sona pona:Guide
Welcome, aspiring editor! This work-in-progress guide will hopefully help you get your bearings on the wiki.
What do I do here?[edit source]
Any help is welcome—you can even just fix typos—but there are many larger projects you may like to participate in:
- Creating requested pages, or articles for other things that you know about
- Writing and expanding word articles
- Expanding lists of media
- Writing essays
- Adding missing information, especially to articles marked as needing work
- Adding sources to articles, especially in articles with the
{{citation needed}}
template - Fixing formatting, especially in unadapted imported pages
- And many more projects tracked in the
#pali
forum thread on the Discord server
Technical[edit source]
Moderation[edit source]
Your first edit won't appear immediately and will instead be sent to the moderators for approval. This is to prevent trolls from making new accounts purely to grief the wiki.[a]
Policy[edit source]
Be bold[edit source]
If you have an idea for an edit or page, but you're not sure whether others will like it, just do it! Everyone can easily bring a page back to a previous version, so it's impossible to permanently "ruin" anything. Patrolling ensures that every edit will be inspected by at least one other person.
Be messy[edit source]
An unfinished or messy page is infinitely better than no page at all. Even if you never come back to it, someone else surely will.[b] Slap a {{Needs work}}
template on top and let others work their magic.
Notability[edit source]
Source what you can[edit source]
It might be difficult to find sources, so just source what you can (if anything)! Primary sources are fine. For general information, we have lists of common resources and citation templates to use.
If you cite anything, please archive it! Links to Discord uploads are temporary, and so must be archived.
Red links are not bad[edit source]
Red links point to wanted pages that don't exist yet. This is good:
- It shows gaps in our knowledge base.
- It helps us keep track of pages to create. (See Special:WantedPages.)
- It prevents pages from starting out orphaned.
Don't remove red links just for being red links. Only remove one if it wouldn't be reasonable to create a page at that title. (And remember that a page can be a redirect or a disambiguation page.)
No trivia sections[edit source]
Don't create lists of miscellaneous information. Wikis that allow trivia sections tend to devolve into disorganized, rampantly growing walls of contradictory bullet points, where even general info is lumped under "trivia" and becomes impossible for the reader to find. But if something literally is trivial (of little value), is it really a useful addition to a wiki? Keep articles organized and easy to read by putting new facts in relevant sections.
Trans rights[edit source]
Formatting[edit source]
In addition to standard MediaWiki formatting, note the following.
Italics[edit source]
Mark emphasized text with <em>emphasized text</em>
.
Mark Toki Pona text with Template:tp. For other languages, see the next section.
{{tp|mu}}
outputs mu.Mark variables with <var>variable name</var>
.
For other uses, you can use ''italic text''
.
Language[edit source]
Mark the language of non-English text with Template:lang.
''{{lang|fr|je parle bien}}''
outputs je parle bien. Hover to see the language name.Mark unitalicized Toki Pona text with Template:tok.
{{tok|mu}}
outputs mu.Mark text in the International Phonetic Alphabet with Template:IPA.
Titles[edit source]
Mark a page title as italic or Toki Pona text using Template:Italic title, Template:tp title, or Template:tok
title according to the guidance above.
sitelen pona[edit source]
Display sitelen Lasina or UCSUR codepoints as sitelen pona with Template:sp.
{{sp|mu}}
outputs mu. Hover or press to see the sitelen Lasina input.Links[edit source]
Use Template:w to link to a Wikipedia article, and Template:wikt to link to a Wiktionary entry.
Indentation[edit source]
Indent with Template:Indent.
:
(description detail) syntax without a preceding ;
(description term) produces invalid HTML, which is not accessible.For a hatnote, use Template:Hatnote or a template derived from it.
Examples[edit source]
Use Template:Example for all example sentences. Highlight the part of the sentence that is relevant to the article or section with <mark>highlighted text</mark>
.
Citations[edit source]
Notice templates[edit source]
There are several notice templates that should be used to tell the reader about the nature of an article's topic, such as if it pertains to an unusual style of Toki Pona. We don't want to mispresent nonstandard features as common if they aren't widely understood or accepted.
Maintenance templates[edit source]
If you find an issue with an article and can't fix it yourself, or not immediately, add a maintenance template. These include:
Remove a maintenance template once the issue is resolved. There may also be cases where you should change one maintenance template to another, such as Template:Stub or Template:Empty to Template:Needs work.
If you're looking for something to do, you can check Category:Maintenance for issues to fix!
Layouts[edit source]
Word articles[edit source]
Notes[edit source]
Contents | Main page · Index · lipu pona · Requests · Discord |
---|---|
Essays | Editing guide · Notability · Citing sources · Word articles |