Wiki Best Practices

Purpose:

The L10 Wiki will serve as a digital knowledge base for both internal and external use.

Creating new content:

• Create Wiki page.
• Under the personal account menu, go to create content>wiki page.

Title your post following the standard naming conventions:

• Use nouns and noun phrases.
• Ten words or fewer.
• Capitalize first word, then follow standard capitalization rules.
• Avoid abbreviations – if necessary, follow redirect guide at the end of this document.
• Use Wikipedia style guide as much as possible

Sources of information:

• Wikipedia
• Marketing Sherpa
• Other websites
• Be sure to cite and link back, just like a blog.

Creating content:

• Use entry title as the subject of the first sentence, be sure to bold the term.
  Example: An entry for Cascading Style Sheets would begin,“Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the styling language developed by the W3C…”
• Be as precise as possible, but don’t worry if you don’t know it all!
  Wikis depend on continued contribution and develop over time.
• Link to internal and external sites that are relevant to the entry.
  Example: An entry for Cascading Style Sheets could probably need links to explain HTML, XHTML, and WC3.
• Add “further reading” links to the “further reading” section at the bottom of the entry.
• Use a text link rather than a full URL.
• Add tags that describe the content.
• Select the proper category under the categories section.
  Example: Select JavaScript, if the entry pertains to that subject.
  If proper category does not exist, notify Colin or Tom.
• Double check that links work.
• Select appropriate group.
• Enter description of work under “log message”.
  It’s important to have a record of who did what and why.
• Review pages from time to time for updates and fixes.

Editing existing content:

• Use edit tab under entry page.
• Be bold, not reckless.
  Again, don’t worry if you don’t know everything. Key is to make positive contributions!
• Add links.
• Add to further reading section.
• Remember to fill out log information.

Redirects

Redirects will be necessary from time to time. Usually this happens when you want to create a page for a term that has more than one word associated with it. For example, you would want the abbreviation AJAX and the full term, Asynchronous JavaScript and XML to point to the same page. In order to accomplish this, follow these steps:

• After creating the page, save the entry under the title you want to be displayed. (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
• Go back and edit the page, change the title to the term you want to redirect to your original entry. (AJAX)
• Save
• Go back into the entry again, and rename it with the title that you want to be displayed. (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
• Save.

Basic Formatting Guide:

There are many options for formatting your Wiki entry. You can use filtered HTML, full HTML, PHP and Mediawiki Syntax. The Wiki automatically defaults to filtered HTML and, because the Mediawiki Syntax option does not support the full range of commands, it is recommended that you stick with this option. If you decide to use something other then filtered HTML, you can change your format style under the “Input format” menu on the “Submit Wiki” page.

Filtered HTML supports all the basic HTML tags: a, em, strong, cite, code, ul, ol, li, dl, dt, dd, h1, h2, h3 and h4. You can link to internal Wiki entries and external sites by using the double bracket system.

For example, linking to the entry for Cascading style sheets would look like this: <a href="/freelinking/Cascading%20style%20sheets" class="freelinking">Cascading style sheets</a>. To display different text, use the format: <a href="/freelinking/link%20to%20this%20title" class="freelinking">show this text</a>. Use the same format for links to outside sites. For more information on formatting commands, go to:
http://www.leveltendesign.com/node/add/wikipage

Example Wiki Links:

• This Might Be A Wiki
• Wikipedia: Wikipedia
• Wikiality - The Truthiness Encyclopedia
• SAP Apollo