Difference between revisions of "Help:Contents"

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m (user interface cleanup - add character button)
(Refreshed and reemphasized the editing guidelines. Retired the Digital Archeologist section)
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* http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting - Formatting tips
 
* http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting - Formatting tips
  
== Some additional Requests and Guidelines from the Herocopia SYSOP ==
+
== Basic Guidelines pertaining to Herocopia ==
  
 
The intended audience for this  website are the casual readers of Astro City Comics.  It is a place for them to visit when they want additional information about the characters, places and events that occur between the covers of those publications.   
 
The intended audience for this  website are the casual readers of Astro City Comics.  It is a place for them to visit when they want additional information about the characters, places and events that occur between the covers of those publications.   
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With that in mind, here are some additional Guidelines for authors to consider.
 
With that in mind, here are some additional Guidelines for authors to consider.
  
* Trivia is great, that is a major aspect of what this site is all about.  However, when appending it to Herocopia pages, try to provide context, so the information isn't just noise.
+
* '''Provide Context to your Writing'''
  
:For example:
+
:Trivia is great, that is a major aspect of what this site is all about.  However, when appending it to Herocopia pages, try to provide context, so the information isn't just noise.
 +
 
 +
:For example this isn't very useful to a casual reader:
  
 
::''Earliest Appearance: 1959, 1964 to general population of Earth''   
 
::''Earliest Appearance: 1959, 1964 to general population of Earth''   
  
:versus:
+
:This on the other hand provides meaningful context that allows a Herocopia visitor to clearly understand the information being provided. Basically it has meaning and can be easily understood:
  
 
::''In 1959, Eliot Mills saw and reported this incident for a feature story that he hoped would be printed in the [[Astro City Rocket]] newspaper. It was massively edited before publication and the general public did not hear of [[Shirak]] until five years later.''  
 
::''In 1959, Eliot Mills saw and reported this incident for a feature story that he hoped would be printed in the [[Astro City Rocket]] newspaper. It was massively edited before publication and the general public did not hear of [[Shirak]] until five years later.''  
  
  
* Try to avoid "passive voice" sentence structures. They are cumbersome and difficult to read with comprehension.  Unfortunately, this site is littered with examples. Please try not to add to the confusion-pollution. If you need help identifying "passive voice,"  this article [http://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-examples-of-passive-voice/] is concise and clear.  Anyway I liked it. You can also "google" for others.
 
  
* Please use good judgement when editing "passive voice" passages. Not all of them are evil.
+
* '''Try to avoid "passive voice" sentence structures.'''
 +
 
 +
:They are cumbersome and difficult to read with comprehension.  Unfortunately, this site is littered with examples. Please try not to add to the confusion-pollution. If you need help identifying "passive voice,"  this article [http://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-examples-of-passive-voice/] is concise and clear.  Anyway I liked it. You can also "google" for others.
 +
 
 +
:''Please use good judgement when editing "passive voice" passages. Not all of them are evil.''
 +
 
 +
 
 +
* '''Create and Use Tables!'''
  
* Please try to minimize creating a multitude of Herocopia pages for depositing tiny tidbits of information. Consider instead using a table or list on a single page.  The information will organize better that way, and will be a more pleasing reading experience for visitors to our site.  If you need help building tables, this page[http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables] should prove useful.  You can also tug on my cape for questions.  I will work to answer then as time permits.
+
:Please try to minimize creating a multitude of Herocopia pages for depositing tiny tidbits of information. Consider instead using a table or list on a single page.  The information will organize better that way, and will be a more pleasing reading experience for visitors to our site.  If you need help building tables, this page[http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables] should prove useful.  You can also tug on my cape for questions.  I will work to answer then as time permits.
  
 
* The Herocopia Project encompassed within this wiki site is changing and maturing. There is still a LOT of stuff about the tools and structures of mediaWiki to learn and digest.  Changes will continue as we learn more.   
 
