This page describes how to edit pages on the BAOC website in specific detail. For more more generalized help, or more complex examples, please see MediaWiki's Help:Editing page (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Editing). If you are just starting out and would like to experiment with a few things, please edit the Sandbox page on our website, where you are free to experiment. Edits you make on this page, or on any viewable page of the website will be immediately visible to visitors, so please avoid making changes on "public" pages until you've had some practice in the Sandbox. Thanks!

Table of contents

What is a Wiki?

The BAOC website has been converted from a traditional website to a wiki. In a wiki, anyone can easily edit any unprotected page and have those changes posted immediately to the page.

How to Edit a Page

To edit a page, click on the "edit this page" link at the top of the page (pages on the BAOC website that are not part of the wiki do not have an edit link.) This will bring you to a page with a text box containing the editable text of the page. You can modify the content in that box.

After you've made your changes, press the "Show preview" button to see how your changes will look. If more changes are needed, scroll to the bottom of the page and make the new changes in the edit panel.

Note: Please use the preview feature to review your changes, instead of saving the changes and then initiating another edit when you see something that should be changed. Of course, it will occasionally happen that you think you have everything the way you want it, save the changes, and then notice something that should be changed. That's okay, but we try to not "clutter" the page history with a lot of small changes.

Before you are done making changes, you should write a short description of your change in the "Summary" field below the edit box. That description gets displayed in the page history, and for non-minor changes the summary is displayed as a tool-tip in the Recent Changes panel on the Home page.

When you are ready to quit editing and have your changes saved (i.e., made visible to everyone), click on "Save page". If you change your mind, and want to cancel the editing session, click on "Cancel".

Note: For minor changes, the "This is a minor edit" checkbox should be checked. If that checkbox is not checked, the change will be "announced" by a link in the "Recent Changes" panel on the Home page, and your description of the change will be displayed when the reader hovers the pointer over the link. (See Minor Edits below.)

Every page has an associated Talk page, which contains comments about the page from other users. The talk page is reached with the "Discuss this page" link at the bottom of the page. Note, however, that we generally do not use talk pages.

Photo gallery image (click to enlarge)

How to Create a New Page

To create a new page, edit an existing page to add a link to the new page with the desired name of the page you would like to create, it might look something like this when you are editing: [[My New Page]]. Once you save the page, you'll notice the new link in the page that points to the still non-existent page. When you follow this link you will be offered the opportunity to define the initial contents of the page, and it's just like editing a page above.

Note: If you create a new page with a link that does not start with a slash character (e.g., [[My New Page]]), the page will be at the "root" level of the wiki structure, which is probably not what you want. To create a page that is a "child" of the current page, start the link with a slash (e.g., [[/My New Page|My New Page]]). In that case, you should duplicate the page name as shown in the example, so that the slash will not be displayed as part of the link text. (If that's not clear, you can experiment in the Sandbox.)

If you would like to create sort of a secret new page, without any links to it until you are done, you may create a URL that makes sense for pointing at the new page, like http://baoc.org/wiki/Schedule/2018/My_New_Event, and place it in your browser's address bar. Once you go there, you will need to click on the edit link to edit the page. When using this technique, be sure to add a link to your new page on some existing page when you are done​—​otherwise no one will ever see the new page!

Tips on Editing BAOC Pages

Please use formatting that is consistent with the other pages on the website. We want visitors to see a uniform style throughout the website, even though many people might work on the content.

Please limit edits to information relevant to the club or to Orienteering. The BAOC website is not a good place to promote controversial points of view, but rather simply a place to record information about the clubs events, achievements of members of the club, or useful training information for Orienteers.

Please cite your sources if you copy information from another place into this website. You should not place material copyrighted by others on this website in such a way that the club will be accused of any copyright infringements while displaying the work. If you contribute your own original material, please be aware that once you post it here it becomes the communal property of the club, and that other members may edit your work. Please be prepared for that.

Photo gallery image (click to enlarge)

Minor Edits

When editing a page, the default is to mark the edit as being "minor". Minor edits generally mean spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. (It is possible to hide minor edits when viewing recent changes.)

