Making a Resident Page

Welcome!

The process for making a new profile page is pretty simple, but I'll use it to teach you how to edit and add pages to a wiki. Before doing anything, though, let's make you an account, so your edits can be unified behind a common name.

Make a wikia account!

You can probably figure this out. Check under Sign In at the top to get the link. Once you've made an account, go to Special:MyPage. The website address should look like

<http://brooks.wikia.com/wiki/User:Twryst>

The "User:Twryst" part is the in-wiki address of your user page. Keep this in mind for later use.

Upload a picture

1. new tab #besttab on the wiki
2. In the top-right corner of the window, click contribute-Add a photo
3. Under source-file click choose-file next to Source Filename
4. navigate to and select a profile image of yourself
5. at the bottom of the page, click upload
6. on the new page, you should see your image staring back at you. The website address should look like

<http://brooks.wikia.com/wiki/File:Derpy.png>

The "File:Derpy.png" part is the in-wiki address of the photo. Keep this in mind for later use.

Copy the Basis

1. new tab #besttab
2. Go to New Resident Page Basis, and under the title click on Edit
3. The view it has open is the Updated Editor. Note that if you ever encounter text behaving strangely (as can happen easily with text copied from a google doc or word doc), you can view and fix the source text (the stuff the fancy one is based on) under the menu button (which is left of Cancel, at the top right of the editor) followed by Source Editor. I encourage looking at it, as in addition to demystifying the internet, it'll make you feel cool.
4. In fact, go to the source editor now.
5. copy the contents (Click once, control a, control c)

Add your own page

1. click Contribute-Add a Page
2. Name it after yourself- for example, Derpy Hooves
3. Go into the source editor
4. Paste the copied contents of New Resident Page Basis into your added page. Feel free to continue using the source editor, but the Updated editor will actually display what the page looks like to you.
5. Now, let's break down the contents from the view of the Updated Editor. Hit apply changes to stage the changes for further changing.
6. The regular text to the left is just text, and can be edited as text.
   1. For the About Me, Introduce yourself, your area of expertise, perhaps what brings you to Urbana. What are your specific interests? What cool things have you done? Figure interesting conversational topics here.
   2. For the Interest in Co-ops section, What is your previous experience with co-op living? Why are you interested in co-ops in the first place? What is your goal for your co-op experience?
7. The picture on the right and the text below it, on the other hand, are contained in a "template" to make them prettier. Doubleclick on them to edit the template, and substitute your own values for the defaults. Note: I much prefer to use the source editor here instead of the tiny editor boxes of their newfangled form
8. The picture uses an in-wiki address. Internal links are of the form: [[in-wiki address of page, file, or category]text to display] but the infobox template expects just an address so just File:Derpy.png will work.
9. In order to do external links outside the wiki, write [ followed by the link, a space, then followed by the text to display, followed by ]. Practice by adding a link to your facebook. For friendship.
10. Note that that means a link to a user page (like yours) will usually simply be [[User:twryst] twryst]. However, because wizards, inside of a template, the full link seems to be required as though it was external.
11. Now that everything is how you want it, hit save page in the top corner.

ALWAYS give a short explanation of what you did. Something like "created" or "updated responsibilities" or "added pie-baking steps to onboarding process" is necessary. Unlike the actual pages, this is not the place for jokes. This text serves to inform the admins of the wiki what changes you did, and is needed for them to know to revert to your version if marauding bandits come by.

Add Categories

Behold! Your glorious, hopefully pony-free page awaits! As is, it is isolated in the desert wastes of the internet, with noting to point people to it. So we add categories!

At the bottom of the page view form, just above comments, lies the Category container. Click the add-categories button to add-categories. In order to remove or edit categories, either use the classic editor (they're in the bottom right) or use the Categories entry in the menu drop-down on the Updated viewer. They are linked up automatically, so once you add both Current Resident and Resident categories, you'll show up on the current residents list.

Commenting versus editing

Most changes are too minor to merit discussion, but when you're doing a change that may be contentious, use the comment system down on the bottom of the page.

Resolution

This wiki grows and captures the house's personality only through active use. At the moment, it's filled with not-yet implemented pages. Check out Wiki Practices and Wiki Expansion Projects. Post your own ideas on there! The navigation links at the top will take you anywhere. Hell, click on random page, and make it better! The goal is for this wiki to capture the personality of the house, so grow it!