User blog:MtMB/Wiki Tips and Tricks

Hello, I'm MtMB, admin of this wiki. In this blog post I'm gonna show some tips and tricks which will make your and other users' process on contributing to the wiki (and not only on this one) much easier. More stuff will be added later.

Editors
When you hit any of "Edit" buttons you are moving into editor mode of the page. The purpose is obvious.

Wikia (aka FANDOM) has 2 types of editors: Currently default editor for anons and new users, which is considered as the most user friendly. As its name implies, it shows how article will look w/o redirecting users to another page/adress or pressing other buttons. But its functionality is kinda fixed, it offers little formatting, sometimes it can also mess up templates or just page's code (for example create  link instead of simple  ).
 * Visual Editor

Older type which reloads whole page and offers some functions that aren't available in Visual editor, such filling summary of an edit on right panel w/ preview buttons. There are 2 modes of Classic editor:
 * Classic editor
 * Visual - similar to Visual Editor
 * Source - raw wikitext and coding w/ syntax highlighting; it may sound scary but it's actually much more flexible and lets understand what actually makes article's content

As someone, who is contributing to the wikis for a good 4 years, I prefer Source code editor: wikitext is pretty easy to remember (see here), so you won't waste time on often use of mouse + it more valuable for me as an admin and template maker.

Drafts and sandbox
Every page on wiki (and in some cases commentaries or messages) have “history” - how page looked between every edit. The more edits were made on a page, the more versions it will have in its history. One of the vital rules of wiki editing is to make as less minor edits as possible. Making edits in every section separately (i.e. clicking small “edit” button near every heading) is one the most common mistakes made by new editors. Remember: section edit it useful only if a small and vital edit needs to be made in one place of the article, otherwise - make complete, full page edit in one session and check the whole thing before saving changes via preview.

If you often forgot to add something in one session or plan to make some huge improvements - try making draft for it first. One of the ways to make a “draft page” on wiki is to create a personal page: just go to your profile page - in address bar it should end w/ “User:YourNickname”. Then just add next to it “/Draft” (or any other name) and hit Enter - you'll be redirected on a blank page w/ “Create” button instead of “Edit” in the corner. When you'll finish draft you can just copy and paste it's content where is needed, or save for a next batch of improvements. Another way is to use sandbox, which can be edited by anyone.

Links
If you've checked Wikitext basics, you'll know that there are two main type of links: They work only on a presented wiki and use double square braces and a vertical bar (|) for a title; example: If the word, used as a link, needs little update, you can put it outside of the link - the result will the same as typing title again trough the bar: As I mentioned above, Visual editor can create excesses in page's code by going up w/ first method. Also I just used another type of internal links - to the section of the page, where "#" is used to specify it: Also you can format titles of the links, like:
 * Internal
 * → Reggie
 * → Twelve
 * → Reggie's
 * → Reggie's
 * → above (inside the page)
 * → Reggie's relationships (to another page)
 * → This is the main character of Twelve Forever

They lead to another website and are indicated by an arrow icon. They use one pair of square braces and a space to separate URL from possible title and as well let format it. Example:
 * External
 * → Official website of Twelve Forever

Other two types of external links, very similar to internal due they sources, are:
 * links to Wikipedia
 * → Twelve Forever on Wikipedia
 * other language version: → Twelve Forever on French Wikipedia (whoops there is no such page yet)
 * links to another Wikia/FANDOM project
 * → Possible BFF of Buttwitch from another universe