Frequently Asked Questions

## About editing the wiki

### **What happens if I make a mistake?**

* **While editing:** press the arrow button in the top left of the visual editor. That's the undo button. (You can also use Ctrl+Z.)
	+ *Note: sometimes wikia isn't very good with undoing things, but usually it does okay.*
* **After you've saved edits.** You can edit something you've already edited, or you can revert it back to a previous version. To roll it back to a previous version, contact an admin.

### **How do I edit tables?**

* Head on over to the table testing pageto learn experientially.

### **How do I add references?**

**In the (new) visual editor:**

1. Look at the top of the visual editor for ***Insert***. Click that.
2. Click ***Reference***
3. Add your reference
4. Click ***Insert***

References will now show up automatically in the reference list when you add them.

**In the source (wikitext) editor:**

1. See this page

### **Why aren't my references showing at the bottom of an article?**

You have to add a reference list:

1. Go to the bottom of the article and type "References."
2. Then go to **Insert** (top of the editor)
3. Click "**References list**"
4. Click "**Insert**"

### **What should I consider when contributing to the wiki?**

**Beginner tips:**

* **You don't have to be perfect.** The nice thing about a wiki is the collaborative editing. If you don't have time to do a super fancy job, or aren't sure how to do something, do your best, and let someone else expand on it or improve upon it. (Maybe make a note in your edit summary saying "added X. Tried to do Y, but wasn't sure how.") Many hands make light work.

* **It's very hard to break a wiki.** Wikis save a history of all saved edits, so if you do something you didn't mean to, just ask on the forum or get in touch with one of the wiki admin. Just try to share things that are accurate, and credit your sources when it makes sense to (e.g. when you paraphrase or quote information from a website, interview, video, or book). If you want to practice editing without fear of breaking something, use the sandbox page. You can do whatever you like on that page (within Wikia's terms of use).
* **Save as you go!** Rather than making lots of edits all at once, make a few edits, save those, then add more. Wikia is pretty good, but sometimes it screws up or is buggy, so it's better to save your edits than lose all your great work.
* **Use a neutral, objective tone that doesn't take sides but, rather, explains a point of view.** Wikis are encyclopedic resources on certain subjects. As such, when writing something for a wiki, try to write it in a more formal, matter-of-fact tone that is similar to what you would find in an encyclopedia or dictionary. So, rather than saying something like this:

> *Chel has super-annoying fireballs. You should use those often and really put the pressure on your opponent.*
>
>

> Say it more like this:
>
>

> *Chel can perform her Alpha 1 special (her fireball) every 2 seconds from either the ground or the air. This allows you apply consistent pressure to your opponent.*
>
>

> For more information about the tone wikis tend to use, see this wikipedia page on Neutrality  and this one on What wikipedia is not. (This isn't wikipedia, but many of the same ideas apply here.)
>
>

* **Be specific.** If you say "Vlad's Alpha special is very effective in this situation" the special), make sure you specify which Alpha special you refer to. E.g. During early Alpha, Vlad only had one special. But later on more variants were added, giving him a total of three Alpha specials. So, specify which special you refer to so people reading the wiki 6 months from now will be able to understand what you refer to.
* **Take a look at your edits after you make them.** Did they come out as you wanted them to? If not, tweak them until they do, or ask for help on the forum if you don't know how to do something, or if something breaks.
* **Play to your strengths; do what you enjoy.** Some people will enjoy doing what you don't. E.g. Bruce, one of the wiki's early founders, enjoys designing pages and fostering community, but not so much adding information to pages. So he creates pages and then invites other people with more knowledge on things than him to flesh out the pages.

**Intermediate tips:**

* **Keep an eye on what formatting is applied to your text.** When using the visual editor (which is usually the editor that's used by default), when you click "edit," take a look at the section in the top right that says \*Paragraph, heading, sub-heading 1.\* Try to make sure text has the appropriate formatting. E.g. With your edit, some paragraph text (which should be "paragraph" formatted) had I think sub-heading 3 formatting. That's easy to fix, though, so no biggie.

**Advanced tips:**

* [none yet!]

### **Why does it sometimes show me an old version of the visual editor?**

I don't know. However, if you look at the address in the browser address bar, it should look like this:

* http://risingthunder.wikia.com/wiki/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions**?action=edit**

See the section that says **"?action"?**

If you change that to **"?veaction"** ("ve" stands for visual editor) and press enter, it will change to the visual editor.

Be sure to save any edits you made before doing this.

## See also

**Frequently asked questions**

* How do I create a new page?
* How do I add photos?
* How do I change my username?
* How do I manage my profile?
* How do I attract new users?
* How do I create templates?
* How do I set up my main page?
* How do I format pages?

**Have other questions?**

You can ask on the:

* **Rising Thunder wiki** Forum or Chat (assuming there are people in the chat)
* **Wikia community** Forum or chat.

Also see the Wikia Help section.