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Help:Contents

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This is The TV IV's help page. This is a preliminary page to get you started.

Contents

Getting Started

Creating a New Page

There are two ways to go about creating a new page:

  • If you see a red link, that signifies that the article has not been made yet. Simply click on the red link, and it will direct you to an Edit page. From there, you can type up whatever information you please. Make sure you click on "Show Preview" to see how the page will look on the site exactly rendered by the Wiki software. Once you finish editing, and feel like the page is as complete as you can make it, click on "Save Page." If the article you want is a stub, tick the box indicating that it is a "Minor Edit." If you want to be alerted of any new edits that page will undergo, tick "Watch This Page". There is also a useful Greasemonkey script that helps in the creation of episode pages.
  • If you want to create a new page that isn't linked, you can head to the Sandbox. There, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the screen, and, anywhere on the page, type out what you want to name your article in double brackets. If, for example, you wanted to create a new showpage about the show "Rocko's Modern Life," you would type out [[Rocko's Modern Life]]. You do not even have to save the page, because you can click on the "Show Preview" button and get the relevant link from there. Note that you don't always have to do this to create a new page, as you can manually enter the edit URL in from your address window.

Editing an Existing Page

If you want to edit an existing page, simply go to the page you want to edit and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the screen. Note that the wiki software does track who edits what page, so vandalism and reverting changes for the sake of being an idiot troll is heavily discouraged.

Moving a Page

If you notice or accidentally create a page that's spelled wrong or has the wrong title; instead of creating a new page, use {{Move|where page should be moved to|reason to move}} to request the page be moved. You can then go back and change the old links and mark the redirect page for deletion using the delete template if necessary. {{delete|reason for deletion}}

Redirects

In order to make your article as useful to the search engine as possible, it's important to set up mispelling redirects or other terms for your article. For instance, for House, you could add a redirect with House, M.D., House, MD, House MD, etc.

To create a redirect, enter the following code and nothing else on the page: #REDIRECT [[Where to redirect]]

Code

Simple Formatting

Text

  • Italicize: To italicize text, put two apostrophes at the beginning and end of the text you want to italicize
    • ''I love John Locke.'' turns into I love John Locke.
  • Bold: To bold text, put three apostrophes at the beginning and end of the text you want to bold.
    • '''I love John Locke.''' turns into I love John Locke.
  • Strong Bold: To strong bold text, put five apostrophes at the beginning and end of the text you want to strong bold.
    • '''''I love John Locke.''''' turns into I love John Locke.
  • Underline: To underline text, use the following code.
    • <u>I love John Locke.</u> turns into I love John Locke.
  • Signing Your Name: In talk pages, sign your name using the code: To add a "signature" (i.e. username and timestamp) use the following code.
    • --~~~~ turns into --CygnusTM 10:33, 3 Aug 2005 (PDT)
  • Short Spoilers: To indicate a small passage of a text is a spoiler, use the spoiler tag.
    • <spoiler>The butler did it.</spoiler> turns into [SPOILER - hover to reveal] The butler did it.
  • Long Spoilers: To hide images or whole paragraphs, use the lspoiler tag.
    • <lspoiler>The butler did it.</lspoiler> turns into:
Spoiler:

Links

  • Simple Linking: To link to another article within The TV IV, use double brackets around the article you want to link.
    • [[Lost]] turns into Lost.
  • Advanced Linking: When the name of the article and the text you want to write out differ, continue to use double brackets, but separate the link with a line, |.
    • [[Lost/Season One|Season One]] turns into Season One.
  • External Linking: To link externally, use only one bracket.
    • [http//www.yahoo.com] turns into [1].
    • Do not use a line to separate the link from the text.
      • [http//www.google.com Google!] turns into Google!.

Sectioning

  • Headers: To create a new heading for an article, place two equal signs at the beginning and end of what you want to name the header. For subheaders and subsubheaders, place three and four equal signs respectively at the beginning and end of what you want to name the headers.
    • ==Sectioning==
    • ===Sectioning===
    • ====Sectioning====
  • Line Breaks: To skip the rest of a line and head to a new line (the equivalent of pressing the enter key), type in <br>.
    • I love<br>John Locke. turns into I love
      John Locke.
    • Note that pressing enter once and writing on a new line in the edit box will not bring the text onto a new line.
  • New Paragraph: To make a new paragraph, just leave an empty line between the two paragraphs.
  • Lists: To do lists, or efficiently break up multiple sections, use asterisks. To create nested lists, increase the amount of asterisks by one. This line is created by using one asterisk.
    • This is used by using two asterisks.
      • And three asterisks.
        • Yep; four asterisks.

Advanced Formatting

  • A block quote uses one or more colons → :: ← at the beginning of the line:
The number of colons controls how deeply your text will be indented. It is similar to the asterisks in that you can have up to four in a row.
  • A definition starts with a semi-colon like this: 
;phaser:A directed-beam energy weapon.
and becomes this:
phaser
A directed-beam energy weapon.