Note: If a change is not marked as a minor edit, a link to the page will be listed in the Recent Changes panel on the Home page. When that is done, the Summary for the change and the ID of the person who made the change are displayed in a balloon when the mouse pointer hovers over the link. That feature might influence when you choose to indicate edits as not minor, and the Summary you provide for non-minor edits.

Page History

Every page has a recorded history, which can be seen by clicking on the "Page history" link at the bottom of the page. The history shows when changes were made, by whom, whether or not the change was flagged as minor, and the summaries that were entered. More significantly, any two versions of the page can be compared to see the changes that were made between those versions. (Unfortunately, the differences display shows the paragraphs that changed, but does not highlight the changes within the paragraphs. You'll need to visually compare the two versions in the differences display to find the actual changes.)

Pages with Sub Menus

edit menu (http://baoc.org/wiki?title=Template:SiteMenu&action=edit)

Some website sections, like the FAQ and Site sections, have a sub-menu on the right that organizes the pages in the section (see the example on the right). To add a new FAQ page, for example, click on the "edit menu" link at the bottom of the list of all the FAQs displayed at the top right of any of the FAQ pages. All FAQ pages share the same menu, using a technique in the wiki of using a "template" for the menu itself. If you edit the menu's template, the update will be immediately visible on all pages that use it.

Once you edit the FAQ menu to include a new page, return to any of the FAQ pages, refresh the page, and the new link will appear in the menu. Follow the new link to create content for the new page. All areas of the site that use a sub-menu like this should use a template to store the menu. Incidentally, if you have named the page and the link in the sub menu exactly alike, then the page that you are currently on in the section should appear not as a link in the menu, but as a highlighted item.

Note: Any page can have a sub menu. That might be useful to remember if you create a set of pages that will share a set of links (e.g., as is done with the FAQ pages).

Wiki Markup

The wiki markup is the syntax system you use to format a page. Most of the examples below were copied from MediaWiki's Help:Editing page (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Editing), where you can find the more complete list.

In the left column of the table below, you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects were achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column.

You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox. Try opening the Sandbox in a separate window or tab and keeping this page open for reference.


Sections, Paragraphs, Lists and Lines

What it looks like What you type

Start your sections as follows:

New Section

Subsection

Sub-subsection

  • Start with a second-level heading (==); do not use first-level headings (=).
  • Do not skip levels (e.g., second level followed by fourth level).
  • If not suppressed, a Table of Contents will automatically be added to a page that has four or more sections. (See below for information about how the Table of Contents is created.)
== New Section ==

=== Subsection ===

==== Sub-subsection ====

Section headings automatically create anchors that can be referenced in links on the current page or on another page. By default, anchors have the full text of the section headings. If a section heading is long, or might be changed in the future (which would break links to the section), you might want to define a "substitute anchor" for the heading.

Long section heading

<div id="Foo"></div>
=== Long section heading ===

A single newline generally has no effect on the layout. These can be used to separate sentences within a paragraph. Some editors find that this aids editing and improves the diff function (used internally to compare different versions of a page).

But an empty line starts a new paragraph.

  • When used in a list, a newline does affect the layout (see below).
  • Note that two empty lines results in a large vertical space, and should be avoided.
A single newline
generally has no effect on the layout. 
These can be used to separate
sentences within a paragraph.
Some editors find that this aids editing
and improves the ''diff'' function 
(used internally to compare
different versions of a page).

But an ''empty'' line
starts a new paragraph.

You can break lines
without starting a new paragraph.

  • Please use this sparingly.
  • Close markup between lines, don't start a link or italics or bold on one line and close it on the next.
You can break lines<br/>
without starting a new paragraph.
  • Lists are easy to do:
    • Start every line with a star.
      • More stars means deeper levels.
        • A newline in a list

marks the end of a list item.

  • An empty line starts a new list.
* Lists are easy to do:
** Start every line with a star.
*** More stars means deeper levels.
**** A newline in a list
marks the end of a list item.

