I thought I'd start a general discussion thread about some tips and tricks you may have learned when editing the wiki. Here are some of mine:
Backlinks
When creating or editing a new page, go down to the menu at the bottom of the page. Click on "options" and then "backlinks". This will tell you if any other pages link to this page. In some cases, you can add links to these pages under the "See Also" category, and these pages might also help you consider some new aspects of the subject which you hadn't thought of.
Wanted Pages
Go to the same menu and click on "site tools", and then on "wanted pages". This will give you a list of all the pages which have been linked to, but which don't exist yet - and this will help you see which pages might be useful additions to the wiki.
Warning - this list will take some time to compile!
Page Titles
We've all experienced this before - we create a new internal link to an empty page, and then click on that link to create that page. But then the actual title of the new page looks nothing like that of the original link!
The explanation for this is that Wikidot.Com first generates the URL of the future page from these links, and then generates the page title from the URL - and the URLs may not include things like punctuation. For example, the link
Cult, police clash at Iraqi religious rites
will create the following URL:
http://arcana.wikidot.com/cult-police-clash-at-iraqi-religious-ritesAnd if you create the page, its title will be:
Cult Police Clash At Iraqi Religious Rites
Note the lack of comma and the fact that all words start with capital letters now.
Fortunately, you can edit the page title in the edit window - and this page title is independent of the actual URL. I suggest changing it to the same spelling as the original link, as the same spelling will always work as an internal link.
Further notes:
- Page URLs have a maximum length and exceeding it will generate an error message - if you have any doubts, put the proposed title into the "Add a new page:" form in the sidebar. If it fits into the form, you can go ahead.
- For some reason, the Wikidot.Com system doesn't like it when you are using ":"s when creating links. I suggest changing them to "-"s instead.
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