Difference between revisions of "Help:Contents"

Revision as of 12:17, 25 September 2009

This is the contents page of the Help Section of DiabloWiki.

Introduction

This is the DiabloWiki, which is a community depository for Diablo III information of every kind. You are more than welcome, and even encouraged to help us all by expanding sections, adding missing numbers, or fixing the spelling mistakes of other editors. As the name might tell you, DiabloWiki is a wiki, an open source document that anyone can edit or add to. "All of us are smarter than any of us," goes the theory. Wikis are designed to be easy to edit; they are primarily text-based, and you do not need to know HTML, PHP, CSS or any other programming language to edit wiki pages.

How to Help

DiabloWiki is a comprehensive information resource for the Diablo community. The site is supported by the Unofficial Diablo II site on Diii.Net. We encourage you and all other members of the community to share their knowledge with others to build the DiabloWiki into the best resource for Diablo there is.

In order to help, you just need to press "Edit" on the article or section that you feel you can contribute on, or perhaps create a new article. In most cases, it is just a matter of adding text, or changing a letter or number, so no more skill is required. If you want to add pages, or make more substantial additions to the wiki, it is good to have a basic understanding on the very simplistic edit markup used in wikis.

The general principle is that ANY addition you make to the wiki is a good one, and you should not be afraid to correct errors in the wiki. We're all mortals and everyone is capable of making mistakes on facts or spelling.

What you can help with

Beside the general term that anything you do is appreciated by the community, this is a list of things you can check if looking for something specific to help with.

The Community Portal is the main page for projects and tasks that needs to be completed for different purposes. All the current activities are reported on here, and the talk page is the main discussion board for the wiki.
The stubs (explanation: stub) of the wiki are small articles that need to be developed, or polished. Whatever you do to improve them, it's usually quite useful.
"Wanted" pages and categories are locations that are linked to from other pages, but don't yet exist. These are the "red links" that needs to be filled out. Creating one of these will make it so that other articles that link to it will show a regular link, and lead to a regular page, even if you just added a stub.

If you have a few hours experience with wikis, you can help with the slightly more advanced tasks of a wiki.

You can help to categorise uncategorised material:
Some pages needs to be deleted if they are not used by the wiki, and then you can add the delete tag {{Delete}} on them, or start using them in articles:
And if you come across any broken redirects you could be kind enough to fix or tag for deletion.

If you're less of an expert, or aren't comfortable writing original material, you can help improve existing pages. Almost every page on this wiki could be improved by adding links to other related pages, illustrating the information by inserting thumbnails or links to full screenshots, and improving the navigation (by adding links or categorization) to help people find the pages they seek.

If you have experience with wikis you can help fix up errors or formatting problems, or work with people who know Diablo III or are good at editing pages, but aren't wiki experts. This is very important, to increase the number of Diablo fans that help out with this communal project.

If you don't want to get that involved you can make smaller changes; fix typos, join the "talk" on a page to suggest additions or corrections or to add different interpretations.

How to Edit

Editing in wikis is made to be as easy as possible. It does not require other programming or web editing skills. It does require you to be registered, though, and you can do that easily by registering here.

As for the actual editing and Wiki skills, we have made a large help section available on DiabloWiki.

Wiki markup - A good introduction to the most commonly used formatting in a Wiki, including italic, bold text or how to include tables.
New Article - How to create new articles in the wiki.
Wiki Sandbox - Use this page to try out the markup without doing unnecessary changes to other articles.
Wiki category structure - To help you navigate, or to help you add articles to categories.
DiabloWiki Policies - The DiabloWiki policies are important to know when creating new documents.
FAQ - Refer to the FAQ if you can't find the answer for you. Feel free to add answers here of questions you have asked, or gotten answer from.
DiabloWiki Support - For when you need further help.

Common Wiki Terms

This is a list of "wiki lingo". Words that are primarily used in wiki editing, and might be slightly different than you would imagine.

Structure

The Wiki uses "categories" to sort content into a folder-like structure. When creating an article, or editing it, make sure it ends up in the right Category: Category structure.

Support

If you have problems that the help sections (or the external help section below) can't help, you can make questions on the Community Portal talk page. Just edit, and write your question at the bottom. Use regular talk page etiquette. You can also go to the dedicated Support page for help.

External Help

Wikipedia, and associated pages have a lot of additional help pages, if you want to go in deeper into the wiki editing business. Some of it might not be 100% compatible with this wiki, but next to everything will be.

Wiki Help Index [e]
• Help Contents • Community Portal • Markup - Create article - Sandbox • Help FAQ • Wiki Support • Category Structure • DiabloWiki Policies • Help Category • Link us	• Wiki Tools • Article History • Boilerplates • Deleting pages • Disambiguations • Moving Articles • Redirects • Stubs • Templates	• Glossary • Articles • Categories • Images • Linking • Tables • Talk Pages • Vandalism

@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 {{WikiTitle}} is a comprehensive information resource for the Diablo community. The site is supported by the Unofficial Diablo II site on [http://www.diii.net Diii.Net]. We encourage you and all other members of the community to share their knowledge with others to build the {{WikiTitle}} into the best resource for Diablo there is.
-In order to help, you just need to press "Edit" on the article or section that you feel you can contribute on. In most cases, it is just a matter of adding text, or changing a letter or number, so no more skill is required. If you want to add pages, or make more substantial additions to the wiki, it is good to have a basic understanding on the very simplistic [[Help:Markup|edit markup]] used in wikis.
+In order to help, you just need to press "Edit" on the article or section that you feel you can contribute on, or perhaps create a [[Help:New article|new article]]. In most cases, it is just a matter of adding text, or changing a letter or number, so no more skill is required. If you want to add pages, or make more substantial additions to the wiki, it is good to have a basic understanding on the very simplistic [[Help:Markup|edit markup]] used in wikis.
 The general principle is that ANY addition you make to the wiki is a good one, and you should not be afraid to correct errors in the wiki. We're all mortals and everyone is capable of making mistakes on facts or spelling.
@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 If you don't want to get ''that involved'' you can make smaller changes; fix typos, join the "[[Help:Talk|talk]]" on a page to suggest additions or corrections or to add different interpretations.
 == How to Edit ==
@@ Line 44: / Line 45: @@
 * [[Help:Markup|Wiki markup]] - A good introduction to the most commonly used formatting in a Wiki, including ''italic'', '''bold''' text or how to include tables.
+* [[Help:New article|New Article]] - How to create new articles in the wiki.
 * [[{{WikiTitle}}:Sandbox|Wiki Sandbox]] - Use this page to try out the markup without doing unnecessary changes to other articles.
 * [[Help:Structure|Wiki category structure]] - To help you navigate, or to help you add articles to categories.
@@ Line 74: / Line 76: @@
 === Support ===
 If you have problems that the help sections (or the external help section below) can't help, you can make questions on the [[Talk:{{WikiTitle}}:Community Portal|Community Portal talk page]]. Just edit, and write your question at the bottom. Use regular [[Help:Talk|talk page etiquette]]. You can also go to the dedicated [[Help:Support|Support]] page for help.
 === External Help ===