* An empty line starts a new list.
  1. Numbered lists are also good
    1. very organized
    2. easy to follow
      1. easier still
# Numbered lists are also good
## very organized
## easy to follow
### easier still
  • You can even do mixed lists
    1. and nest them
      • like this
* You can even do mixed lists
*# and nest them
*#* like this
Definition list 
list of definitions
item 
the item's definition
another item
the other item's definition
  • One item per line; a newline can appear before the colon (but the colon must not follow a space), but using the one-line format with a space before the colon improves parsing.
; Definition list : list of definitions
; item : the item's definition
; another item
: the other item's definition
A colon indents a line or paragraph.

A manual newline starts a new paragraph.

  • This is primarily for displayed material, but is also used for discussion on Talk pages (which we generally do not use).
: A colon indents a line or paragraph.
A manual newline starts a new paragraph.
IF a line starts with a space THEN
it will be formatted exactly
as typed;
in a fixed-width font;
lines won't wrap;
ENDIF
  • This is useful for:
    • pasting pre-formatted text
    • simple tables
    • ASCII art
  • WARNING: If you make it wide, you force the whole page to be wide and hence less readable, especially for people who use lower resolutions. Never start ordinary lines with spaces.
  • Note: Normally the lines are displayed in a font that is smaller than the regular page font (see the example above). That can be addressed by bracketing the group of lines with <big> and </big> tags (i.e., on the lines before and after the group of lines, respectively).
 IF a line starts with a space THEN
 it will be formatted exactly
 as typed;
 in a fixed-width font;
 lines won't wrap;
 ENDIF

A horizontal dividing line: this is above it


and this is below it.

  • Mainly useful for separating threads on Talk pages, please use sparingly on other pages.
A horizontal dividing line:
this is above it
----
and this is below it.


Links and URLs

What it looks like What you type

Page about Thwarting Spambots.

  • Use this form to link to another BAOC wiki page.
  • Note that the link string does not start with a slash.
  • Internally, the first letter of the target page is automatically capitalized and spaces are represented as underscores (typing an underscore in the link has the same effect as typing a space, but is not recommended).
  • Thus the link above is to the URL http://baoc.org/wiki/Thwarting_Spambots, which is the BAOC page with the name "Thwarting Spambots".
Page about [[Thwarting Spambots]].

We can hide your email.

  • Same target, but with a different name.
  • This very common form is a "piped link".
  • Optional spaces before and after "|" make the link easier to read in the wiki edit panel. Note, however, that you could end up with a space at the beginning of the line if the link wraps to there (i.e., because of a wiki bug), so we discourage use of those spaces.
We can [[Thwarting Spambots|hide your email]].

On the Thwarting Spambots page, there could be a link to a Details child page.

On the Thwarting Spambots page, there could
be a link to a [[/Details]] child page.

Automatically hide stuff in parentheses: kingdom.

Automatically hide namespace: Village Pump.

Or both: Manual of Style

But not: [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Links|]]

  • The server fills in the part after the pipe character (|) when you save the page. The next time you open the edit box you will see the expanded piped link. When previewing your edits, you will not see the expanded form until you press Save and Edit again. The same applies to links to sections within the same page (see previous entry).
Automatically hide stuff in parentheses:
[[kingdom (biology)|]].

Automatically hide namespace: 
[[Wikipedia:Village Pump|]].

Or both:
[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)|]]

But not:
[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Links|]]

The weather in London is a page that doesn't exist yet.

  • You can create it by clicking on the link (but please don't do that with this particular link).
  • To create a new page:
    1. Create a link to it on some other (related) page.
    2. Save that page.
    3. Click on the link you just made. The new page will open for editing.
  • For more information, see How to start a page and check out Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Please do not create a new page without linking to it from at least one other page.
[[The weather in London]] is a page 
that doesn't exist yet.

