Help:FAQ
From FFXIclopedia, the free Final Fantasy XI encyclopedia
Frequently Asked Questions
- I'm a new editor, what can I do to help?
- Check out our Community Portal for idea on what you can do. Are you a good photographer? Check out our image stub categories.
- I don't know how to edit an article, how does it work?
- To edit an article, you must first be logged in. All you have to do is click the
link at the top of an article to start editing.
- If you're still confused, please read the FFXIclopedia:Editing Guide.
- I created an account and I am logged in, but I still can't edit. What do I do?
- You need a valid e-mail address confirmed in order to edit the wiki. Please check the e-mail you specified when creating your account and follow the link there.
- The title of an article is incorrectly named. How do I fix this?
- In order to move an article on the FFXIclopedia, you must place a {{move}} template at the top of the page. So if you wanted to rename Page A to Page B, you'd place {{move|Page B}} at the top of the Page A article by editing it. Follow the link on the template to the discussion page and state why it should be moved. Afterwards please let an administrator move it to retain the editing history, manually moving pages by copying and pasting loses everyones contributions.
- I think an article or image should be deleted from the wiki, what should I do?
- Pleae read the FFXIclopedia:Guide to Deletion and use the {{Delete}} or {{SDelete}} templates appropriately.
- How do I sign my name on talk pages?
- Simply add --~~~~ to the end of the line, or use the second button from the right on the toolbar to append a signature with your username and a timestamp. These only go on talk/discussion pages, they don't belong in articles or images, and will be removed.
- When should I make an edit a minor edit?
- You should check the minor edit box when you correct spelling or grammar, make any changes to your userpage or subpages, or when adding very minor formatting details to an article.
- I made a new article or uploaded a new image, but it's gone. What happened?
- One of three things could have happened.
- The page didn't conform to naming conventions and it was moved by an administrator to the correct location to conform to naming conventions which states articles must be named as they appear in your inventory. You can check the move log to find out where it was moved to.
- The page violated our prohibited articles clause and was deleted by an administrator. In cases like these, if you think it was in error, contact an administrator and ask for more details. Please do not recreate the page unnecessarily.
- The image violated our image policy to the point where it was grounds for speedy deletion. Please reference this policy and feel free to reupload according to those guidelines.
- Another user has put profanity, advertisements, or other inappropriate content into an article, what do I do?
- Report this user to one of the FFXIclopedia administrators, and if the content is vandalism or spam, you can remove it from the article. If they are putting abusive comments or libelous/personal information in edit summaries, this can be removed at the discretion of the administration.
- Another user is harrassing me or interfering with my contributions, what can I do to make him stop?
- Report this user to one of the FFXIclopedia administrators; this is inappropriate behavior and he will either be warned or banned, depending on the severity of the offense as judged by the administrator. Please do not reciprocate this behavior, as that only complicates things and puts you at fault as well.
- I do not wish to see any advertising while browsing the wiki, how to I get rid of them?
- While advertising is needed by Wikia to maintain free hosting, it is possible to not view the ads by logging in. Logged in users do not see advertising except on the Main Page.
- Likewise, if you are logged in and wish to view advertisements, you may visit your account preferences page click on the Skin tab, and check the box that says
then save your settings.
- There is a glitch, bug, or otherwise non-working or technical issue when I try to load a page.
- If the problem occurs on a specific page, use the
button found at the bottom of the page. Be as specific as possible and include any errors messages given. Please include a valid e-mail address and screenshots of what you're seeing. Please note that abuse of the system is not acceptable. If the issue is incorrect content, feel free to try and correct the information yourself. We encourage our anonymous viewers to create accounts and help contribute in anyway they can.
- There is an advertisement that is either inappropriate or interfering with the page's formatting.
- Please see here for information reporting inappropriate advertising, this includes gil selling and RMT ads, they are unacceptable here at FFXIclopedia. If an ad is breaking a pages formatting, please use the link as described above and submit a valid e-mail and screenshots in your report.
