Help:Tutorial
This tutorial is aimed at helping new users begin editing on the wiki.
Getting started
Editing might seem daunting at first. It can be helpful to remember that you don’t need to know everything about fandom, Fanlore or a topic you’re writing about — nobody does!
Adding something to a page, even if it’s not 100% correct or a complete description of a topic, is better than nothing at all. Even if you don’t get something completely right, that’s okay — Fanlore is constantly being improved by our wonderful community of editors, who will be happy to help out.
If you want to provide information but aren’t sure how the page should be changed, you can still contribute to Fanlore by commenting on an article’s talk page.
If you’d like to start editing but don’t know where to begin, there are some suggestions at the end of this page for easy improvements you can make to any article!
Practicing in the Sandbox
To get a feel for the practical side of editing, Fanlore has a Sandbox where you can test things out without worrying about messing anything up! The Sandbox is always available on the sidebar of the wiki (on desktop), and if you’d like a low–stakes place to start, you can practice your editing skills there.
Practice in the Sandbox here: Fanlore:Sandbox.
Editing Basics
Opening the editor
To edit an article, you have to be logged in to your Fanlore account. If you don’t already have a Fanlore account, you can learn how to create an account on the wiki.
When you’ve found a page you’d like to edit, select Edit or Edit Source in the page’s top right-hand corner. These will open the visual editor and source editor respectively.
You can also choose to edit an individual page section by selecting Edit or Edit source in the section heading.
Choosing an editorOn most Fanlore pages, you have the option to edit using MediaWiki’s visual editor or the source editor. Both have advantages and disadvantages and most of the time you can use the one you prefer. The visual editor works like a word processor, hiding the wiki’s source code and allowing you to view the final appearance of the wiki. You can edit formatting and links using the toolbar and keyboard shortcuts. To access the visual editor, select Edit on the top right-hand corner of the page or in a section heading. The source editor shows the underlying source code of a page. It’s kind of like a plain text file and allows you to indicate links and formatting using simple code. The source editor is also useful for more advanced wiki formatting. Even if you’re not planning to do anything complicated, it’s worth understanding the basics of editing in the source editor, as Talk pages don’t have the option to use the visual editor. To access the source editor, select Edit Source on the top right-hand corner of the page or in a section heading. |
Formatting text
Text on Fanlore can be bolded, italicised or both. For examples of where these are used, bold text can highlight an article’s topic the first time you mention it in the introduction, and italics are often used for the names of books, movies and TV shows. You can also add bulleted and numbered lists to articles, which are useful to add sections like example fanworks to articles.
Using the visual editor
The visual editor makes it very easy to format pages using the editing toolbar and normal keyboard shortcuts. You can use the formatting dropdown in the toolbar to format text, similar to in word processors.
To create bulleted and numbered lists, select one of the options in the list dropdown menu located in the toolbar.
Typing an asterisk (*) at the beginning of a new line followed by a space will also create a bulleted list, and beginning a line with “1.” will create a numbered list.
Using the source editor
To bold text, place three apostrophes on either side of the text you want to be bold, like so: '''fanfiction'''. This will produce the following: fanfiction.
To italicise text, simply use two apostrophes on either side, like so: ''Star Trek: The Original Series''. This produces the following: Star Trek: The Original Series.
You can combine the two to create text that is both bold and italicised by using 5 apostrophes on either side, like so: '''''Millennium Falcon'''''. This produces the following: Millennium Falcon.
To create a bulleted list, simply begin a line with an asterisk. Indented bullets can be created by using two asterisks:
* One * Two ** Two point one * Three
Numbered lists are similar, except are created using hashtags at the beginning of lines:
# One # Two ## Two point one # Three
You can also indent lines by beginning the line with a colon.
Adding links and wikilinks
Fanlore has two main types of links:
- External links to other websites; and
- Wikilinks, internal hyperlinks that connect Fanlore pages to each other and allow readers to easily browse the wiki and discover new pages.
External links are highlighted in blue, with an arrow pointing out of a box after the link, like so.
Wikilinks to pages that exist on Fanlore are highlighted in blue, and wikilinks to pages that don’t exist yet are highlighted in red, and are called redlinks.
When to Add LinksInternal links are useful to connect Fanlore pages with each other. You can add wikilinks to common fandom terms, such as “fanart” or “ship”, or characters, relationships, communities and so on. If you refer to the same concept multiple times in an article, you only need to add a wikilink to the first use of the term. Even if a page doesn’t exist yet, it’s always a good idea to add a redlink to it. Seeing a redlink can inspire other editors to create a page, and also means that if a page is created, nobody has to go back and add a link where there wasn’t one before. |
Using the visual editor
To add an external link or a wikilink to a piece of text, highlight the text you want to link from and select the Link button in the top formatting bar, which will bring up the linking box underneath the piece of text you’ve highlighted. The Add a link dialogue will also appear if you type two opening square brackets, like [[.
