Willipedia:FAQ

The Willipedia board is well aware that this page isn't very helpful now. Please do post your questions here, and be aware that we are working on a comprehensive page for this and other guiding necessities. We will post notice when we have made substantial improvements.

General questions

Where should questions about Willipedia be directed?

<email>wiki@wso.williams.edu</email> Alternately, you may add your question to this page if you think seeing the answer is in the interest of the public.

How do I add a page?

To add a page, you must first link it from another page. The first thing to do is to search the wiki for the term you want to be the title of your page; if it already exists, you can put double square brackets around the word, and then click Save, etc. as explained below. In general, go to an existing page that is related to the page you want to add. Put in something about the page you want to add, including the exact title of the page you want to create. Put that title in double square brackets. Click Save page at the bottom, and then you will see the text of your title in red on the preexisting page. Click on that, and edit away; now you have your new page.

How do I delete a page?

You don't. You can edit a page, you can even delete all the text on a page, but general users cannot delete a page because deleting a page removes all of that pages edit history, which makes reversion or further improvement of that page possible. Where possible, we should improve pages rather than annihilate them in this way. Currently, only members of the Willipedia board have the power to delete, and use it sparingly. If you think a page should be deleted, you can delete all the text on the page and put the word delete within two sets of curly brackets.

Formatting questions

How do I format something like a poem?

To make the wiki recognize single carraige returns, preface each line with a colon, like this :Hi.

How do I make something bold or italicized?

Italicized text has two single quotes (') around it. Bold text has three.

How do I offset a block of text, like a long quotation from another source?

At the beginning of the text block, put the word blockquote between < >. At the end, put it between </ >.

What if I want to link to an article, but I don't want to use the article's title or capitalization style as the linking word?

Put this [[ | ]], with the actual title of the article in the space to the left of the line, and the words you want to appear in your article in the space to the right of the line. (The vertical line is often found below Backspace, and requires use of the Shift key.)

What if I want to format something and the answer isn't here?

Go to a page that has the formatting you want, click on "Edit page," and see how it works there. Then click "back" so you don't change anything about the page. If you think many people would like to know the answer, add it to this section.