Willipedia:About

Willipedia is governed by the Willipedia board and hosted by WSO. It is not officially related to the college. Anyone can read any article, but only students, faculty, and alumni may edit (after logging into Willipedia with a Unix or AWC account).

Feel free to contribute! We want this site to become a definitive source of information about Williams, and an expression of the Williams consciousness. Articles, stories, and how-to's are welcome, and on nearly any subject: buildings, people, organizations, classes, history, hiking -- anything of, about, or near the college. You might want to consult:

• Basic editing help
• Advanced features
• Willipedia policies
• Help:Restricting an article's readership

Getting Started

To edit an article: click "Edit this page" at the bottom of any article. Or, click "edit" on the right-hand side of a section header. When you are done editing, add a note about what you did in the "Summary" box, and click "Save page". These summaries help other editors keep track of an article's history.

To create a new article: Creating an article is a four step process.

1. Make sure you're logged into Willipedia
2. Make a link to the article you want to create. You need to edit an existing article to do so. You can either edit a related article, or, if there's not one, add your link to Miscellaneous articles. Just enclose the word(s) you want to be the title in double brackets [[like this]]. Save the page.
3. Click on the link you created.
4. You'll see a big white box. Type the article into there, and when you're done, click "Save page".

You will probably want to consult Wikipedia's editing guide to learn useful syntax. Feel free to experiment in the Sandbox.

Advanced Features

Willipedia uses MediaWiki, the same software that powers the free and famous Wikipedia. In addition, Willipedia uses the following MediaWiki Extensions, which let you insert cool components into an article page using only the textbox. Click the links to learn more about the specific syntax for each extension.

• Math: allows for equations like this:

<math> e^{\pi i} + 1 = 0 </math>

• Google Maps: enables Google Maps with little markers:

<googlemap lat="42.716644" lon="-73.2029" zoom="0" controls="small" width="300" height="200" type="satellite"> 42.716644,-73.2029,Mission Park </googlemap>

• LilyPond: lets you make musical mark-up like this (I'm not sure why there's so much white space):

<lilypond>c4 e g</lilypond>

• Easytimeline: actually not all that easy and not all that pretty, but it's there if you want it.
• MailObfuscator: if you put an email address in between <email> tags, then spam robots won't be able to see it. But people will. See, it looks normal:
  • <email>wiki@wso.williams.edu</email>

Willipedia In The News

• What's on College Students' Minds? A Good Humored Guide (Newswise.com, 28 Mar 2006)