Help:Contents

Attn: New Wiki Editors. Please read this page and all mentioned pages carefully.

For assistance playing the Kingdom of Loathing see Basics.

• Before editing pages, look over the make a Wiki page so you understand the wiki's syntax, and as always, for KoL specific items, adventures, monsters, etc., look over the Established Standards and its accompanying Proposed Standards.
  • See the mediawiki markup spec for a quick and comprehensive view of a mediawiki's syntax.
• Do not update the amount of adventures gained from food if you are born under The Opossum or are affected by Got Milk or have used a munchies pill.
• Do not update the amount of adventures gained from booze if you are born under The Blender or are affected by the Ode to Booze or are wearing a tuxedo shirt.
• Do not update the stats gained if it is a Stat Day, if you have any effects active or items equipped that affect the Stat Gains from Fights or alter Monster Level, and if you are using any volleyball-type or sombrero-type familiar.
• Do not update the stats gained until you take into account your Moon sign stat bonus.
• Do not add messages resulting from acquiring 11, 23, or 37 of an item at once.
• If you want to add a Cultural Reference to a page, please review how to make a complete and useful one in the References section of the Established Standards.
• When editing pages always fill in the "Summary" textbox saying what you did, it makes it easier for others to understand and navigate through a page's history.
• When editing a page, always use the button to preview the page before saving. That way, you have a second chance to look for and fix problems in the page before saving it. This is much better than saving a page multiple times for a few trivial edits in a short period of time.
• Always sign your comments when posting in talk pages. See below for more details.
• Mark a page for deletion, or for discussion about being deleted in TheKolWiki:Pages for deletion.
• Please post in/start a discussion somewhere before initiating large scale changes on your own.
• Do not link to a page which redirects to another page. This is called a "double redirect". Link to the terminal page directly instead.
• Never put a page which is in the User namespace (starting with "User:") into the Player category!
• Feel free to test things out in the sandbox or in your User: page.
• Use the Talk: page for a page before making major changes to that page.

How to Post in Discussions/Talk Pages

• If you would like to view a page's associated "Talk page", click on its "Discussion" tab.
• It is customary to use bullets (* in wiki syntax) and indents (: in wiki syntax) to post in/under an ongoing discussion. When using nested bullets and indents, place your post on the line directly after the previous one for it to indent right. Although blank lines look good in the wiki source, they can mess up the final formatting.
• Always sign your posts by appending --~~~~ to the end. That is four (4) tildes (~). With only three tildes, the signature will lack a date; with five, it will lack a name.

  When the page is saved it will translate to to wiki code as --[[User:Jinya|jin]] TIME, DATE (TIMEZONE). Viewing it yields --jin TIME, DATE (TIMEZONE), if your username were Jinya and your nickname jin.

  The third button on the edit toolbar adds this signature automatically. It looks like this:

  When encountering an unsigned comment, there is a template you can use to attribute that comment: {{unsigned|Editor Name|edit date}} will add a block of text that says "—Preceding unsigned comment added by Editor Name (talk • contribs) on edit date".

• You can customize your timestamp in your Preferences by altering the textbox labeled "Nickname:". You're free to use wiki code in your signature, but please try to stay reasonable. Checking the box labeled "Raw signatures (without automatic link)" makes your signature translate to --NICKNAME TIME, DATE (TIMEZONE) allowing for a little freedom when choosing your signature.
  
  For more on nicknames further documentation is available.
• Do not just randomly create discussions above other discussions. They should flow chronologically with recent discussions towards the bottom. Also, editing or deleting other people's comments is generally not allowed, although discussions may be archived. Your own "User Talk:" page is an exception.

Marking Pages That Need Work

• To mark a page that needs work, place {{rewrite|comment=A comment on what needs work goes here.}}. Using this template will automatically add the appropriate page to the Needs Work Category. Not marking unfinished/incomplete/nonformatted pages as Needs Work delays their completion, because of lack of attention. Instead of using the general {{rewrite}} template, {{NeedsConfirm}}, {{NeedsContent}}, and {{NeedsCleanup}} can be used to provide more specific "Needs Work" messages, working the same way as the first. In addition, feel free to place {{NeedsReview}} by references that need review and then comment on that page's talk page as to why that reference needs review.

