Wiki Guidelines         A list of Ogre Wiki Editing Rules.
Ogre Head

This is a list of Ogre Wiki Editing Rules.
Those 'rules' are not the 'law', but would be good if we all use the same Ogre wiki editing conventions and practices. :-)


Don't Do This
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Don't create pages through links.
The new page will be outside a structure.

Do This
thumb_up.gif Use the 'Add Page' textbox in the structure header to add new pages.

Don't use the word 'I'

The pages in the wiki are collaboratively edited, so please don't use the word 'I'. :-)
That would make you 'own' the page, making it harder for people to contribute to it.
Normally, people will leave the page be, out of common courtesy, if they feel that someone has taken ownership of it.

Instead of writing 'in this tutorial I will not cover blah-blah, because so and so', you can instead write:
this tutorial will not cover blah-blah, because so and so'.

Be creative!

You don't need to write that you edited the page, because all editors are credited at the bottom of each page:

Page Credits


If you want, add some information about yourself in your User page. smile
If you don't have one, create one in your MyTiki.

That said, it's not always wrong to take ownership of a page, especially if you're maintaining it.
Use your common sense. smile

No 'Work in Progress' notices

All pages in this wiki are in progress.
That's the nature of a collaboratively edited wiki.

If you are writing a sketch, use your personal notepad (in MyTiki), or use the Sandbox Structure.

No HTML allowed

Wiki markup is good, use it. :-)
If you need a particular style, and can't find it on the Wiki Styles page, or make a request if you can't find what you're looking for, and a CSS editor will add it to the 'common' stylesheet.
You can apply a css class to almost any tag. (class="myClass").

Using styles (CSS) with wiki markup, over hand-written HTML, has several advantages.
The most obvious advantage is 'reuse' - once a style has been added to the common stylesheet, it can be used again, and again.

Attention When adding a style, be sure to add an example of to the Wiki Styles page - not everyone has the rights to view/edit CSS. wink

All pages must be in a structure

Adding a page is as easy as using 'Add Page' in the structure header.
The page will be created just after the page you're on, so do it from the right page.
If you want a page to be a child of the page you're on, check 'Child' before adding it.

The benefit of having all pages in structures is that it's impossible for a page to become lost.

Each page should have a description

When creating a new page, be sure to give it a description.
You do that in the Properties tab.

Giving a page a description serves many purposes:
It will show up before the page name header, and it will be used in toc's on other pages (as link descriptions).
And it removes the need to write a description in the wiki page itself.

We have seen pages in this wiki with three (even four) different descriptions:
One in the page, another in another page linking to it, and so on.
Page descriptions saves time, and ensures consistency. :-)

Create pages with human readable names

Because the name of a page is used as the first header (h1) of a page, use names like 'Wiki Guidelines' instead of 'WikiGuidelines'.

Create pages with short names

Use the description field for page description. Think of the page name as the keywords in a Google search.
To find this page, you'd enter 'Wiki Guidelines' into the search box, wouldn't you?

Make use of minor edits

When making really small modifications to a wiki page, consider saving as a minor edit, as this does not notify subscribers (unnecessarily).

Use edit comments

When making a change to a wiki page, unless it's a minor change or part of the porting effort, put some words in the Edit Comments textfield (just below the editing textarea).

Use alias with page rename

If you are renaming a page, be sure to give the new page an alias of the old page's name.

So, if you're renaming 'OgreModels' to 'Ogre Models', you give the new 'Ogre Models' page an alias of 'OgreModels'.
This means that any incoming links to OgreModels will go to Ogre Models.

And it's written like this:

---
Alias: (alias(OgreModels))

Placed at the very bottom of the page.

Page aliases are also good when a page could have several possible names.
Good for finding a page.


Alias: Ogre Wiki:Formatting Guidelines