When adding a comment to a Talk page, you should sign it by adding three tildes to add your user name:

John Doe

or four to add user name plus time & date:

John Doe 14:18, Apr 15, 2018 (PDT)

Five tildes gives the time & date alone:

14:18, Apr 15, 2018 (PDT)
  • The first two both provide a link to your user page.
When adding a comment to a Talk page,
you should sign it by adding
three tildes to add your user name:
: ~~~
or four for user name plus time & date:
: ~~~~
Five tildes gives the time & date alone:
: ~~~~~


Email Addresses

What it looks like What you type

An email link for a known member:

or, using the name of a position:

or, using a one-time entered email address and name:

or, using a one-time entered email address and position:

or, using their ID in the Member database:

An email link for a known member: <email>Van Boughner</email>

or, using the name of a position: <email>Webmaster</email>

or, using a one-time entered email address and name:
<email>madeupemail@madeupdomain,Made Up Name</email>

or, using a one-time entered email address and position:
<email>madeupemail@madeupdomain,,Made Up Position</email>

or, using their ID in the Member database: <email>10</email>

For the first, second, and last forms, note that the text inside the <email> tags must exactly match a name, position, or ID number known to the wiki. In particular, there must not be any extra spaces, and any desired formatting must be specified outside the <email> tags (e.g.,  '''<email>...</email>'''  instead of  <email>'''...'''</email> ). If the specified name, position, or ID is not defined in the databases, the <email> tags will display an ugly error.

More information is available concerning email address protection on this site.


Images

What it looks like What you type

Photo gallery image (click to enlarge)

The image rotation system uses thumbnails from the photo gallery. Within the <imgarray></imgarray> tags you may specify the directory name of one album (as seen in the URL, not within the title of the album).

By default a picture is floated to the right, with the top of the picture beginning where the tag was placed in the text, so it is generally a good idea to include the tag before the paragraph next to which you'd like it to appear.

Photo gallery image (click to enlarge)

If you don't place an album directory within the tag, you will get a random picture picked from among all of the albums in the gallery.

If you include this tag more than once on the page, you will get a different picture every time, even if you use the same album directory in them all. Pictures will not be selected from sub-albums.

Photo gallery image (click to enlarge)

If you place the word left within the tags, separated from the album name with a comma, the picture will be floated to the left instead of the right. Note also that if you place a directory name (from the gallery) and an image name from within that directory together, instead of a random image you will get the one specific image you have asked for.

<imgarray>longchamps04</imgarray>
The image rotation system uses thumbnails from
the photo gallery. Within the <imgarray></imgarray>
tags you may specify the directory name of one
album (as seen in the URL, not within the title
of the pages).

By default a picture is floated to the right,
with the top of the picture beginning where the
tag was placed in the text, so it is generally
a good idea to include the tag ''before'' the
paragraph next to which you'd like it to appear.

<imgarray></imgarray>
If you don't place an album directory within the
tag, you will get a random picture picked from
among '''all''' of the albums in the gallery.

If you include this tag more than once on the
page, you will get a different picture every
time, even if you use the same album directory
in them all.  Pictures will not be selected from
sub-albums.

<imgarray>left,members/Van_Boughner</imgarray>
If you place the word '''left''' within the tags,
separated from the album name with a comma,
the picture will be floated to the left
instead of the right.  Note also that if you place
a directory name (from the gallery) and an image
name from within that directory together, instead
of a random image you will get the one specific
image you have asked for.


When you have a specific image on hand that you want to add to a page, here's how to do it:

  1. Convert the image to a jpg (on your own computer, because the imgarray scripts can't handle any other file types yet)
  2. Upload the image into the BAOC photo gallery by logging into it (which requires a special logon account), and selecting "add photos" from the drop-down menu in one of the existing albums, or you can first create a new sub-album in an existing album. If you create a new album in this step, be sure to rename it from "album02" (or whatever) to something useful, like "twinpeaks", before proceeding with the next step.
  3. Visit the picture you want displayed by looking at its album and clicking on its thumbnail. Then, in the address bar of your browser you will see something like this: "http://baoc.org/gallery/twinpeaks/TwinPeaksDrivingDirections". Copy the album name ("twinpeaks" in this case), the slash character, and the image name ("TwinPeaksDrivingDirections"), using the copy-and-paste functions of your browser. That is, for this example, you want to copy "twinpeaks/TwinPeaksDrivingDirections".
  4. Go to the wiki page where you want the image placed, and insert a tag with this form: <imgarray>twinpeaks/TwinPeaksDrivingDirections</imgarray>, substituting the desired album and image names.


Maps

Note: As explained in the note below, maps currently do not display correctly.
What it looks like What you type

<map>
  class = smallmap
  zoom = 10
  37.341468,-121.719579,Joseph D. Grant County Park
</map>

Click on the pin in the map at the left to see how the park name
is displayed.

