Help:Contents
From Diablo Wiki
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As a new user here at the Diablofans Wiki, chances are you're not entirely sure of what to do and how to do it. This article will explain in the most simple and detailed of terms how to properly edit this particular wiki. This tutorial is intended for all users, both newcomers who've never edited a wiki before, and people more experienced with wiki editing and wiki code.
If this article does not however answer your question, please visit the forum, or leave a message for PhrozenDragon here at the wiki.
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Articles
If you want to create an article but are unsure of how to, these first steps outline what is needed. The rest of this page describes more in-depth how to use each separate function.
Does the article already exist?
First, you need to make sure you are actually creating a new article and that it doesn't already exist. This can be fixed by searching.
The wiki search function only shows exact matches. That means, if you type in "dialbo", this wiki won't realize what you really wanted to type was "diablo". Your search will then return no matches. Just remember this isn't Google.
The same goes for less obvious cases. Entering "uniqueitems" without the space generates no hits, while entering "unique items" will. This is important to remember when creating an article, as the subject article might already exist. To prevent you from creating a duplicate item, make your search less refined, such as only searching for "unique" and omitting "items".
It also only recognizes exact matches. A search for "axe" will not return hits for "axes".
The search function is not case sensitive however. "Diablo" and "diAbLO" will return the same hits.
The problem of not finding articles can be fixed in the long by using redirects and categories, more on those further down.
Creating an article
This is perhaps the most basic and easy thing to do in a wiki. Creating an article is quite simple:
- Enter a word or phrase in the search box
- Press go
- If a page with that name exists, you will be taken to it. For example, if you enter "Diablo II" and press go, you will be taken to the Diablo II article.
- However, if an article with that name doesn't yet exist, you will be prompted with a message asking you if you wish to create it. Creating an article is as simple as clicking "create this page" once prompted, and then hitting save.
Look at other articles
Now that you are about to start writing, the first thing you should do is check how other pages on the same subject are written. For example, if your new article is about a monster, you should first check out monster articles from the same game and see how they look. This is easily done by clicking edit on other articles:
- Go to the article you wish to examine more closely, in this case a monster article like for example the Fallen.
- At the very top of the page, click "edit". (Don't worry, we're not going to edit other articles. Just click it.)
- Now you will see the text and code of the select article. This will allow you to see how other users created tables and other graphical edits so that you may replicate it. When you're done looking, you can safely just close the tab or window. No changes will be made to articles unless one presses "Save Page", so there's no need to worry.
- If the page you are viewing is protected, the edit button will have been replaced with "view source". It works exactly the same way, except you can't save changes you do.
Each type of article in the wiki will have specific structures and headings. For example, Diablo II monster articles start out with a brief description, most often taken from Arreat Summit, followed by some in-game info, locations of the monsters, superunique versions and finally their stats. This is how all monster pages for Diablo II should look.
There are several more things on the Fallen page that need to be explained however.
Including templates
There are two templates used on the Fallen page: Template:Infobox Monster Stats and Template:Diablo II Monsters.
{{Infobox Monster Stats}}
{{Diablo II Monsters}}
Both of these are to be included on all monster pages. The first one creates the table which displays monster stats, the second one creates what is called a navbox at the very bottom of the page. Different pages have different templates that need to be included. Check other articles to see what they are.
Including categories
All articles in the wiki need to belong to their right categories. It is important that the given categories are correct. If they article contains a navbox, chances are the categories are included. However double checking is always good. The Fallen article has three categories: Monster, Diablo II monster and Demon. However, Demon is not included in the navbox on the page, which means that if you do not add the Demon category separately, it won't appear.
[[Category:Demon]]
Wiki code
Wiki code is used to format articles. Since the wiki does not use the same interface like forums or MS Word, one cannot simply select a piece of text and make it bold or italic, there's no such command.
The most basic code is listed in the Cheatsheet at Wikipedia.
Those are the most basic formatting options one needs to know to actually create an article. There is much more to do with wiki code, some of which will be covered further down. It is much too extensive to put all here however, and you'll simply have to look at other places to learn more of it. Wikipedia is, once again, a good place to start. If you want to learn more than that, then CSS and HTML is what you'll need to look into.
Images
An important aspect of every wiki is to include images. This makes articles both easier and more enjoying to read as well as making them more helpful.
Uploading images
In the left sidebar there's a link to "Upload file." This is where you upload images. When uploading an image, you need to specify where it is (it has to be saved on your computer), what its new name will be in the wiki, and you can add a description. Images need to be categorized like all other things in the wiki, so when uploading a new image, take a look in the Images category and see where it fits.
It is important to note that files, unlike articles, cannot be moved. So make sure you name the image correctly.
Using images
[[Image:Diablo III concept 48.jpg]]
This link can be customized to present the image as you wish. Common for articles is to include the image as a thumbnail.
[[Image:Diablo III concept 48.jpg|thumb]]
This scales down the image and right-aligns it as is common in a wiki. It also makes it float above all other text and across different sections and headings.
The thumb command is a convenient feature, however there are other useful commands, such as scaling the picture according to height and width, aligning the image in other ways, including captions and other things.
For a full list, see Help:Images at Mediawiki.
Galleries
Sometimes many images are included in an article. If that is the case, it may be best to create a gallery of images for easier viewing.
<gallery> Image:Tyrael.jpg Image:Tyrael17.jpg Image:Tyrael3.jpg Image:Tyrael4.jpg Image:Tyrael8.jpg </gallery>
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A gallery such as this supports four pictures in a row, and will automatically scale down pictures to the appripriate size. You can't format images like previously explained when they're in a gallery however.
