Tears of Themis Wiki:Contributor's guide
The following is a basic guide for getting started on how to contribute to the Wiki.
If you are familiar with Wiki editing basics, check out the To-do list to see what items need working on!
MediaWiki
The Wiki uses MediaWiki as its base. Check out the MediaWiki Help pages for documentation on basic formatting, writing guidelines, to more complex templating.
Common basic pages that may be helpful include:
Images
Images can be uploaded through Special:Upload or using the MsUpload extension, which allows you to drag and drop images to upload from the source editor.
When uploading an image, make sure to categorize the image appropriately (Or just add it to Category:Images) as well as add licensing if available.
For example, an uploaded game image summary may look like:
== Summary ==
Description of image
[[Category:Images]]
== Licensing ==
{{Copyright game}}
Boilerplates
Boilerplates are pages that can be reused repeatedly and also help with maintaining the same standard format across various pages with the same type of content (e.g. Character pages, organization pages, etc.).
Boilerplates can be used when creating a new page in source editor. Above the editor textbox, there will be a "Select Boilerplate" dropdown where you can load various boilerplates.
A list of boilerplates can be found at MediaWiki:Multiboilerplate.
Templates
The Wiki relies heavily on using templates for formatting and storing of Cargo data. While templates are powerful, they often aren't as editor-friendly due to often times being incompatible with Visual Editor. Therefore, it is highly recommended to use and get comfortable with editing the Wiki through source editor over Visual Editor.
For instructions on how templates work and how to use templates, read the MediaWiki documentation on templates.
A list of templates on the Wiki can be found at Category:Templates.
Cargo
Cargo is a powerful MediaWiki extension that allows storing of data, which can then be queried from across the Wiki. It is used to automate creation of tables, lists, and other templates to reduce the amount of manual maintenance edits.
For more information on Cargo, read the Cargo documentation pages.
Cargo Example
Template:Organization member stores member of an organization into a Cargo table. When used on an organization page, it'll then store information about that organization, the member's name, and the member's role.
On National Central University, for example, Luke Pearce is listed as a Graduate (Bioengineering) using Template:Organization member.
{{Organization member
|name=Luke Pearce
|role=Graduate (Bioengineering)
}}
He is also listed as an organization member of Pearce Private Investigations.
On Luke Pearce's page under the Organizations section, instead of manually re-listing all the organizations Luke is a part of, we do the following Cargo query:
{{#cargo_query:tables=OrganizationMember
|fields=organizationName,memberRole
|where=memberName="Luke Pearce"
|format=ul
}}
Essentially, we get the organizationName and memberRole from the OrganizationMember Cargo table where the member's name is Luke Pearce and display it as a list. This will get both his roles in National Capital University as well as Pearce Private Investigations.
Additionally, if Luke is added to another organization, this list will automatically update so that we only need to edit the organization page vs. both the organization and character page.