To add a wikilink to another Fanlore page, you can type the title of the page you want to link to and select it in the dropdown.
To add an external link, select the External site tab in the link dialogue and enter the URL you want to link to in the space provided.
You can also paste an external link directly into Fanlore and click on it, which will bring up a dialogue with the option for you to Change text. This will allow you to alter the text which the URL links from without changing the URL.
Using the source editor
To add a wikilink to another Fanlore page, add two square brackets around the text you want to link, like this:
[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]
This will display the name of the page in blue text, like so: Star Trek: The Original Series. You can also insert wikilinks by clicking the link icon in the toolbar.
If you want to link to a page with a title different from the text you want linked, perhaps to improve the flow of your paragraph, you can use a pipe | divider, like so:
[[Forever Knight |zany text!]]
This will display: zany text! In most cases the link text should ideally have something to do with the page it's linking to.
To add an external link, add both the URL you want to link to and the text you want to display inside single square brackets with a space in between them and without the pipe divider, like this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page EN Wikipedia Homepage]
Making new sections
Adding section headings to an article is a great way to help organise information on the page and make it easier to follow and navigate, particularly for long pages.
Using the visual editor
To add a section heading in the visual editor, use the styles dropdown in the toolbar:
You can also use the equals signs described in the source editor section as shortcuts for switching to heading styles.
Using the source editor
To add section headings in the source editor, surround the text you want to make a heading with equals signs (=). For example, these heading levels:
== Level 1 == === Level 2 === ==== Level 3 ==== ===== Level 4 ===== ====== Level 5 ======
will look like this:
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
To add section headings in the source editor, surround the text you want to make a heading with equals signs (=), using 2 equals signs for a heading, three for a sub-heading and 4 four a sub-heading at a level below, like so:
== Example Fanworks == === Fanfiction ===
Saving your changes
Once you’ve finished editing an article, you need to save your changes. Once you do so, the live wiki will immediately update to the latest version of the article.
Using the visual editor
When you’re happy with your changes, select Save changes in the toolbar at the top of the page.
This will take you to the Save your changes dialogue.
If you’ve made a minor change like a spelling or grammar correction, you should also select the This is a minor edit option.
The Watch this page button is selected by default, which will add the page to your Watchlist — meaning you’ll get notifications for any further changes to the page. You can unselect this before saving your edit if you don’t want to receive notifications. You can also watch or un-watch a page at any time by selecting the star in the top right corner of the page.
The Review your changes button will preview the edited page and show you the wiki source markup for the page if you’re interested in seeing it before making the edit live.
Finally, you can select the Save changes button and your edits will be published to the wiki!
Using the source editor
Scroll to the bottom of the page, and find the box with a save changes button in it.
Before you save your changes in the source editor, you should preview them to make sure they look the way you intend by selecting the Show preview button.
You should also add a short edit summary to the Edit summary field so other editors can quickly see what you’ve changed on the page and why in a page’s edit history. For example, you could add “typo fix” or “added quotation to fan reactions section”.
If you’ve made a minor change like a spelling or grammar correction, you should also select the This is a minor edit option.
The Watch this page button is selected by default, which will add the page to your Watchlist — meaning you’ll get notifications for any further changes to the page, but you can unselect this before saving your edit if you don’t want to receive notifications. You can also watch or un-watch a page at any time by selecting the star in the top right corner of the page.
Finally, you can select the Save changes button and your edits will be published to the wiki!
For more detailed editing help, you can refer to Help:Editing pages.
Reverting changes
If you’ve made a mistake with an edit and want to undo the change, you can do this on the Revision history page for an article. The Revision history page shows a list of all revisions made to a page over time and allows you to compare or undo them.
To revert a change, first navigate to the View history tab in the top right corner of the page:
If you’ve recently edited a page, your edit will be listed at the beginning of the revision history. The revision history includes the date and time an edit was made (in UTC), the user who made the revision, and the number of bytes added or removed to the page. Edits with an m next to them are minor edits.
To view the summary of the changes made during a particular revision, select prev on the left-hand side of the edit. This will take you to a page that compares the changes made to a source page between edits.
Once you’ve determined which edit you want to undo, select the undo link at the end of the revision. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Save changes.
If you have made multiple edits you want to undo all at once, you can select undo on the earliest edit you want to undo and follow the same process. However, you should be careful if there have been edits by other users since your edit, as undoing your revision will also undo theirs.
