Help:Editing for beginners

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Let Spiffo teach you the ways of wiki editing

Welcome to the editing for beginners guide! This is designed to get you editing quickly without filling your head with too much information. If that's your thing, then I'd recommend you take a look at the contents page.

Firstly, think about how you want to help out, and click the most relevant link below.

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Regardless of the difficulties, editing a wiki is super easy, it's just that creating a page can get a bit more involved than the other methods.

Adding information and formatting

PZwiki page tabs at the top of the page for a user.

Difficulty: Easy

Main article: Editing pages on MediaWiki help pages

Before you start contributing to the wiki, there are a few things to know:

  1. We have wiki rules.
  2. There is a style guide.
  3. The wiki uses MediaWiki, so a lot from their help pages will help you here too.

The number one rule of wiki editing is to be bold. Go ahead – make changes. Other people can correct any mistakes you make and the administrators consistently monitor any new pages and edits, so have confidence, and give it a try! There are all kinds of editing conventions, rules, and philosophies for the editing of wiki pages, but the be bold rule is the most important of these!

Start editing
To start editing PZwiki page, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the page. This will bring you to the edit page: a page with a text box containing the wikitext: the editable source code from which the server produces the webpage.
Summarize your changes
You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend.
Preview before saving
When you have finished, press preview to see how your changes will look – before you make them permanent. Repeat the edit/preview process until you are satisfied, then click "Save" and your changes will be immediately applied to the article.

Formatting

Main article: Formatting on MediaWiki help pages
Example wikitext
What you type What it looks like
''italic text''
italic text
'''bold text'''
bold text
no indent
:single indent
::double indent
:::triple indent

no indent

single indent
double indent
triple indent

==Heading level 2==
===Heading level 3===
====Heading level 4====

Heading level 2

Heading level 3

Heading level 4


Adding links

Difficulty: Easy

Main article: Links on MediaWiki help pages

The table below shows all the types of links you're likely to be using:

Example links
What you type What it looks like Description
[[Canned Beans]]
Canned Beans This is a basic interwiki link; what you type is the page you link to.
[[Canned Beans|Tasty baked beans]]
Tasty baked beans The link can be renamed by separating the link with a pipe |, the text after the pipe will be showed.
[[Farming#Farming guide|Farming guide]]
Farming guide You can link to a certain part of a page with a hash #, with a heading after.
[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Example|Example]]
Example Wikipedia and MediaWiki articles can be linked to the same way, so long as you place Wikipedia: or mw: at the start respectively.
[https://projectzomboid.com Project Zomboid]
Project Zomboid Other external websites can be linked to as well, however this isn't needed as often. Separate the link using a "space" with the text you'd like to show.
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As PZwiki supports multiple languages, when translating a page, adding the /xx language code after each link would be very cumbersome. To avoid this, it's recommended to use the {{ll}} template, which will automatically link to the correct translation page depending on the language code of the page, and the usage is similar to normal links (external links are not supported).

Adding and uploading images

Difficulty: Easy

Main articles: Images, Images on MediaWiki help pages

Follow these steps to upload a new image/file:

  1. The easiest way to upload a new image is to click the "Upload file" link in the bar to the left.
  2. Click the "Choose file"/"Browse…" button.
  3. Find the file you want to upload from your computer.
  4. Give it a file destination/name. This will later be the link you'll use to display your image.
  5. Write a quick summary if you'd like.
  6. Click the "Upload file" button.

The file will then be uploaded, so long as no errors appear. Note that it may sometimes take up to an hour for your image to appear here, however it will be displayed if you link to it.

Various ways to link a file
What you type What it looks like
[[File:Image.png]]
Image.png
[[File:Image.png|32px|center]]
Image.png
[[File:Image.png|link=Help:Contents|HELP!!!]]
HELP!!!
[[File:Image.png|link=|No help?]]
No help?
[[File:Image.png|128px|thumb|This is a caption.]]
This is a caption.

Creating a new page

Still confused?

Difficulty: Medium
While that ↑ may say "medium", creating a page is really simple.

Main articles: Creating a new page, Starting a new page on MediaWiki help pages

The recommended way to reach a page that doesn't exist yet is to follow a red link, like this. Now you just have to click the "Create" button in the top right, which will open the editing box.

Before you start typing away, we strongly recommend you go see the boilerplates category and see if there is one that matches the article you want to create. If so, copy the code that is shown and paste it into your new article. A boilerplate is just a page template, so all you have to do is fill in the blanks.

Not every page type has a boilerplate, or maybe you're unsure which boilerplate you should use. Instead, we ask that you include a header to the top of your new article, while also filling in the blanks. This allows us to track the version the page was last updated, making it easier when it comes around to having to find outdated articles.

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This section is currently under construction.
Will need an update, after all the template moving is done, also mention the Template:Page version and Template:Revision, maybe mention possible Translate extension as well
If this page has not been updated in a while, please replace this notice with {{Improve}}. Last edit was 07/03/2024.
{{Header|version=Version 41|incver=78.16}}

You may also like to add one of the notices to the top of your article. This will notify anyone that visits the page what is wrong with the page and how they can help to improve it.

Final thing, remember that although you may have created a page, it doesn't mean that you own it; anyone can edit it. If you have something to discuss with anyone about a particular article, you can always use the discussion tab at the top of the page. You can learn more about the discussion pages in Talk pages on MediaWiki help pages!