- On a Category page, I click on the (Next 200), but it just brings me back to the beginning of the A's. Why isn't it working?
- This can happen if you are not logged in. Log in and try again.
- This can happen if you browser hasn't cleared it's cache. Add "
" to the end of your URL to clear the cache, then try again.
- After uploading a new image, the image page is still showing an old image, what happened?
- Try hitting your browser's Refresh button, this should make it load the new image. If that doesn't work, try bypassing your browsers cache by hitting
.
- I don't like the current skin, how can I change it?
- If you are logged out, you will need to login or create an account and set your skin preferences to one of your choosing and uncheck the box that says
. Please note that those skins listed under "Old skins" may cause article or page content to display incorrectly.
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Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be a tech wizard to edit a wiki. If you can use a word processor, you can probably edit a wiki.
Just follow these instructions and you'll be editing in no time!
- Before you begin...
- You may wish to visit our online demos page for videos demonstrating all of the Wikia basics and much much more - see Help:Video demos!
About Wikis
What is a wiki?
A wiki is a website that you can edit. The word comes from "wikiwiki", a Hawaiian word for "fast". Wikis are designed to be collaborative so people can work together on a wiki project, so it's possible to build up a lot of content very quickly.
Find out more about the background of wikis on Wikipedia.
Getting started
Creating Your Wikia Account
While most Wikia wikis can be edited anonymously, creating an account allows you to keep track of your edits and only takes a moment.
- Click the "create an account" link in the upper right hand corner of the page.
- Choose a username and a password in the newly opened box.
- Provide your birthdate. This is both a safety precaution and as a means of preserving the integrity of the site while complying with federal regulations.
- Type in the word you see in the "captcha" image shown. This shows us you are a real person!
- Choose whether to provide an email address - it's optional, but if you don't give a valid email address you will not be able to recover your account if you forget your password.
Using the wiki
Finding Articles
All pages (on the Monaco skin) have a search box at the top left. Just enter your search term here, and click the search arrow. An alternative is search suggest, simply start typing in the search box and it will try to guess articles based on what you're typing.
Recent Changes
Recent changes is one of the most important pages on a wiki. It lists every edit that's made, tells you who made the change, and shows you what edit summary they added. So, it's a great way to get an idea of what's going on in your wiki and what pages are most active.
You can get to the recent changes page by clicking on the "Recent changes" page in the toolbox on the left or by going to Special:RecentChanges. You can get to Recent Changes on any Wikia wiki by typing Special:RecentChanges after the /wiki/ part of a Wikia URL. For example, to get to the Recent Changes page for Recipes Wiki, you would type http:/recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Special:RecentChanges.
Keeping Track of Changes to an Article
Every page has a "history" page to go with it. This lists the usernames of everyone who has edited the page, and tells you when it was edited. It also gives you links to old versions... nothing is lost when a page is changed, you can always recover previous versions. To see the history of a page, look for the "history" link above each article.
Knowing when a Page is Changed
You can "watch" any page, by adding it to a list of pages kept for your username. To do this, click the "watch" link at the top of the article you want to watch. If you want, you can set your preferences to have an email sent to you each time a page on your watchlist is edited.
Logging In
Click the "log in" link at the top of any page. This will open a box where you can enter your username and password.
Tip: You might want to leave "Remember me" unchecked if using a public computer.
Note: You must have cookies enabled to log in to Wikia (for more information please see the link below).
Changing Your Email, Password Etc.
Almost everything you might want to change about the way Wikia sites display and function can be found in your preferences. To get there:
- Click the "MORE" button in the upper right (between the "Watch list" and "Logout" links).
- Choose "My preferences" from the drop-down menu that appears. You can also visit Special:Preferences.
If password reset does not work, please Contact Wikia for help.
Editing
Changing a Wiki Page
Editing a page is easy:
- Click the "Edit this page" link above any article. Doing so will open a window that looks like a word processor document.