Templates
Templates are pages that are not articles in themselves, but are accessed and used by other pages when the page they're watching loads. An example of a template is {{Infobox Item Stats (Diablo II)}}. It is very common for tables to be saved as templates.
Using an already created template is very simple. To put it on your page, simply write the name of the template (omit the "Template:"-prefix) wrapped in {{ }}. Template:Infobox Item Stats (Diablo II) is just such an article. To use it, type out:
{{Infobox Item Stats (Diablo II)}}
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This just makes it appear. To fully use it, you must specify how to use it on your page. This is done with the following structure:
{{Infobox Item Stats (Diablo II)
|Name1 =
|Image1 =
|Level1 =
}}
Notice how the two }} on the end are put at the bottom, and parameters go in after the template name. By specifying these parameters, the template will behave differently for your article.
{{Infobox Item Stats (Diablo II)
|Name1 = This text
|Image1 = Appears
|Level1 = in the template
|Properties1 =
And this is also in the template
Even though you cannot see it by default
}}
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Every template has its own set of parameters specified by its creator. To see all available parameters, visit the template page. It is common practice for the original creator to leave a list of them all. The list for this template can be viewed here: Template:Infobox Item Stats (Diablo II).
All templates are created by users, so if you don't understand it, you can ask in the forum or on the creator's talk page.
Navboxes
While navboxes are technically also templates, they are a bit easier to use. A navbox allows to easy navigation between articles, hence it's name
Navboxes don't need any additional formatting like regular templates, but should just be included at the bottom of the associated pages.
If a particular navbox doesn't exist, you can create one. All navboxes are basd off of Template:Navbox.
{{Navbox}}
| {{{Header}}} | ||
|---|---|---|
| {{{Group1}}} | {{{Body1}}} | |
Filling in the parameters works just like any other template. All navboxes have the following structure (up to five groups total):
{{Navbox
|Header = navbox title
|Group1 = group name
|Body1 = Article links here 1
|Group2 = 2nd group name
|Body2 = Article links here 2
}}
| navbox title | ||
|---|---|---|
| group name | Article links here 1 | |
| 2nd group name | Article links here 2 | |
Categories
Main article: Help:Categories
Categories are used to, obviously, categorize articles. To the visitor who only came to browse builds, they may not matter much, if at all. However for us who edit the wiki, they're a tremendous help as they actually allow us to find stuff.
Categories are easily added to an article. When editing, they should be placed at the very bottom of the article. They're created just like regular links inside the wiki:
[[Category:Angels]]
Adding that particular category to the bottom of the page will add it to the Angels category.
Categories in turn may also be categorized. This creates a structure with some similarities to a tree. All categories eventually appear in the root category. From there, one can navigate their way to whichever topic they wish.
Not just regular articles need to be categorized, but images and templates as well. When adding an image, first check if it already exists by looking through the Images category. An article also does not have to belong to just one category, but can be part of many different. Choose categories from case to case, and don't forget to look at other similar articles.
Categories need to be named so it is obvious where they belong. For example, all categories dealing strictly with Diablo II (such as Diablo II images, builds, items or similar) should contain Diablo II in their name.
Redirects
Sometimes a search doesn't return the wanted article. For example, a search query "diablo 2" would not immediately take you to the actual article on diablo 2, as it's prope name is "Diablo II". Thus redirects are used.
Redirects are very simple to use
#REDIRECT[[Target Article]]
Copy the above piece of text, and put the article you wish to link to inside the brackets. Redirects should not include any other text, just the redirect. In the case of this example, the following text would be placed on the diablo 2 page.
#REDIRECT[[Diablo II]]
Guides and Builds
These are a form of special pages which do not follow some of the regular conventions. Any user can create a guide to an aspect of the Diablo games, most commonly this takes the form of class builds. The author can choose to put the Template:Guide at the top of his page
{{Guide
|User = The Author
}}
.gif){kind=small}
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This is a guide article This article was originally created by The Author. The article may still be edited by others, but the original creator has the right to revoke any edits which he or she doesn't like. If you wish to make a major edit, it would be prudent to contact the author first, either on their talk page or contact them by PM on the forum if they have an account there. |
If he chooses to do so, he claims the article for himself (this is only allowed for guides and build, not regular articles). While it doesn't prevent other users from editing the article, it is intended to signify that the guide is written by a specific author and designed by the same. If you have a similar build that you wish to write, you are not discouraged to do so. If you wish to use the same name as someone else's guide (for example make a second Energy Shield Lightning Sorceress) then put your name inside parenthesis when creating the article like this:
Energy Shield Lightning Sorceress (Your username)
Guides still need to be categorized and include the proper navbox, but other than that, the user may include whatever templates or article structure that fits best.
Colors
The Diablofans Wiki uses certain colors more than others. Here's a list of the most common and their hex code for easy use.
| Color | Hex value | RGB Value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| #160303 | 10 03 03 | Standard background for the wiki | |
| #080808 | 08 08 08 | Background often used in tables | |
| #2F0600 | 47 06 00 | Header often used in tables | |
| #3F2115 | 63 33 21 | Color used in navbox groups | |
| #501E0A | 80 30 10 | Header used in navboxes | |
| #801500 | 128 21 00 | Broken link color | |
| #903300 | 144 51 00 | Standard link color | |
| #DFB579 | 223 181 121 | Standard font color | |
| #4169E1 | 65 105 225 | Magic font color for items | |
| #00FF00 | 00 255 00 | Set font color for items | |
| #DAA520 | 218 165 32 | Unique font color for items |
