FAQ
From McGill University Physics Department Technical Services Wiki
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- I can't log iiiiiin.
Update
This has been fixed for users I have been able to test. If at first you do not succeed to login to the Wiki, try authenticating yourself at http://www.ugrad.physics.mcgill.ca/ADS. This verifies the validity of your ADS account without actually using the ADS interface and caches the results. If this is successful, then you should be able to login to the Wiki. ~Orchard
Wikis
A wiki is a type of software within which users can edit anything. You probably know that part, or else you wouldn't be here. What you probably might not know how to do is how to edit things around. I created this section for that purpose. Note: This article is not necessarily about how to specifically do everything in wiki software, i.e. how to format all text. It's meant to be the most introductary article, so that people can at least not be discouraged from adding information to the wiki, and to give as many people access as possible. It should be designed to be read in its entirety in a short sitting. For any further information (including, most likely, anything included in this article) see the Official Wikipedia Version (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page)
Editing
The first thing that might make you curious would be how to edit pages. Look up, and at the very top, towards the center page of practically any article, you'll see 6 tabs, labeled: "article, discussion, edit, history, move, watch".
Article: The first one is what you're here for. The article tab contains the information that people come to read, and will surf through.
Discussion: The second is where people go to comment an a particular article. Feel free to click on that button for this article: it's a pretty good example of what would be done.
Edit: This is where you click to add or remove stuff. You can do ANYTHING you like, even delete everything written in this article. (That's right, wikis run on the honour system, and have virtually no defense against vandalism!) Fortunately, all changes are archived, so you can revert back to an older version of an article if a newer one is no good. When you get good at it, you may need more references for Editing, especially when writing math formulas. Refer to Help:Editing for more help, and don't be afraid to post more resources for others!
History: This page keeps track of every revision made to a particular article. When clicking there, you see when the latest additions have been made, and you can even compare newer editions with older ones. (You may have noticed how some of the edits listed in the history have short descriptions inscribed in italics. Those are put in by whoever did the edits, and is written in the "Summary:" box.) Minor edits are denoted by a lower case m and can be omitted from the page.
Move: Renames a page to something else. So far only useful when wanting to link to a page with a long name (e.g. Create a page called PHYS-257, move it to PHYS-257 Experimental Methods 1, and that way you can just link to PHYS-257 and it'll automatatically go to the other one.)
Watch: You'd probably learn more about this button by just clicking on it that by any explanation. Try it on this article, and (hint) you'll even get updated on its changes.
What can I do when I edit?
There's a WHOLLLE lot of stuff. Wikis generally understand all HTML. This particular Wiki does not understand all HTML, but does understand a large subset, since certain tags which could be abused by cockroaches to upload trojans, steal cookies and other antisocial behaviours are filtered. (~Orchard)
Fortunately, you don't need to know HTML to make your article's visually appealing; Wikis also incorporate a really easy syntax that you can learn about elsewhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page). For a short summary of a handful of essential commands, keep reading:
Both <i>italics</i> and ''italics'' will produce italics! Note that that is a pair of apostrophes, not a quotation sign.
Actually, the '' tag is just the emphasis tag, not the italics tag. For even more emphasis on a word, you'd use 3 (''') apostrophes or 5 ('''''). I have no idea if 4 works! Experiment for yourself.
If you want to make a list, it's the simplest thing ever: Make a new line and start with an asterix (*). e.g. To generate:
- chicken
- fish
- sausage
- oregano
You just need to do this:
*chicken
*fish
*sausage
*oregano
Feel free to click edit and see how the article reacts to the tags you're seeing.
Headings
The only other thing (other than math symbols and stuff) that you will encounter more often while editting this wiki is a heading. That's like the titles of the pages and stuff. (e.g., Wikis, Editting, Headings, etc...)
These are created by surrounding a given title we choose with a number of equals (=) signs. For example, this page uses:
==Wikis==
===Editting===
===Headings===
etc.
Note that the more equals signs there are, the smaller the text is. The very first main title should, by convention, start with at least 2, so as not to be too large and distracting. Also, note that the table of contents is generated automatically. It can, however, be excluded from an article by adding __NOTOC__ anywhere to it, although I don't know if anybody would really wanna do that... (except Adriano, who has taken a liking to it.)
How do I edit in math formulae?
Apparently, this link (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User's_Guide:_Editing_mathematical_formulae) has the answer to that question.
Conclusion
And that's all there is to it! Well, actually, I lie; there is so much more to it than this, but for a beginner, you don't need many more tools than this.
If there's anything you don't understand, feel free to discuss it, and if you think you can make something clearer, feel free to edit this page, as well.
