Help:Editing

General

Before you take a stab at editing this site, make sure you understand how to edit. Here are a few tips:

• Use correct spelling: This removes the hassle of moving poorly spelled pages.
• Use correct grammar: Try to make things understandable; unless you're going to be writing the entire article in completely unreadable chatspeek, don't do it for a couple of words.
• Don't comment on articles: There's a reason that there's a tab marked "discussion" on every page. This rule does not apply if the comment is clarification or not-completely-sure-about-it content.
• Learn about Wiki style: Wiki has its own editing style; go check Wikipedia's editing help for more information about linking, images, etc. This especially applies to headings. Don't use a "==" header followed by a "====" header; this screws up the table of contents.
• Keep pictures small: This site is privately payed, and an overabundance of pictures will hike up costs. Keep in mind that images cannot be uploaded to this site when you need one; they must be placed somewhere else before you use them here.
• Do not erase pages: Only admins can get rid of pages; however, anyone can wipe them clean. Don't do this! Most pages have a purpose; if a page has been spammed, please delete that. Also, if for some reason you must erase a page, summarize a reason for it.
• Do not vandalize pages: Annoying vandalizations and deformatting of pages will result in bannage. Similarly, obvious spam (which tends to be enclosed in divs) results in immediate banning.

The best way to learn how to edit a page is to read Wikipedia's guide.

RealCTY Editing Style

New Pages

Please do not create stub articles; if you have a short spiel about something CTY-relevant, put it under the correct category in the Lexicon, unless the page is already on the Special:Wantedpages list. Also, article subjects that could be condensed into a single page should be. This can be done as a series (see below), or in the manner of the Cucumber Cult page, in which many individual games were merged into the group which they were most commonly played in.

Titles

Don't italicize titles of things (or put them in quotes). If some things get grammatificated title-wise, then we need to search every page for every title and do the same; I tried this earlier, and realized that. It's probably better just to link to titles (after all, all titles here are CTY-relevant).

When a page is created, bold the title of the page. This is done by linking to the page (using brackets). If you want to alter the plurality or something, use a piped link instead of, say, bold tags.

Categories

If you do create a new page, please categorize it properly. Put it under a site or two if applicable (if it's all sites, don't put it under any sites). Categorize it as a Game, an Activity, a Student Group, a Traditions, etc. Then, put the site and the other category together, and categorize it as that too (i.e., Lancaster Traditions). Things that don't fall into any category go under "General."

Try to keep the categories at the bottom of the page to keep things organized.

Links

Unlike Wikipedia, this site is relatively small, so linking is not necessary. However, if you like adding links (which is great), try to keep only one link to each page in any one article (e.g., if Lancaster is mentioned twice, only link to the site page once, preferably the first time).

HTML

Make sure you understand Wiki's editing format. As far as tags go, HTML is preferred over Wiki for bold, italics, strikethrough, etc. Also, note that "br" tags are unnecessary when making a new paragraph, but they are for a single line break. Please place "br" tags at the ends of lines, rather than at the beginning of the next line.

Bolding

Pages look nicer if you place the title at the beginning of the first sentence, and bold it by using [[ ]] around it. This is similar to how Wikipedia formats things, and it looks nice, so it seems like the thing that we should do to. This formatting change is now part of the not-really-official site format.

Page Series

Some pages, in addition to categories, fall into series, such as Site:XXX, or Hall of Fame:XXX, or Staff:_________, or Song:____________, etc. If you are making a page that would fall into a series, please format the title correctly (i.e., Series:name, w/o spaces). Also, formate the pages like the other (for example, Hall of Fame uses third-level headings that start with the date and the site, Songs use second-level headings for Lyrics, and there is a specific lyrics format, etc.).

Please note that there should be no more individual page series being created. By this, I mean only Songs, Essays, and Staff members should receive individual series pages. Any new series pages should be site-oriented (i.e., Series:XXX, where XXX = site code).

Userpages

Userpages are meant for the pages of users. If you want to create a page about a person, that's fine, but there are two restrictions:

1. If you are making a page about yourself, create an account and put your info on your userpage if possible. Do not make an article about you if you have an account. Also, don't redirect an article with your name to your userpage; just change all existing links to re-link to your userpage.
2. If you are making a page about somebody else, do not give the title the prefix "User:". This is completely unnecessary, and also disrupts the naming system, especially since it leads to the belief in nonexistant users, as well as causing possible problems if a user creates an account under that name.

Lexicon

Keep things alphabetical, and brief. Do not simply copy an article onto the Lexicon. Especially refrain from doing the opposite, and copying Lexicon stubs into full-fledged article pages; this is unnecessary and becomes a hassle.

Userpages

Make userpages instead of articles about users.

Placeholders

Placeholders are fine. Stubs are not. If you want to link to a page that hasn't been created yet, that's fine, but don't create the page and just write, "This page does not exist" on it. Try not to link to pages if you have no intention of making them. Linking to unmade Page Series pages is fine.

Security

Editing, creating pages, etc. has been limited to logged-in users. This makes it easier to warn and track users who have vandalized pages, have made formatting errors, etc. Sorry for any inconveniences caused by this, but you ought to make accounts anyway. Yaaaay for accounts!

Other Stuff

Summer 2007

The new catalog for Summer 2007 has been posted on the web.

http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/oscatalog.html

Post-CTY Depression

Hey all! The new forum for the online CTY community will be at Post-CTY Depression. It's more active, and has its own domain name. So, if anybody needs a forum, go there. Hopefully, it'll be more solidly established after next session.

End-of-Summer Announcement

Hey all!

School has started for pretty much all of the RealCTY community. Therefore, since everyone has less time on their hands, I would like to request that nobody make any large-scale changes to the site. Please continue editing, but try to keep new categories and the such to a minimum. Also, when making new pages, make sure first that it would not be better off in the Hall of Fame/Shame or Lexicon. If it doesn't seem to fit into a specific category (i.e., a non-site category), it probably belongs somewhere else. Stubs should be put in the Lexicon under the correct site and in alphabetical order, instead of being made into new pages.

Have a great year, everyone!

Header of the Day

If you haven't noticed, I take great pleasure in changing the header of this page. So, instead of changing at midnight each day, I'm got a "Quote of the Day" feature added. If you have any headers you would like to have possibly appear, put it on the Talk page. Make sure it starts with "From RealCTY," unless the point is that it doesn't.