RSS Feeds

Thanks to this MediaWiki extension, RSS feeds can be embedded into articles. To use, enclose the feed URL between <rss>-tags. You may also include parameters separated by a pipe ("|"), just like links and templates. These parameters are supported:

  • charset=x
    • The charset used by the feed. iconv is used to convert this.
  • short
    • Do not show the description text for each news item.
  • max=x
    • Shows x most recent headlines.
  • highlight=term1 term2
    • The terms separated by a space are highlighted.
  • filter=term1 term2
    • Show only RSS items containing at least one of the terms.
  • reverse
    • Display the RSS items in reverse order.
  • title=x
    • Display x as an alternative title instead of channel name. Use "none" for no title at all.
  • date
    • Display the date and time stamp below the title.

For example, <rss>http://digg.com/rss/index.xml|title=Tech News from digg|short|max=5</rss> becomes:

Tech News from digg

Format Conventions

Because of the uniform structure of the website, it is highly advised that you 'mimic' existing articles and then edit it so it fits the article you are making. You also should use existing templates if available a list is located here. Here are approved and highly suggested formatting conventions for new articles:

  • Main Showpage: Lost
    • General Description (no section header)
    • Cast
    • Seasons
    • In-Depth
    • DVD Releases
    • External Sites
    • Categories (no section header, for a list of categories see the program categories page)
  • Season Page: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Season Four
    • In-Depth
    • Episodes
  • Episode Page: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Hush
    • General Description (no section header)
    • Cast List (in credited order and format) (no section header)
    • Plot Overview (or Episode Overview for plot less shows)
    • Notes (running themes, lists, etc.)
    • Arc Advancement (serialized series only)
      • Happenings (story arc advancement not a list of events)
      • Characters (character arc advancement not a list of characters)
      • Referbacks
    • Trivia
      • The Show
      • Behind the Scenes
      • Allusions and References
      • Memorable Moments
    • Quotes
  • Character Page: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Willow Rosenberg
    • Basic Information
    • Episode Listing (if feasible)
    • Character History
    • Memorable Moments
    • Trivia
    • Quotes
  • Person Page: Burt Reynolds
    • Biography
    • Roles (if relevant)
      • Starring Roles
      • Guest Starring Roles
      • Specials and Made-for-TV Movies
      • Talk, News and Game Show Appearances
    • Writer (if relevant)
      • Series Created
      • Staff Writer
      • Episode Writer
      • Specials and Made-for-TV Movies Written
    • Director (if relevant)
      • Staff Director
      • Episode Director
      • Specials and Made-for-TV Movies Directed
    • Producer (if relevant)
      • Series Produced
      • Episodes Produced
      • Specials and Made-for-TV Movies Produced
    • Memorable Moments
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Trivia
  • DVD Page: Lost: The Complete First Season
    • Overview
    • Disc Breakdown
    • Special Features
    • Easter Eggs
    • Alterations

Naming Conventions

Linking

  • When linking an aspect of the show, make sure you use the formatting "Show Title/Article Name."
  • Suggested linking of characters with nicknames or aliases is still "First Name Last Name" but can be "Nickname Last Name" if they are almost always referenced with those names together.
  • The first letter of every word in the link is capitalized unless under special circumstances, or conjunctions, articles or prepositions up to four letters long (a, or, and, the, to, with, etc.).
  • When a show possesses multiple articles with the same title, differentiate it using parentheses. There is no need to differentiate the "obvious" designation of the article unless they hold equal meaning and thus both require further explanation in the URL.
  • Similarly, to maintain a sense of conformity, there are no exceptions to this rule. If a series does not have unique episode titles and thus must be designated in order of week or episode (such as Big Brother), put the season in parentheses. Do not create a nested directory with SHOWNAME/SEASONNAME/EPISODENAME because this will create further complications in the future when one article covers multiple, but not all, seasons of a show.
  • When two articles in the main namespace possess the same name differentiate using the following systems. Combinations of these systems can also be used when more than one applies. When creating pages using these systems be sure to create a disambiguation page at the shared name so links will still work (and so no one creates the page twice).

Images

  • When uploading images that go into the sidebar, in order to provide the best aesthetic and practicality for the infobox, the ideal width for the image is 300 pixels. This can be achieved with the code [[Image:image-title.jpg|300px]] If the image is too small, too much negative space is created, and if the image is too big, the table is stretched too much. Try not to size up images, rather sizing down larger images.
  • Unless an article is noteworthy and it warrants it, please keep articles to only one image, which should go in the infobox. There's no need for a minor, generic episode to have fifteen different pictures. Common sense is your best discretion here; if you're working on episode pages and this episode is always talked about amongst fans and non-fans alike, it's probably important.


Templates

To facilitate ease of use, templates are used. A list of available templates for use is provided here. Since templates are relatively hard to explain, your best bet would be to head into a similar page that you are editing, and follow the Wiki coding in that edit box. You'll find that once you see what edits what, templates are actually very easy to use. Some additional information can be found here: Help:Templates

  • To activate a template, use fancy double brackets: {{ and }}.

How to monitor a show

In order to view all the changes that have been made to a show and the episode pages, you don't have to add all the pages seperately to your watchlist. From season pages, press "Related changes" (can be found in the toolbox on the left). This will show you all the changes that have recently been made to the episode pages in that season. (More information on this feature)

The Golden Rule

  • Use common sense! If something doesn't look right, it's because it probably isn't. Look around at other pages and see if they look similar to yours.
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