<map>
  class = smallmap
  center = 37.35,-121.72
  zoom = 13
  descriptions = on
  letters = on
  typecontrol = on
  37.341468,-121.719579,<a href="/wiki/Schedule/2006/Joe_Grant">Joe Grant</a>
  37.35,-121.72,Center of Map
</map>

Click on the pins in the map at the left to see how the link and
description are displayed.


The <map> tag is an extension to our wiki inspired by the various MediaWiki extensions for Google Maps already in existence. However, I wanted to write one of our own for the BAOC website, because the others were either too complicated, were for more modern versions of MediaWiki software, or wouldn't allow you to have more than one map per page.

Note: As of 2020 (and for awhile now), display of maps does not work correctly, because the Google Map API has changed and the website has not been changed accordingly. Either the map is not displayed at all, or the map is displayed, with any specified pins, but a Google error message is displayed initially, "For development purposes only" watermarks are displayed across the map, the map is dimmed, and satellite and hybrid views are not available. (If the maps above do not exhibit those behaviors, the problem has been fixed.)

The text between the <map> tags needs to contain the parameters for how and what to display on the map, each line should contain a separate item. (Note: Do not put a comment within a map definition.) Here are examples of what you can place on each line:

Here is how to figure out latitude and longitude numbers for a pin location:

If you're not able to invoke the popup menu that includes "Center map here", you can drag the map by clicking (and holding down the mouse button) anywhere on the map, and dragging the map until the point of interest is at the center of the display area.
       http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.341485,-121.719611&spn=0.009775,0.015342&z=16
       37.341485,-121.719611


Character Formatting

What it looks like What you type

Emphasize, strongly, very strongly.

  • These are double, triple, and quintuple apostrophes (single-quote marks), not double-quote marks.
''Emphasize'', '''strongly''', '''''very strongly'''''.

A typewriter font for monospace text or for computer code: int main()

  • For semantic reasons, using <code> where applicable is preferable to using <tt>.
A typewriter font for <tt>monospace text</tt>
or for computer code: <code>int main()</code>

You can use small text for captions.

You can use <small>small text</small> for captions.

You can strike out deleted material and underline new material.

You can also mark deleted material and inserted material using logical markup rather than visual markup.

  • When editing regular wiki pages, just make your changes and don't mark them up in any special way.
  • When editing your own previous remarks in Talk pages, it is sometimes appropriate to mark up deleted or inserted material.
You can <s>strike out deleted material</s>
and <u>underline new material</u>.

You can also mark <del>deleted material</del> and
<ins>inserted material</ins> using logical markup
rather than visual markup.

Diacritical marks:
À Á Â Ã Ä Å
Æ Ç È É Ê Ë
Ì Í Î Ï Ñ ß
Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø
Œ Ù Ú Û Ü Ÿ
à á â ã ä å
æ ç è é ê ë
ì í î ï ñ
ò ó ô õ ö ø
œ ù ú û ü ÿ


&Agrave; &Aacute; &Acirc; &Atilde; &Auml; &Aring; 
&AElig; &Ccedil; &Egrave; &Eacute; &Ecirc; &Euml; 
&Igrave; &Iacute; &Icirc; &Iuml; &Ntilde; &szlig;
&Ograve; &Oacute; &Ocirc; &Otilde; &Ouml; &Oslash;
&OElig; &Ugrave; &Uacute; &Ucirc; &Uuml; &Yuml;
&agrave; &aacute; &acirc; &atilde; &auml; &aring;
&aelig; &ccedil; &egrave; &eacute; &ecirc; &euml;
&igrave; &iacute; &icirc; &iuml; &ntilde;
&ograve; &oacute; &ocirc; &otilde; &ouml; &oslash;
&oelig; &ugrave; &uacute; &ucirc; &uuml; &yuml;

Punctuation:
¿ ¡ § ¶ …
† ‡ • – —
‹ › « »
‘ ’ “ ” [ ]
Spaces: zero​–​width, hair – space, thin – space


