User:Juerd
From What The Wiki?!
Yeah, that TOC is a bit screwed because of my examples. Ignore the "Some heading" and "Good work" headings.
Contents |
Not at the event
Because of unfortunate planning I won't be able to visit the event itself. Probably I'll be there the first day, but after that, I'm off to France.
Why I'm coming anyway
So I thought I'd help out and experience more of the ambience around the event that way.
Me
If you want to learn more about me, you should probably just visit my website at http://juerd.nl/.
Contacting me
- Campphone DECT
- 2356 (easy to type)
- GSM
- ask me (it ends in 4989)
- juerd#juerd:nl
Wiki editing advice
Not everyone is used to using Wikis, or to writing text other than on IRC. That's noticeable in how some Wikis are used, including this one. Let one thing be clear: that is NOT a problem. There are many people here who can fix the markup, so just edit away.
But still, I'll try to clarify some things that will very likely be changed.
Abuse of <br>
A line break is correctly used in addresses, but not in a normal text paragraph. Instead, just begin a new paragraph. This is done by leaving a blank line in between. In the rendered page, this won't take as much space as in the text box. Too many people are poisoned by Microsoft Word and alike text processors, that don't make clear enough that the enter key is for separating paragraphs (nl: alineas) only. A hard line break, shift-enter in Word, <br> in MediaWiki and HTML, is usually a bad idea. Even for signatures.
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Some comment |
Some comment Juerd 12:39, 3 Jul 2005 (CEST) |
There is another thing many people abuse <br> for. Lists of things. MediaWiki has its own mechanism for that, including numbered and bulleted lists. Use them!
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duct tape |
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The weird thing about the abuse of <br> is that <br> is actually much more work that doing the right thing. Hitting enter twice is easier than reaching for keys like <>.
Minor changes
Modifying only page style (not content) and not setting the "only minor changes" flag is considered bad style.
Too much emphasis
Because we think everything is important, sometimes we tend to over-emphasize text, but that ONLY leads to something that is hard to read.
Sometimes not adding emphasis at all is the best solution. Another good solution is to move everything that requires emphasis to the same place on the page, and add a big red box around it, so that the rest of the page stays calm. Especially the use of bold and red text is to be avoided.
If you want to emphasize a single word, or a few words, without disturbing the reading flow and without attracting attention, then use italics. That's just as signalling for someone who is reading the text, but it is hardly noticeable for someone who is just skimming.
Manually created headings
MediaWiki has syntax for creating headings. If you use that syntax, it automatically creates a table of contents and HTML anchors. Besides that, the page is properly tagged, so that text browsers and browsers for disabled people can handle them much better.
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Some heading Some paragraph |
[edit] Some headingSome paragraph |
An additional benefit is that after a real heading, the blank line is optional. I don't like it when it's gone, but some people do. That avoids another ugly <br>.
A main heading for the entire page
Usually this just repeats the page title. Don't do it. If you have a single top-level heading and only lower level headings beneath that, that means your entire page is section one. The 2nd level headings will be 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and so on. They would have been 1, 2 and 3, had they been top level headings.
Missing headings in Talk pages
If you're the first to use a certain Talk (discussion) page, don't forget to add a heading using "== title ==". Alternatively, just use the "+" in the tab bar, which will bring you to page with a separate box for the title.
(Note: the bold Juerd here would have been a link on any other page.)
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I really like what you did to the page! Juerd 12:39, 3 Jul 2005 (CEST) |
[edit] Good workI really like what you did to the page! Juerd 12:39, 3 Jul 2005 (CEST) |
Missing and timeless signatures
When discussing something, it's common to add a signature, so that people don't have to investigate the page history to find out who did it, and when. Just add "~ ~ ~ ~" (without spaces) on its own paragraph, below your comment. That will automatically add your user name and the current date and time, with your user name linking to your user page.
(For the bad/worse/worst to make sense, read from right to left ;))
| Worst | Worse | Bad | Acceptable | Good |
| I really like what you did to the page! | I really like what you did to the page! --Juerd | I really like what you did to the page! --Juerd | I really like what you did to the page! --Juerd 12:39, 3 Jul 2005 (CEST) | I really like what you did to the page!
Juerd 12:39, 3 Jul 2005 (CEST) |
If you really have to add the signature to the same line, use two dashes to separate it from the rest. This is also often done when the signature has its own paragraph, but it's not necessary there.
Unmarked inline comments
Sometimes, you want to add a remark to a story, and you feel it would be best to put it in the main stream of the story, instead of separately on the Talk page. If you do so, don't forget to make clear that it is indeed a comment, and don't forget to sign it.
In this case, to not disturb the flow of the text too much, it's better to not use a time stamp. The automatic linking shortcut is then "~ ~ ~" (without spaces).
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| And then we all went home. No, only you did. I had a great time. | And then we all went home. (No, only you did. --Juerd) I had a great time. |
Always keep inline comments as short as possible. If you have to reply inline again, add it to the same set of parens, and use a semicolon to separate it:
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| And then we all went home. (No, only you did. --Juerd) <-- oh, yea, sorry I had a great time. | And then we all went home. (No, only you did. --Juerd; Oh, yea, sorry --SomeUser) I had a great time. |
Punctuation and whitespace
Before exclamation points, question marks, periods, commas, colons, and semicolons, there should be NO whitespace! Although in a few languages it is normal to add whitespace, in English it's wrong. A note for Belgian readers: in Dutch too, whitespace is wrong there. Yes, all your TV subtitles are wrong indeed.
Inside parens, there should also be no whitespace. The paren group itself is formatted like a word, so there is whitespace around it, except when it is followed by said punctuation. If an alternative is provided for a single word, it's common to glue the paren group to that word.
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| Register now ! ( It's great fun ) | Register now! (It's great fun) |
Too many capitals
In German, one capitalizes every Noun, because that is the Standard in that Language. In English, however, it's just wrong.