* The Herocopia Project encompassed within this wiki site is changing and maturing. There is still a LOT of stuff about the tools and structures of mediaWiki to learn and digest.  Changes will continue as we learn more.   
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* More image help: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files
 
* More image help: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files
 
 
== Become a Digital Archeologist For Herocopia ==
 
One of the most precious aspects of the '''Herocopia Project''' has been the accumulation of a warehouse of information about the Characters of '''Astro City.''' Unfortunately, '''Herocopia.com''' underwent a crash that left a lot of interesting data for and about '''Astro City''' hanging in the limbos of the massively complex cavities of the internet. We are working diligently to restore as much of this previous information as possible. While the majority of it has been recovered in one form or another, there is still some old pages to recover.
 
 
We have been searching the web for old saved '''Herocopia''' pages, along with checking local hard-drives of veteran contributors. We have discovered that the '''Wayback Machine''' located at www.archive.org is a fairly good source and can be mined for '''herocopia.com''' content from the past.  The only problem, it requires a lot of hand editing to bring it back to a format suitable for mediawiki development and deployment.
 
 
First steps are simple, just a bit tedious.
 
 
# Use the '''Wayback Machine''' site to find old '''Herocopia''' webpages. See links section below.
 
# Be sure to check the '''Wayback''' timeline to find the best capture of data from the original '''Herocopia''' site.  Dates from 2009 are proving the most fruitful, but it can vary dramatically from page to page.
 
# Copy the text (not the page source) to your computer's clipboard.
 
# Head back here to the new Herocopia site and dump the text to that character's page.  Create a new page if needed.
 
# Add a <code>"{{{cutPaste}}}"</code> template at the top, to indicate this is a cut-n-paste entry that still needs editing, and if appropriate, a <code>"{{{stub}}}"</code> template at the bottom to signal that this page needs more authorship work.
 
#Later on, you or a fellow Herocopia author can incorporate the old raw information into the new template structures that we use now.  More information on that coming right up, after we take a '''Links-break.'''
 
''
 
=== Links ===
 
http://web.archive.org/web/20090217195513/http://herocopia.com/index.php/Category:Heroes
 
<p>http://web.archive.org/web/20100401223306/http://www.herocopia.com/index.php/Category:Villains</p>
 
<p>http://web.archive.org/web/20100401223551/http://www.herocopia.com/index.php/Category:Teams</p>
 
<p>http://web.archive.org/web/20100401223253/http://www.herocopia.com/index.php/Category:Civilians</p>
 
<p>http://web.archive.org/web/20100401223556/http://www.herocopia.com/index.php/Category:The_City</p>
 

Revision as of 16:23, 25 September 2014

Read on if you are interested in contributing content to the officially sanctioned website, dedicated to the award winning comic series Astro City.


This input box and button provide a quick way to create a new page.

Please make sure you understand the various parameters and how they work. Please check to insure the page doesn't already exist. Exact spelling is important. Changing the Default Name is also a good idea.

If you need guidance, see hints and tips below.

Character Page Templates

We've got templates. Not very many, but for editing Characters, these work great. They work for Heroes and Villains (the templates signed a neutrality clause) and for now, can even be used for Teams, Civilian pages and other miscellaneous stuff. It might be a stretch to get them to work for City related pages, and until they have templates of their own, perhaps building a new City page can best be done by using an existing Landmark, Neighborhood, or other City page as a model. Plans are in place to design special templates for these other page categories as time permits. But for now think of the character templates as being generic, and use them wherever you feel you can make them work for whatever content you are doing.

A Character Page is usually constructed using the following two Character templates. In fact, for consistency across the Herocopia site, it is highly recommended to use them. With practice, you will find them very helpful and much easier than building a Character page from scratch.

Each template has several parameters (all optional) that can be filled in where appropriate. It will depend on the character, how much information is available from the stories, or if the information applies. Currently two of the best examples are the Silver Agent and Astra Furst pages.