&iquest; &iexcl; &sect; &para; &#8230;
&dagger; &Dagger; &bull; &ndash; &mdash;
&lsaquo; &rsaquo; &laquo; &raquo;
&lsquo; &rsquo; &ldquo; &rdquo; &lsqb; &rsqb;
&#8203; &#8202; &#8201; 

Commercial symbols:
™ © ® ¢
€ ¥ £ ¤


&trade; &copy; &reg; &cent;
&euro; &yen; &pound; &curren;

Special symbols:
← → ↑ ↓ ↔
⇐ ⇒ ⇑ ⇓ ⇔
< > ¼ ½ ¾ ±
° # × ✖ ¹ ² ³
😊 🙂 😉 🙁
✓ ✔
Many more symbols are presented here (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting#Inserting_symbols) and here (https://www.w3schools.com/charsets/ref_utf_punctuation.asp).


&larr; &rarr; &uarr; &darr; &harr;
&lArr; &rArr; &uArr; &dArr; &hArr;
&lt; &gt; &frac14; &frac12; &frac34; &plusmn;
&deg; &num; &times; &#10006; &sup1; &sup2; &sup3;
&#128522; &#128578; &#128521; &#128577;
&#10003; &#10004;

Suppressing interpretation of markup:
Link → (''to'') the [[Main Page]]

  • Used to show literal data that would otherwise have special meaning.
  • Escape all wiki markup, including that which looks like HTML tags.
  • Does not escape HTML character references.
  • To escape HTML character references such as &rarr; use &amp;rarr;

<nowiki>Link &rarr; (''to'') 
the [[Main Page]]</nowiki>

Commenting page source:
not shown when viewing page

  • Used to leave comments in a page for future editors.
  • Note that most comments should go on the appropriate Talk page (however, as noted above, we generally don't use the Talk pages in our wiki).

<!-- comment here -->


Embedded HTML

It is possible to include any HTML on a page by enclosing it in <‍html‍> and <‍/html‍> tags. This should be used sparingly to avoid confusing future editors who do not know HTML, but it can be useful from time to time.

Note that several simple HTML tags can be used without actually including <‍html‍> and <‍/html‍> tags. Here are some of those recognized HTML tags: <b>, <big>, <br />, <div>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <i>, <p>, <pre>, <s>, <small>, <sup>, <tt>, <u> (and their corresponding end tags, of course).


Tables

Tables can be formatted on a wiki page, as described on this page.

About the Table of Contents

Having at least four headers on a page triggers the TOC to appear in front of the first header (or after introductory sections). Putting __TOC__ anywhere forces the TOC to appear at that point (instead of just before the first header), regardless of the number of headers on the page. Putting __NOTOC__ anywhere forces the TOC to not be displayed.

If there are headers that you do not want to have listed in the TOC, use HTML tags in the form <h2>...</h2>, <h3>...</h3>, etc. instead of the equal-sign notations to define the headers (where the number in the HTML tags matches the number of equal signs that you would have used). The header will look the same. That is, for example, instead of

=== Subsection ===

use

<h3> Subsection </h3>


Miscellaneous

Placing __NOEDITSECTION__ anywhere in the page forces the section-editing links to disappear. Those links are the faint word "edit" at the right margin at the beginning of each section of the page. (The "edit" links are displayed only when a member is logged in.) Note, however, that the links do not work correctly if HTML header tags are used to format any header on the page.


Redirects

When an old page needs to be retired and you want a new page in a new location to take over, you should not simply delete the old page. Instead, you should have all access attempts to the old page automatically redirected to the new page. That way any existing references to the old page will not become broken links.

Here's how to set up redirection to the new location: Edit the old page, remove everything (which presumably has been copied to the new page), and leave the page containing only one line in this form:

#redirect [[Sandbox/FAQ_Sandbox]]

(except change "Sandbox/FAQ_Sandbox" above to reference the new page location — i.e., it should be everything after "http://baoc.org/wiki/" in the URL for the new page).

Once you do that, the old page can become difficult to edit again (because subsequent access of the page will automatically re-direct). To edit the old page again, you might need to add "?redirect=no" (without the quotes) onto the end of it's URL in your browser (e.g., http://baoc.org/wiki/Sandbox/FAQ_Sandbox?redirect=no).