Help:How to edit a website like Conservapedia

There are excellent videos on how to edit a website such as Conservapedia. Please see: Videos on how to edit a wiki.

You can format your text using wiki markup. This consists of normal characters like asterisks, single quotes or equation marks which have a special function in the wiki, sometimes depending on their position. For example, to format a word in italic, you include it in two single quotes like ''this''

Adding References

To find out how to add references using footnotes, see this Help page.

Paragraphs

Mediawiki ignores normal line breaks. To start a new paragraph, leave an empty line. You can also start a newline with the HTML tag <br /> or with <p></p>.

HTML

Some HTML-Tags are allowed in MediaWiki, for example <code>, <div>, <span> and <font>.

Recapitulative table

Description	You type	You get
applies anywhere
Underlined text	<u>underlined</u>	underlined
Italic text	''italic''	italic
Bold text	'''bold'''	bold
Bold and italic	'''''bold & italic'''''	bold & italic
assign a color to your text	<font color=blue>blue text</font>	blue text
assign a size to your text	<font size=5>size 5 text</font>	size 5 text
bigger text	<big>big text</big>	big text
even bigger text	<big><big>bigger text</big></big>	bigger text
striked through text	<s>striked through text</s>	striked through text
Centered text	<center>Centered text</center>	Centered text
display name of page	{{SUBST:FULLPAGENAME}}	Help:How to Code
Lowercase a group of words	{{lc:Hello my name is Deborah}}	hello my name is deborah
Uppercase a group of words	{{uc:Hello my name is Deborah}}	HELLO MY NAME IS DEBORAH
Escape wiki markup	<nowiki>no ''markup''</nowiki>	no ''markup''
only at the beginning of the line
Headings of different sizes	==level 1== ===level 2=== ====level 3==== =====level 4=====	Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
Horizontal rule	----
Bullet list	* one * two * three ** three and one-third ** three and two-thirds	one two three three and one-third three and two-thirds
Numbered list	# one # two # three ## three point one ## three point two	one two three three point one three point two
Definition list	;Definition :item 1 :item 2	Definition item 1 item 2
Preformatted text	preformatted text is done with   a space at the   beginning of the line	preformatted text is done with a space at the beginning of the line

Links

To create a link to an article, surround the word you would like to make a link with two sets of brackets like this: [[Link]]

To create a link with a title that is different than the page it is linked to format the link like this:[[Page linked to|title]]

To create an external link surround the web address with [ and a ] for example to make an external link to fox.com, you would do the following [http://www.fox.com]

To create a link to a category after the [[ put an : for example to create a link to the category, Conservapedians, do the following: [[:Category:Conservapedians]] you can also change the default text like this: [[:Category:Conservapedians|WXYZ]]

To create a link to an image after the [[ put an : for example to create a link to the image, Cat.jpg, do the following: [[:Image:Cat.jpg]] you can also change the default text like this: [[:Image:Cat.jpg|WXYZ]]

To create a list of links put an * in front of each link, for example:

*[[A]]

*[[B]]

*[[C]]

*[[D]]

Important templates

{{delete}} propose deletion of an article

{{speedy}} propose speedy deletion of an article

{{merge with|A}} propose merging an article with the article, A

{{move|A}} proposes moving this article to, A

{{User Retired}} means you are retiring from Conservapedia

{{Category redirect|United States Cities and Towns}} tell users of a category that they should be looking at a different preferred category.

For example if there was a category called, American Cities and Towns, you'd put {{Category redirect|United States Cities and Towns}} to tell users to use the category, United States Cities and Towns, instead of, American Cities and Towns, as it is the preffered category for cities in the USA.