Using the Clan Template

• Use the following template {{clan|clan=CLAN NAME|link=CLAN LINK}}, where CLAN NAME is the name of a clan, spaces are allowed. CLAN LINK is a standard web link (http://www.server.com/dir/) which can be to a clan's web site, forums, etc. If one does not want to specify a link, the link variable may be omitted.

• For more information, see the template itself.

• Clans may be listed in the Clan Directory.

Linking

• The first letter of all pages is automatically capitalized by the wiki.
• When linking to a page the case of the first letter does not matter, because the wiki knows all pages start with a capital letter. For example, [[Goat]] (Goat) and [[goat]] (goat) both link to the same page. Using the lowercase link is useful when linking to a page in mid-sentence. Try not to link pages to pages using inappropriate capitalization. If an item's name is lowercase (and most of them are), use lowercase.
• Wiki links and page names are case-sensitive on all characters besides the first. For example, [[Pet Rock]] (Pet Rock) and [[pet Rock]] (pet Rock) link to the same page, whilst [[Pet Rock]] (Pet Rock) and [[pet rock]] (pet rock) do not.
• Try not to link to a page using [https://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Main_Page] or even [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Meta Main Page]. Instead, use [[Main Page]], and [[MetaWikipedia:Main Page|]]
• This is an intrawiki link: [[Page Name]]. Link directly to the page name; no need for _ or escaped characters (%20, etc). The wiki parser uses the page name to check if it exists anyways. No need trying to help it escape characters.
• This is an interwiki link: This item references [[Wikipedia:duck|]]s. An interwiki map can be found here. As a matter of style of consistency avoid escaping page names here too.
• Always link to the page you mean, not a redirect.
• Name links with pipes: [[hell ramen|my favorite food]] (my favorite food).
• Removing a namespace such as Template: or Wikipedia: from a link's name is easy as adding a pipe (|): [[wikipedia:ramen|]] (ramen).
• Removing a post-fixed disambiguation such as (familiar) or (effect) from a link's name is done in the same way: add a pipe (|): [[Barrrnacle (familiar)|]] (Barrrnacle).
• Appending a string of letters to the end of a link's name is done as follows: [[Mosquito]]es (Mosquitoes).
• To link to a section of a wiki page use an anchor #.
  • Linking to a section within a page: [[#Linking]] (#Linking).
  • Linking to a section on another page: [[Help:Contents#Linking]] (Help:Contents#Linking).
• Also, one specific TheKolWiki bit of neatness, use the plural template to automatically look up the in-game plural for items: {{plural|seal tooth}} yeilds seal teeth.

Category Sorting

• Pages within a category are sorted not alphabetically, but by their ASCII value, which is case sensitive.

Alphabetical Ordering	ASCII Ordering
cherry Grapes lemon Lime olive Orange	Grapes Lime Orange cherry lemon olive

• When a page is placed in a category by using [[Category:CATEGORY_NAME]], the default sort is by page name.
• You can override how the page is sorted by using [[Category:CATEGORY_NAME|SORT_AS]], where SORT_AS is how you wish to have the page sorted within the category. An example of this is the Food By Size category. Hell ramen should not be sorted under "H", but under "6", so the category link should look like: [[Category:Food (By Size)|6, hell ramen]].

Wiki Parser

The wiki parser is the internal wiki functionality which takes editor created pages and transforms them into the html web pages which are displayed. The parser will transform wiki functions – like images ( [[file:image.gif|text]] ), templates ( {{template_name}} ), headings ( ==Heading== ), etc. – into the appropriate html. The wiki also parses normal html formatting and tables within a wiki page.

• The wiki parser may add extra spacing depending on white space. The wiki parser may either add a line break <br /> or create a new paragraph <p></p>.
• Avoid using center tags within lists (bulleted, numbered, etc.); they seem to break the html within the page. If necessary, put a couple carriage returns before and after what needs to be centered in a list. <br /> won't cut it.

Useful References

• Proposed Standards – Proposed standards for all KoL type entries.
• Make a Wiki page – Demonstrates wiki syntax.
• Wikimedia Help – Demonstrates wiki syntax.
• Mediawiki Markup Spec – Demonstrates wiki syntax.
• Special Pages – List of all special pages, including Unused Images, Most Wanted Pages (pages linked to but not created), Uncategorized Pages, etc.
• Categories – List of all available Categories.
• Templates – List of all available Templates.