Chester Wiki Guide

=Introduction=

A wiki is a linked set of pages which anyone can edit and expand. This freedom allows for unique expression and helps foster interesting and new ideas in an organic and very dynamic way. The emphasis here is on "anyone". You do not need to be a PhD.

It's also an example of so-called "creative-commons", where people spend some time to make something and then share and share it alike without worrying too much about ownership.

So, if you see something you think is inaccurate or incorrect, you have the power to change it. If you see that something is incomplete, you can add more information. You can also create completely new content and tie it into the rest of the site. Likewise, others have the power to veto your changes. It is a delicate balance but one which ultimately leaves the users with the content they most want.

Never be afraid to change something or try something new! All changes can be "rolled back" if you make a mistake.

IMPORTANT: In order to edit pages, you must first create an account. This is a very painless process and the only hurdle to contributing content.

=Creating an Account=

This is realy simple. You should see a label on the page which says "Create Account". Simply click on that. You will then we asked for three things:


 * a username (which needs to be unique - but don't worry the system will check that);
 * a password (which neeeds to be entered twice) - DON'T FORGET TO WRITE IT DOWN!
 * to type in a "Captcha" phrase. This is to help protect against "spam" - you should only need to do this once.

Your email address and a "real name" are optional, and you can come back and add those later.

You should then have an account!

The first page you will see is your "own page". If you want to tell the world about yourself, type something here. Otherwise, leave it blank.

=General Points=

"Commercial" posts
It would be great if this was a commercial website where businesses in Chester paid hundreds of pounds for a mention, but that is not the case. This is a free site set on "Shoutwiki", so it is not the place for businesses to be getting a free ride. If you want to advertise on the web try ChesterWalls.info or ChesterTourist.com, and pay their very reasonable costs.

Facts and Opinions
The aim of a wiki is to present objective facts, rather than personal opinions. We recognize the importance of healthy and lively debate. If you wish to express your personal views on, for example, aspects of development plans in Chester or other controversial local topics, please use the Forum (when we get it working).

That being said, Chesterwiki is a lot more relaxed than Wikipedia. So if you have a useful bit of knowledge about Chester that was passed on by your Grandfather, you can put it here and (maybe) no-one will complain that it is not backed up by a reference.

Editing
Editing a page is as simple as clicking on the "Edit" tab at the top of the screen. There are, however, many possible options for markup (i.e. making the page look pretty.) For your convenience, there is a formatting toolbar, which works very much like a toolbar in a word processor. By highlighting text and clicking one of the buttons, such as Bold, the text will be surrounded by the appropriate markup to make it appear bold. More information on editing can be found over at Mediawiki's Help On Editing. In general, just looking at how existing pages do things (by clicking on Edit and looking at the "raw" content) should let you figure out the markup — which is very simple! (Always make sure you "Preview" before you "Save Changes", otherwise you might end up editing a page several times).


 * see also http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting

Linking
Linking is the most important concept. If you create a page and do not link it then it will become invisible unless people look in the list of all pages.

The idea is to have all pages linked together in a logical and intuitive way. To make a link to a page, type the exact name of the page you wish to link to, surrounded by 2 square brackets. This means to link to the "Main Page" while editing a page, I type Main Page which looks like Main Page. Yes, it's that simple.

To make a link to a page that displays differently, such as a link to the Main Page that displays as Hello World! you just type Hello World! which displays as Hello World!. Usually, it isn't necessary to do this.

To link to something "outside" Chesterwiki use single brackets, and have both the URL and some text inside the brackets. For example Chester on Wikipedia, will display as: Chester on Wikipedia and will take you to the relevant Wikipedia page. External links appear with a little superscript.

Also, try to be descriptive in your linking. Try not to use the "click here!" phrase: "For more info check here" is bad! "See Hermitage for more info" is good! (and simply typed as "See Hermitage for more info" ). However, it is even better simply to incorporate links into text:


 * There is a local legend regarding Harold Godwinson and the Hermitage

Remember — use 2 brackets for things inside the wiki, and one pair of brackets for things outside (external websites).

Adding Images
A picture saves a lot of words and makes an article look much better. There are a few steps to adding an image:



prepare the image
You don't need to use a 3MB image in Chesterwiki, and if you do it will annoy people because it takes a while to load and it will use up a lot of server space. Most images can be less then 100kB and quite adequate. One way to make an image smaller is to display it on screen and take a picture using "Greenshot". The image on the right is 14kB.

add a frame for the image
A frame looks like this in the editing window:



If you simply save that then you would get the frame and text, but the name of the image will be in red. This tells you it is not uploaded. Of course, if there is already an image with the same name that will be displayed instead.

upload the image
This is done by using the "Upload File" page. The easy way to access that is via the "red text" in the image frame. Then simply browse to the image, check everything is OK and hit "upload". The image should now display (if it doesn't click edit and save the page without changes to refresh the cache).


 * see also http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images

Making a Gallery
There is a simple example of a gallery on the Grosvenor Bridge page. The syntax is really simple:

Categories
These are a little more complicated, but are the "index" system. Do not worry if you add a page without "categories", because someone will come along and add them. However, if you can get your head round categories then it will make your contribution more visible.

"Loose End" editing
Some people write their content offline and then copy it to the wiki. Others prefer to work "live" so that their half-finished works are visible. Chesterwiki has quite a few half-finished pages and there are several reasons for this:


 * someone got bored/stuck and gave up;
 * its a half-restored page from the original site picked up off the "Wayback Machine";
 * someone was called away...

IF you see a half-finished page then it's up to you to try and complete it, leave it alone or delete it. Deletion is not a good idea if you know the author is very busy. If you try and complete it and someone else is trying to do the same the server can get confused - so use "discussion" to come to an agreement.

Anchors
You can set anchors in the timeline using optional text

To link to them use Timeline

Here some examples of how to use them:


 * 1066 which looks like 1066.


 * Norman invasion which looks like Norman invasion.


 * (Timeline: Norman invasion) which looks like (Timeline: Norman invasion).

Eventually the Timeline should be full of Anchors (if you add them please leave them as invisible).

Imagemap


You can use the navigation icon like this:

=

See the pages on the Earls of Chester for an example.

Imagemap + Anchor


You can use a similar icon to link to the timeline anchors like this:

=

N.B you may need to add an anchor to the timeline.