These two templates are also undergoing major editing work of their own, mainly cosmetic. But any future changes made to the templates, should not effect the outer mechanics of authors using them to construct pages. Another reason to stick with using these templates when building a character page.

See each templates' associated documentation section for more information.

General Editing Tools

Herocopia.com is a MediaWiki website. Do you want to contribute, but do not know how to edit pages? These guides might be of help.

Basic Guidelines pertaining to Herocopia

The intended audience for this website are the casual readers of Astro City Comics. It is a place for them to visit when they want additional information about the characters, places and events that occur between the covers of those publications.

With that in mind, here are some additional Guidelines for authors to consider.

  • Provide Context to your Writing
Trivia is great, that is a major aspect of what this site is all about. However, when appending it to Herocopia pages, try to provide context, so the information isn't just noise.
For example this isn't very useful to a casual reader:
Earliest Appearance: 1959, 1964 to general population of Earth
This on the other hand provides meaningful context that allows a Herocopia visitor to clearly understand the information being provided. Basically it has meaning and can be easily understood:
In 1959, Eliot Mills saw and reported this incident for a feature story that he hoped would be printed in the Astro City Rocket newspaper. It was massively edited before publication and the general public did not hear of Shirak until five years later.


  • Try to avoid "passive voice" sentence structures.
They are cumbersome and difficult to read with comprehension. Unfortunately, this site is littered with examples. Please try not to add to the confusion-pollution. If you need help identifying "passive voice," this article [1] is concise and clear. Anyway I liked it. You can also "google" for others.
Please use good judgement when editing "passive voice" passages. Not all of them are evil.


  • Create and Use Tables!
Please try to minimize creating a multitude of Herocopia pages for depositing tiny tidbits of information. Consider instead using a table or list on a single page. The information will organize better that way, and will be a more pleasing reading experience for visitors to our site. If you need help building tables, this page[2] should prove useful. You can also tug on my cape for questions. I will work to answer then as time permits.
  • The Herocopia Project encompassed within this wiki site is changing and maturing. There is still a LOT of stuff about the tools and structures of mediaWiki to learn and digest. Changes will continue as we learn more.
  • The general attitudes here are more lax than the main Wikipedia site. Please help to keep them that way. I hate rules and fiefdoms.

Thanks for your patience and understanding here.

- The Information Broker

Quick tips for creating and editing pages

Create a new page

  • Go to the two Character templates and copy the "syntax" portion from the template's documentation.
  • Then navigate to the page you want to create, i.e. to create a page for "Samaritan" enter
    http://www.herocopia.com/Samaritan
    in your browser.
  • Click the "edit" tab, paste the template code, and start creating!

Link to another page

  • Surround the word in double brackets...
    [[Samaritan]]
    ...and it will link to that page, whether it exists yet or not.

Linking Page to a Category

  • At the bottom of a page, enter
    [[Category: (category name)]]
    and it will link to that category, as well as include the page in that category (whether the category exists yet or not).
  • To create a link to a category *without* including the page in that category, add a colon in front, i.e.
    [[:Category: (category name)]]
    .


Image Uploading

  • Check Special:Imagelist to see if the image you need already exists.
  • If not, upload a new image here: http://www.herocopia.com/index.php/Special:Upload
  • Try to find clean images that are complete. By that, I mean don't chop word balloons in half, don't make small images larger than their scanned size. In otherwords, use good visual editing skills when choosing images.
  • Except for covers from Vertigo.com, Don't pirate images from other sites, even if they source from Astro City comics. Scan them yourself.
  • To use the image, place this tag into the page:
    [[Image:filename.jpg]]
    .
  • To align the image to the right, use this tag:
    [[Image:filename.jpg|right]]
    .
  • To place a thumbnail of a larger image, use:
    [[Image:filename.jpg|right|thumb|250px]]
    .
  • Any text entered in the tag that isn't recognized will appear as a caption in the thumbnail image, i.e.
    [[Image:filename.jpg|right|thumb|250px|This is a picture of Samaritan]]
    .