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wiki.ninjette.org is alive!
Technology has crept up with what I wanted to do here on ninjette.org, and we now have our very own wiki. For those unfamiliar with what a wiki is, it is a different way of capturing and organizing information online compared to a forum. The largest and best known wiki is Wikipedia. We're actually using the exact same software here on wiki.ninjette.org that they use on Wikipedia! In a wiki, anyone can create an entry. But the interesting part is that anyone can edit that same entry. In this way, anyone can improve and add to the information along the way until the article is about as good as it's going to be. What makes this work is that people are immediately notified when changes are made to the articles they are "watching", and there are powerful tools to roll-back and undo changes if they aren't helpful. I've started to include some information in the Wiki so we're not starting from scratch, but there's a long way to go. The goal is for this wiki to eventually hold everything you'd ever want to know about the 2nd-gen Ninjette. What this means is that if a new member comes on to this site and asks a common question, they can quickly be pointed to the wiki entry that answers their question in detail. This doesn't mean the goal of the wiki is to stifle discussion, it just means that it can be used as a great reference for common questions so the same topics aren't rehashed over and over again. Frees us up for more interesting discussions!
How to get started?
Your same forum user accounts are used over on the wiki side, the first time you click over to the wiki area a new wiki-account is automatically set up. Before you edit or add any of your own pages here, make sure to go into My Preferences from the navbar and enter in your email address, then hit save at the bottom. This makes sure that if you do edit or add pages and someone edits them afterwards, you get that immediate email to let you know of any changes.
To edit an existing page, just hit edit and go to town! To create a new wiki page, all you do is go to a page that doesn't exist yet. Simple as that. For example, if you want to create a page about elephants, just point your browser to: "wiki.ninjette.org/elephants". At this point, one of us may have created a page there, so use whatever example you like. :) It's common to have longer page names like this: "wiki.ninjette.org/why_are_there_so_many_hawaiians_here", and to separate words just use an underscore _. If a page doesn't exist, there's a link shown to you to create such a page.
Categories
When you're done with the 1st draft of the page, it's appropriate to put a category or two right at the bottom of the text. The category makes it easier for people to find your entry. The existing categories are:
Pictures / Files
There are some differences in attaching pictures and files in the wiki environment. Historically, wiki's have often been set up to allow no external linking of images. This is so that the wiki itself contains all of its own information, and external changes on the web won't affect its completeness or accuracy. But on a forum site, it's very common for people to use IMG links to link to external images. So the wiki programmers have made some concessions to allow external images, and if you put a link to an image in your text, it will automatically show that image within the text. The hitch is that the image address must end in a .jpg, .png, or .gif. This seems OK, except a number of image URL's don't include that at the end of their addresses, even from places like our own pictures & albums area on ninjette.org. The upside is that the wiki software makes it easy to upload pictures directly to the wiki entry, so in many cases that's the easiest way to go. Other types of files (PDF's, etc.) are the same way. I can add to the types of files that are permitted, so if you need to add one that isn't working, just let me know.
What about linking to threads in the forum?
There's certainly nothing wrong with putting links to relevant forum threads within wiki entries. In fact, that's about all the wiki is made up of right now. But I hope that is not the case forever; the content in the wiki should eventually standalone, with supporting links pointing to forum threads. As things get rewritten and updated, the wiki will become more and more a standalone reference work. So don't feel bad about linking to threads when it makes sense, but I don't want the wiki to be nothing more than a different index to existing forum threads.
Syntax
For the full details on the entire wiki syntax, check out either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_edit or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet
I set up a Test page (right at Test_page), and its entire purpose is for us to play with to figure out how to edit and use the software. Change it, edit it, add pics, files, whatever you like just to see how it works.
More Helpful Links
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