Discussing edits
If you have a question or thought about a Fanlore page, you can discuss it on the article’s Talk page.
Navigate to an article’s talk page by selecting Talk in the top left corner above the page title.
If a talk page doesn’t already exist, the link will be red, but you can create the page the same way you would add to an existing talk page.
How to add to a talk page
When you start a new discussion topic, add it to the bottom of the page. You can do this by selecting Edit source in the top right corner, which will allow you to edit the page using the source editor in the same way you would edit an article. Talk pages can only be edited with the source editor.
You can also add a new discussion topic by selecting Add topic in the top right corner and adding the heading to the Subject box, putting the content of your comment in the main box below.
Once you’ve finished adding your thoughts, you should sign your comment. To do this, add four tildes after your comment: “~~~~”, and this will insert your username and the date and time you made the comment.
To respond to a comment by another editor, you can “thread” the conversation by indenting your reply below theirs. This can make long and complicated discussions easier to follow, as multiple users can respond to a single comment by putting them on the same indent level.
To indent a comment, begin your paragraph with a colon, like this:
This is a comment. : This is a reply to a comment :: This is a reply to a reply. ~~~~
Asking for help
Sometimes you may need to ask for help on an article, flag a problem, or request a page be moved to a different page title. You can do this by flagging Fanlore Gardeners on the talk page. Fanlore volunteers help monitor, organise and clean up content on the wiki.
To flag Gardeners, you can add the Attention Gardeners template to the talk page of an article using the following code:
{{AttentionGardeners
|because=
}}
Next to |because=, type in the reason you would like help with the page. This will automatically put the page in the Attention Gardeners category, which gardeners check regularly. You can also email us directly.
What next?
Now you know the basics of editing on Fanlore! Feel free to start editing pages where you can see places to improve them, though you should have a read through Fanlore’s Policies first for guidance on how you should approach editing the wiki.
How to start improving pagesHere are some simple things you can do to improve a Fanlore page that don’t require any further knowledge about wiki editing:
|
If you would like to practice what you’ve learnt in this tutorial, you can play in Fanlore:Sandbox. This page is made specifically for editors to practice using the wiki.
Another great way to practice editing is to create your user page! You can introduce yourself and your fannish interests. We have a tutorial on creating and editing your user page to help you.
Learn more about editing Fanlore
For more tutorials on editing Fanlore, you can visit the Help:Contents page for an overview of all of our current Help pages. This page is structured for new editors like you, with the simplest tutorials at the top, working down to the most advanced pages at the bottom.
You might find it useful to:
- Follow our guide on starting a page if you’d like to create a Fanlore page that doesn’t exist yet. The article on naming pages will guide you on what to call a new page you make.
- Go more in detail on page formatting tips and tricks in our Editing pages guide. You can also learn about adding images and tables to articles.
- Learn about adding templates on Fanlore, which will allow you to add infoboxes, hatnotes and quotes to articles.
- Learn how to cite sources in your edits, following our citation policy. This is useful if you’d like to add quotes to a page!
Get involved with the Fanlore community
Fanlore is constantly being improved by a wonderful group of editors from across the world.
Contribute to FanloreProjects
FanloreProjects are groups of contributors who work together to improve a specific part of Fanlore. These groups often focus on a particular topic area — for example, a specific fandom such as Sci-Fi Fandom or The X-Files or an area of fannish activity such as TikTok — or a specific type of task that is needed on the wiki, like categorising uncategorised files.
You can learn more about FanloreProjects here, or see currently active projects in the category. If you’d like to work on a specific area of Fanlore and would appreciate some help, you can start your own FanloreProject!
Nominate and vote on Featured Articles
Every week, Fanlore spotlights a well-written article on the site’s front page and our social media accounts — these are Featured Articles. Featured Articles are nominated and voted on by users, so if you find an article on the wiki that you would like to see spotlighted, you can nominate it!
You can also review articles that have been nominated and suggest improvements or make changes to them to get them across the line.
Add a nomination or view current nominations on the Featured Article Nominations page!
Participate in editing challenges
The Fanlore Social Media & Outreach team regularly run editing challenges across the wiki for editors to participate and earn badges for their user page. To participate in editing challenges, you complete tasks around the wiki, such as contributing to a particular type of page, creating a new page, or adding a quotation to an article.
Watch out for announcements on the front page and Fanlore’s social media about upcoming editing challenges, including the IFD Challenge every February, Fanlore Bingo in June and Stub September!
We also run editing chat events on the Fanlore Discord server for editors to discuss Fanlore and editing!