- Type your changes in the text box. Tip: It's a good idea to preview your edit to be sure the changes look the way they're supposed to. This allows you to see and fix mistakes before they get saved onto the wiki. If the article looks, good, click the "save" button at the bottom of the text box.
There's no way to break a wiki, so feel free to dive in and start making changes right away!
Undoing an edit
Keeping bad content off the wiki is just as important as adding good content. That's why it's important to know how to revert back to a previous version of an article.
Every edit made is stored on a Wiki, that means it's easy to go back to an old version if an edit is a mistake or vandalism. To change an edit for an article, go to the article's "history" page. Each date/time listed on the history page is a link to a different version of that article. Just click the version you want, then click edit, followed by the save button. Wiki admins have a shortcut link for this, and can "rollback" the most recent edits with one click.
Formatting text
The rich text editor makes bolding and italicizing as easy as selecting text and clicking a button. There's also wikitext code that will work as a shortcut if you prefer to keep your fingers on the keys:
- Bolding: Surround a word with three single quotation marks (''').
- Italicizing use two quotation marks ('').
- Putting it together: You can make text bold and italic with five quotation marks (''''').
Linking to another page on a wiki
As with formatting, there's more than one way to link to another page. In the rich text editor, select the text you want to turn into a link, then click the "Link" button (with the chain links) to pop up a dialog box which makes it simple to link internally to other pages on the wiki, or externally to sites elsewhere on the web.
The wikitext shortcut for internal page linking works in either the rich text or source editing box. To link to a another page, you put the page title in double square brackets. So to link to the page "Example", you would type [[Example]].
Once you know how to link to other wiki pages, you're ready to learn the pipe trick.
Starting a New Page
To start a new page you can use three basic methods:
- Click the "New page" link next to the pencil icon in the sidebar.
- Click a red (broken) link. A broken link is a link to a page that doesn't (yet) exist on the wiki.
- Use an inputbox -- an article creation box that can be place on the wiki's main page.
Remember to do a search for your topic before creating a new page. This is especially true of large wikis where there is a high probability that the subject you want to write about has already been added to the wiki by someone else.
Renaming (moving) Pages
Any logged in user can move pages. To do so, use the "move" link above the article:
- Click "move".
- Enter the correct title
- Click "Move page".
Note: It's a good idea to explain your move in the box provided.
Using Templates
A template is a page with text ready to be used on many pages without having to type it in each time. It looks like a normal page, but the title starts with "Template:". Templates are good for content that has to be added to many pages on the wiki, since they save you the time and effort of having to write the same text and wiki code over and over again.
To use a template, you just need to type its title inside curly brackets. So {{name}} will add the text from the page Template:Name.
Templates can get very complex, but at their simplest they are just pages that can be used many times using a simple form.
Adding an Image
There are three ways of adding an image:
- Upload it to the wiki using the Add image link, next to the painting icon, in the toolbox. You will be able to choose an image from your computer, and save it on the wiki. Then you can add it to an article by editing a page to add the image name in the form
[[File:Name.jpg]].
- Add an image while you are editing a page. Just click on the upload button
and you will see a form to upload and insert your image. See Help:Add Images for more on this method.
- The Import Free Images Button: Import free images allows you to upload freely licensed Flickr images without leaving your wiki! All you need to do is go to Special:Importfreeimages and type what you are looking for in the search box. Click search and thumbnails of Creative Commons licensed Flickr images matching your search terms will appear. Click on the (import this) link below an image to upload it to the wiki.
Categorizing Pages
The gray "Add category" button at the bottom of the text box makes it easy to search among existing categories or type in new ones.
To add categories in wikitext, add [[Category:Name]] to the article. This will add the category to the bottom of the page. If you want to link to a category, rather than add a page to it, you need to add a colon inside the brackets: [[:Category:Name]].
Where next?
There are many places to get help on Wikia. If you have not seen our video demos yet, check them out at Help:Video demos. Also, many wikis have a forum where you can ask questions of admins and other regular contributors. Alternatively you can contact the wider Wikia community at the Central Wikia forums. If you need more help, see Contacting Wikia.
