very organized
 * 3) easy to follow
 * 4) easier still
 * 1) easier still
 * 1) Numbered lists are also good
 * 2) very organized
 * 3) easy to follow
 * 4) easier still
 * - valign="top" id="definition"
 * Definition list : list of definitions
 * item : the item's definition
 * another item
 * the other item's definition
 * the other item's definition


 * Begin with a semicolon. One item per line; a newline can appear before the colon, but using a space before the colon improves parsing.
 * Definition list : list of definitions
 * item : the item's definition
 * another item
 * the other item's definition


 * - valign="top"
 * You can even create mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * like this
 * can I mix definition list as well?
 * yes
 * how?
 * it's easy as
 * a
 * b
 * c
 * c
 * You can even create mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * like this
 * can I mix definition list as well?
 * yes
 * how?
 * it's easy as
 * a
 * b
 * c
 * - valign="top"
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.

A manual newline starts a new paragraph.


 * This is primarily for displayed material, but is also used for discussion on Cyclopedia:Talk page|Talk pages.
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.

A manual newline starts a new paragraph. When there is a need for separating a block of text The blockquote command will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does. This is useful for (as the name says) inserting blocks of quoted (and cited) text. The blockquote command will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does. (See formula on right):
 * - valign=top
 * - valign=top

IF a line starts with a space THEN it will be formatted exactly as typed; in a fixed-width font; lines will not wrap; END IF Centered text.
 * This is useful for:
 * pasting preformatted text;
 * algorithm descriptions;
 * program source code;
 * ASCII art;
 * chemical structures;
 * WARNING: If you make it wide, you page widening|force the whole page to be wide and hence less readable, especially for people who use lower resolutions. Never start ordinary lines with spaces.
 * - valign="top"

Centered text. A horizontal dividing line: this is above it
 * Please note the American spelling of "center".
 * - valign="top"

and this is below it.

A horizontal dividing line: this is above it
 * Mainly useful for
 * disambiguation - but to be used sparsely, only when separating completely different, unrelated (groups of) meanings
 * separating threads on Talk pages.

and this is below it.
 * }

Images
Only images that have been uploaded to Cyclopedia can be used. To upload images, use the Special:Upload|upload page. You can find the uploaded image on the Special:Imagelist|image list.


 * }

See the Cyclopedia's Cyclopedia:Image use policy|image use policy as a guideline used on Cyclopedia.

For further help on images, including some more versatile abilities, see the topic on En:Cyclopedia:Extended image syntax|Extended image syntax.

Character formatting
(see also: Chess symbols in Unicode)

No or limited formatting - showing exactly what is being typed
A few different kinds of formatting will tell the Wiki to display things as you typed them - what you see, is what you get!

Table of contents
At the current status of the wiki markup language, having at least four headers on a page triggers the TOC to appear in front of the first header (or after introductory sections). Putting anywhere forces the TOC to appear at that point (instead of just before the first header). Putting anywhere forces the TOC to disappear. See also Cyclopedia:Section#Compact_TOC|compact TOC for alphabet and year headings.

Tables
There are two ways to build tables:
 * in special Wiki-markup (see Help:Table)
 * with the usual HTML elements: &lt;table&gt;, &lt;tr&gt;, &lt;td&gt; or &lt;th&gt;.

For the latter, and a discussion on when tables are appropriate, see Cyclopedia:How to use tables.

Variables
(See also Help:Variable)

NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect, in other words number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages.

CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN is the genitive (possessive) grammatical form of the month name, as used in some languages; CURRENTMONTHNAME is the nominative (subject) form, as usually seen in English.

In languages where it makes a difference, you can use constructs like to convert a word from the nominative case to some other case. For example, means the same as.

Templates
The Media Wiki software used by Cyclopedia has support for templates. This means standardized text chunks (such as Cyclopedia:Template messages|boilerplate text) can be inserted into articles. For example, typing stub will appear as "This article is a Cyclopedia:Stub|stub. You can help Cyclopedia by Cyclopedia:Stub|expanding it." when the page is saved. See Cyclopedia:Template messages for the complete list. Other commonly used templates are: disambig for disambiguation pages, spoiler for spoiler warnings and sectstub like an article stub but for a section. There are many subject-specific stubs for example: Geo-stub, Hist-stub, and Linux-stub. For a complete list of stubs see WP:WSS/ST.

Hiding the edit links
Insert   into the document to suppress the edit links that appear next to every section header.