Help:Your first article
Welcome! This page will help guide you, le newcomer, on how to do things on the wiki.
Before creating an article
Before you even think of creating your first article you must first join our Discord Server and interact with the community in our Orientation Channel. Here, you will be able to get your bearings as to what the situation in the world is like, figure out what plots are open, what those plots are like with regards to climate and their neighbors, and ultimately flesh out a proposal for a new nation. There you will be acquainted with the application process that is linked in the Orientation Channel's description as well as the rules of the server. Before you receive Probationary Membership, you will be limited to one article, which will be your main nation article. Only after you gain Probationary, or "green name", status on the server will you be allowed to branch out and create articles on other aspects. If we see a user we don't recognize making new articles or editing other peoples articles, that user's IP will be banned from editing in the future. Vandalism will be considered a non-starter for membership consideration.
Wiki etiquette
After you've been cleared to edit on Discord, please follow these basic principles:
- Do not plagiarize people's work, including both written and art work.
- Do not edit other people's articles on the wiki unless you are directly involved or you've gotten permission to do so from someone involved.
- Do not involve other people's nations without consulting them first and getting their consent.
- Do not upload obscene gore or pornography.
- Always make the work you do on the wiki known. This is we know you are still around, people can get acquainted with your nation, and people can point out any issues in your work that conflict with other parts of Anterra lore.
- Try to edit while logged into a wiki account whenever possible so we know the edits being made are from you and not a random person on the internet. You need to make an account to do things like upload images anyways.
Content you need
Once an individual has gone through the membership process and become a full member (a "Yellow Name" on the Discord server), they are free to write about absolutely anything they want. However, before that, there are some requirements and guidelines for what you should be including in your first article.
For nation articles, we take after the Wikipedia style that they do for their nation articles. This article on Germany, or any other nation article on Wikipedia, is an example you can try to emulate in structure. However, do not copy text or assets directly from Wikipedia articles, even as placeholders. If you need placeholder text, use a Lorem Ipsum Generator.
To get probationary membership, you must:
- A completed infobox, with at least a flag (map and coat of arms optional)
- Three introduction paragraphs in the Wikipedia style
- At least 1-2 paragraphs for an Economy section
- At least 1-2 paragraphs for 2 other sections of your choosing (e.g. History, Politics, Food, etc.).
- Add {{Anterra}} to the bottom of the article
- Demonstrate that you have a clear picture of what you want your nation to be and allow for established members to comment in the Discord beforehand to work out any kinks.
To get full membership, you must:
- Fulfill other requirements, such as being reasonably active on the Discord during your probationary period and acting cordially within the community.
- Show that you are adding to your nation article at least semi-consistently during the probationary period.
- Have at least 2-4 topic sections on your nation article completed with a reasonable degree of fidelity. Some attention should be paid to history and your nation's place in the world.
How to do things
Now onto the learning! The Anterra Wiki is ran on the same engine as Wikipedia, so if something technical isn't covered here you will probably be able to fine your answer by Googling how you do certain things on Wikipedia.
Creating a page
To create your page in the first place, there is an inputbox on our Home Page with a button that says "Create Page". Type in the page title you're after, click the button and you're off to the races.
Basic text styling
Here's how you do some things with text.
- ''Double apostrophes'' around text will italicize text like this: Double apostrophes
- '''Triple apostrophes''' around text will look bold text like this: Triple apostrophes
- '''''Quintuple apostrophes''''' around text will both bold and italicize text like this: Quintuple apostrophes
- [[Article Name]] will link to an article within the Anterra wiki.
- {{wpl|Article Name}} will link to an article on Wikipedia.
- [https://anterra.miraheze.org/ Your Text Here] will link to an external URL.
- [[Category:Category Name]] will categorize an article as the category you choose.
- [[:Category:Category Name]] will link to a Category page. If you want to change the name that displays when you link, you can add a vertical bar and type the display name you want. Like this: [[:Category:Category Name|What I Really Want]]
- <sup>Superscript</sup> will give you superscript text. A common use for this is to show square kilometers in areas, like this: 2,400 km2
- <small>Small Text</small> will give you small text like this: Small Text
- * when starting a new line will give you a bullet point. You can indent the next line in a bulleted list by starting that line with **
- : when starting a new line will indent that paragraph of text. Repeating the : will indent it more.
Upload and using images
Once logged in, you will see the "Upload file" hyperlink on the leftside toolbar. After clicking, you will be brought to a page to upload and give your file a summary. This can be a description of the image (but that's optional). However, it is highly, highly encouraged that you give you categorize your images so they're easier to find for people navigating your content. For example, an image showing a military vehicle from the nation of Tiperyn should have [[Category:Tiperyn military vehicles]] in its summary, which effectively categorizes it. That way, it will show up in that category page along with any other files or articles you've also categorized as such. We want the wiki to be as navigable as possible, so please make sure you do this!
After uploading, you can find out how to place images on your wiki with this Wikipedia Help Article on Doing Just That.
It is possible for you to use images already hosted on Wikipedia as well. You just use the filename of a photo on Wikimedia in the format. It is highly recommended that if possible, you should use Wikimedia photos is you were about to reupload that same photo or a photo very similar. This is so you don't clutter the wiki unnecessarily and put an unnecessary load on Miraheze's servers.
Country infobox
Every country page needs an infobox, which is the box at the top right of every nation page on the wiki with key information. You basically copy the text from here, paste it at the top of your nation article and start filling in the values. Additional guidance and examples can be found on Wikipedia's template page.
Note, when placing an image in the infobox in a place specifically meant for it, like the image_flag input for example, you just need to put the file name. Don't put the [[Image:xxx]] or [[File:xxx]] stuff around the file name in this infobox.
Troubleshooting
"Session Hijacking" error on log-in
Redlinks
If you got redlinks like This, that means the article you are trying to link to does not exist. If you want to write about whatever you're trying to link to, then create the page using the input box on the home page. Make sure you're not just mispelling the title of the article.