Help:Advanced Editing

Editing In General
ArmchairGM is a wiki, which means that anyone can easily edit any unprotected article and have those changes posted immediately to that page.

Editing an ArmchairGM page is quite simple. Just click on the "edit this page" tab at the top or bottom of an ArmChairGM page. This will bring you to a page with a text box containing the editable text of that page. If you just want to experiment, please do so in the Sandbox instead of on other pages. You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box, and when you have finished, press the Show preview button to see how your changes will look. You can also see the difference between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page by pressing the Show changes button. If you're happy with what you see, press the Save page button. Your changes will immediately be visible to other Wikipedia users.

You can also click on the "Discussion" tab to see the corresponding talk page, which contains comments about the page from other ArmchairGM users. When editing talk pages, please sign your posts on talk pages.

Minor edits
When editing a page, a logged-in user can mark that edit as being "minor." A minor edit generally mean spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. It is possible to hide minor edits when viewing Special:Recent Changes. Marking a significant change as a minor edit not helpful to the fellow members of the community, and even more so if it involves the deletion of some text.

If one has accidentally marked an edit as minor, the person should edit the source once more, mark it major (or, rather, ensure that the check-box for "This is a minor edit" is not checked), and, in the summary, state that the previous change was a major one.

Major edits
All editors are encouraged to be bold, but there are several things that a user can do to ensure that major edits are performed smoothly. Before engaging in a major edit, consider discussing proposed changes on the article discussion/talk page.

Once the edit has been completed, the inclusion of an edit summary will assist in documenting the changes. These steps will all help to ensure that major edits are well received by the ArmchairGM community.

Wiki markup
The wiki markup is the syntax system you can use to format an ArmchairGM page.

In the left column of the table below, you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects were achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column.

You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference, or take a screen-shot of it.

If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox. Try opening the Sandbox in a separate window or tab and keeping this page open for reference.

MediaWiki Toolbar
You can use too the Mediawiki Toolbar to edit pages, which you will find on every page after your click "edit this page"



MediaWiki Editing Overview
Below is a table which outlines the various MediaWiki markup used on this site.

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="850" ! width="425" | What it looks like ! width="425" | What you type Start your sections as follows:
 * - valign="top"

New section

Subsection

Sub-subsection

Sub-sub-subsection


 * Start with a second-level heading ( == ); don't use first-level headings (=).
 * Don't skip levels (for example, second-level followed by fourth-level).
 * A table of contents will automatically be added to an article that has four or more sections.

Sub-sub-subsection
A single newline generally has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. Some editors find that this aids editing and improves the function diff (used internally to compare different versions of a page).
 * - valign="top"

But an empty line starts a new paragraph.

A single newline generally has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. Some editors find that this aids editing and improves the function diff (used internally to compare different versions of a page).
 * When used in a list, a newline does affect the layout (see below).

But an empty line starts a new paragraph. You can break lines without starting a new paragraph.
 * - valign="top"

do not start a link or italics or bold on one line and close it on the next. You can break lines without starting a new paragraph.
 * Please use this sparingly.
 * Close markup between lines;

do not start a link or italics or bold on one line and close it on the next. marks the end of a list item.
 * Please use this sparingly.
 * Close markup between lines;
 * - id="lists" valign="top"
 * It's easy to create a list:
 * Start every line with a star (asterisk).
 * More stars means deeper levels.
 * A newline in a list
 * A newline in a list

marks the end of a list item.
 * An empty line starts a new list.
 * It's easy to create a list:
 * Start every line with a star.
 * More stars means deeper levels.
 * A newline in a list


 * An empty line starts a new list.
 * - valign="top"
 * 1) Numbered lists are also good
 * 2) very organized
 * 3) easy to follow
 * 4) easier still
 * 1) Numbered lists are also good
 * 2) very organized
 * 3) easy to follow
 * 4) easier still
 * - valign="top"
 * You can even create mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * like this
 * like this
 * You can even create mixed lists
 * and nest them
 * like this
 * - valign="top" id="definition"
 * Definition list : list of definitions
 * item : the item's definition
 * another item
 * the other item's definition
 * the other item's definition


 * One item per line; a newline can appear before the colon, but using a space before the colon improves parsing.
 * Definition list : list of definitions
 * item : the item's definition
 * another item
 * the other item's definition


 * - valign="top"
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.
 * Two colons indents a line or paragraph even more
 * Two colons indents a line or paragraph even more

A manual newline starts a new paragraph.


 * This is primarily for displayed material, but is also used for discussion on Talk pages.
 * A colon indents a line or paragraph.
 * Two colons indents a line or paragraph even more

A manual newline starts a new paragraph. When there is a need for separating a block of text the blockquote command will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does. This is useful for (as the name says) inserting blocks of quoted (and cited) text. The blockquote command will indent both margins when needed instead of the left margin only as the colon does. IF a line starts with a space THEN it will be formatted exactly as typed; in a fixed-width font; lines will not wrap; ENDIF
 * - valign=top
 * - valign=top

For larger preformatted text passages you can use the a lot of text  tag.

This is useful for pasting preformatted text; IF a line starts with a space THEN it will be formatted exactly as typed; in a fixed-width font; lines will not wrap; ENDIF Centered text.
 * - valign="top"

Centered text. A horizontal dividing line: this is above it...
 * - valign="top"

...and this is below it.

A horizontal dividing line: this is above it...
 * Mainly useful for
 * disambiguation - but to be used sparsely--only when separating completely different, unrelated (groups of) meanings
 * separating threads on Talk pages.

...and this is below it.
 * }

Images
Only images that have been uploaded to Wikilaw can be used. To upload images, use the upload page. You can find the uploaded image on the image list.

See the our image use policy as a guideline used on ArmchairGM.

Table of contents
Having at least four headers on a page triggers a "table of contents" (a clickable list of section headers) to appear just before the first header, after any introductory text. You can modify this behavior by putting one of the following tags in the page:


 *   - places a table of contents at the exact spot on the page where this tag is positioned.
 *   - disables the automatic table of contents
 *   - a table of contents is added even if the page has fewer than four headings

Tables
There are two ways to build tables:
 * in special Wiki-markup
 * with the usual HTML elements: &lt;table&gt;, &lt;tr&gt;, &lt;td&gt; or &lt;th&gt;.

Variables
NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect--in other words, it is the number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages.

CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN is the genitive (possessive) grammatical form of the month name, as used in some languages; CURRENTMONTHNAME is the nominative (subject) form, as usually seen in English.

In languages where it makes a difference, you can use constructs like to convert a word from the nominative case to some other case. For example, means the same as.

Links to editing pages
The variables mentioned above can be used to create links to talk, editing, history, and other useful pages associated with an article. (Generally to be avoided in articles, but sometimes useful in project pages.)


 * [ edit]
 * [ history]
 * [ watch]
 * [ unwatch]
 * [ purge]

Hiding the edit links
Insert   into the document to suppress the edit links that appear next to every section header.