Creating redirects

To create a redirect put a #Redirect[[ then the name of the page for it to be redirected then ]] for example to redirect this page to the article on Bear, you'd put: #Redirect[[Bear]]

Other

[[Category:A]] adds an article to Category, A

[[Image:A.GIF]] loads the picture A.GIF on an article

{{Car}} adds the template Car to an article

{{SUBST:ABC}} substitutes all the information from Template:ABC into the article, note all future changes to the template:ABC will not be shown on the article

{{welcome}} --~~~~ welcomes a user to Conservapedia, note this should only be put on a user's talk page

{{welcome|sig=~~~~}} welcomes a user to Conservapedia, note this should only be put on a user's talk page

Signature

To sign your username, type three tildes(~~~). To sign your username with a timestamp, use four tildes (~~~~)

Making a custom signature

first make a subpage of user page which has your custom signature for example, User:Deborah/sig go to, my preferences click on raw signatures and put {{Subst:User:Deborah/sig}}

Creating articles

Please see How to create a new article for help on this.

Categories

See Category tag for help on assigning articles to categories.

Editing etiquette

Observe good editing etiquette when editing.

Templates

See here for a list of templates with brief descriptions.

See here for creating templates.

Variables

MediaWiki includes a number of variables, which are auto-populated by the software each time the page is loaded. Here are some variables which can be useful, especially in the design of a template. Variables are entered with double braces on each side. They are show this way bellow, allthough by the strictest definition, the braces are not part of the variable tag.
In every-day writing, these variables are not likely to be used.

Site variables

Probably some of the least useful variables are site variables. Unless someone is designing a template for multiple wikis, these probably will not be used.

Variable	Description	Current Value
{{SITENAME}}	Website name	Conservapedia
{{SERVERNAME}}	Wiki's server name	conservapedia.com
{{SERVER}}	Wiki's server address	https://conservapedia.com
{{CURRENTVERSION}}	Curent version of Wiki software	1.24.2

Page variables

Variable	Description	Current Value
{{PAGENAME}}	Displays the current page name	How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{PAGENAMEE}}	Displays the current page name with underscores in place of spaces	How_to_edit_a_website_like_Conservapedia
{{ARTICLEPAGENAME}}	Article page Name	Help:How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}	Subject page name	Help:How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{BASEPAGENAME}}	Page name without namespace	How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{ROOTPAGENAME}}	Page name without namespace	How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{SUBPAGENAME}}	Sub-page name, if applicable. Otherwise, page name	How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{FULLPAGENAME}}	Page name with namespace	Help:How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}	Full page name with underscores in place of spaces	Help:How_to_edit_a_website_like_Conservapedia
{{NAMESPACE}}	Current namespace	Help
{{TALKPAGENAME}}	Talk page name	Help talk:How to edit a website like Conservapedia
{{TALKSPACE}}	Namespace of talk page	Help talk
{{ARTICLESPACE}}	Namespace of main article	Help
{{NAMESPACE}}	Name space of current page	Help
{{NAMESPACENUMBER}}	Namespace number	12
{{SUBJECTSPACE}}	Subject Space	Help

Time/date variables

Variable	Description	Current Value
{{CURRENTYEAR}}	The current year	2023
{{CURRENTMONTH}}	The number of the current month	10
{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}	The name of the current month	October
{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}	Abbreviation for the current month	Oct
{{CURRENTWEEK}}	Current week	40
{{CURRENTDAY}}	Current date	3
{{CURRENTDAY2}}	Current date	03
{{CURRENTDOW}}	Current day of the week	2
{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}	Name of current day	Tuesday
{{CURRENTTIME}}	Current time 24-hour	03:28
{{CURRENTHOUR}}	Current hour of the day	03
{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}}	Full current time stamp	20231003032850
{{LOCALYEAR}}	Locally declared year	2023
{{LOCALMONTH}}	Locally declared month number	10
{{LOCALMONTHNAME}}	Locally declared month name	October
{{LOCALMONTHABBREV}}	Locally declared month abbreviation	Oct
{{LOCALDAY}}	Locally declared date	2
{{LOCALDAY2}}	Locally declared date	02
{{LOCALDOW}}	Locally declared day of the week	1
{{LOCALDAYNAME}}	Locally declared day name	Monday
{{LOCALTIME}}	Locally declared 24-hour time	23:28
{{LOCALHOUR}}	Locally declared 24-hour hour	23
{{LOCALWEEK}}	Locally declared	40
{{LOCALTIMESTAMP}}	Locally declared full date stamp	20231002232850