Revision as of 18:00, 2 June 2014

For questions or comments about this website email mailto:webmaster@freegeekseattle.org

For information about editing wikis in general, see Editing Help

What is this?

This is a wiki. A wiki is a website that users can edit. In order to edit it, you have to log in. Once you're logged in, you can edit pages by clicking the "Edit" link in the tabs at the upper-right corner of each page.

Before you log in

In order to log in you first need to request an account.

Click this link and fill out the form, providing a valid email address.
Check your email. You will have received a new email with an account-confirmation link. Click the link.
Once you've verified your email in this way, an admin needs to confirm your account. Contact koanhead, User:Mfoster, or User:elcaset, or post to the list, and an admin will take care of it.
After the admin confirms your account, you'll receive another email with login details. Click the link provided and enter the password from the email. You'll be prompted to change your password afterwards. Please use a good password.

Wikitext

Wiki pages use special markup to set off internal links, boldface, italic text, and so forth. See Editing Help for more details. When you edit, there is also a toolbar at the top-left corner of the edit window which simplifies the markup: just select the text you want to modify, and then click on the appropriate buttons. The button icons can be a little cryptic- hovering over the buttons for a few seconds causes a text explanation of the button to pop up. You can get a feel for what the various markup options do by comparing the source text (the text within the edit window) to that displayed above the edit window. If you've made changes, hit the "Preview" button to see what you did. Remember to hit "Save changes" every so often, or your work will be lost!

Don't worry

Edit without fear. This wiki has version control! If you make a mistake or do something wrong, your changes can always be reverted. With that said, don't be a jerk. Admins have ban-hammers, and we're not afraid to use them.

Where should I start?

If you're just reading, start at the Main Page. If you're editing, and you don't already know where you want to start, here are a few suggestions:

Special:Categories

Many of the pages in this wiki are organized into so-called categories. A page can have more than one category. There is a special category called [[Category:unfinished] |unfinsihed]] for pages which are known to be incomplete.

You can add a page to a category simply by putting a link to the category on the page like so: [[Category:Help]]

Special pages

Special pages are another place to look for editing opportunities. Orphan pages and broken redirects need to be fixed, among other things.

I found a mistake!

Awesome! Now you get to log in and fix it.

If you don't feel comfortable fixing it yourself for some reason, then you can edit the talk page, by clicking the confusingly-labeled 'Discussion' tab at the top left of the page, just to the right of the Free Geek Seattle logo. Tell about the problem and what you think should be done to fix it.

Once you've done that, consider bringing the issue to someone's attention by talking it up on IRC or posting to the mailing list.

Editing advice

Discuss proposed (big) changes - not individual edits, but large-scale structural or vision changes- either here, on IRC, or on a special list to be created if necessary.
Use the Talk: pages, accessible on the tab labeled "Discussion" at the upper-left corner of the relevant wiki page. This is a good place to make note of proposed changes before you make them, or to talk about the larger context of a series of smaller edits you're making, or to explain why you've changed something that might be contentious.
Don't make monster edits. Adding a big block of text is fine, but committing a bunch of additions, deletions and other changes all in one edit is bad, because it makes difficulty in un-doing things. If you make a monster edit and then want to roll back _part_ of it, you then have to do it by hand- and the next item becomes impossible.
Use the history. If you are on fire to re-do something large and complex (see item 5) but you don't have time to leave the page in a good state, you can commit what changes you have time for and then roll the page back to the state in which you found it. Then, when you have time, you can merge your changes back in and continue.
If you're working on a large and complex page, and you didn't write it yourself, keep in mind that it represents the effort of other people. Don't chop things up willy-nilly, and use the "Summary:" field on the Edit page to explain why you made each change. Even if no one else actively works on the page, these blurbs will help you to remember what you did and understand why you did it. Don't assume that you'll be able to remember in two years why you made today's commits.

Maintenance info

System Log

2013-09-14

--Mfoster (talk) 09:46, 14 September 2013 (PDT)

I installed the Widgets extension along with these two widgets:

2013-07-20

Discovered the logo wasn't appearing. Found in the old folder and copied over like so...

mdf@dynamo:/var/www/servers/freegeekseattle.org/wiki$ rsync -av \
../mediawiki-1.20.2/skins/common/images/customLogo.gif  skins/common/images/

2013-06-28

Mfoster (talk) 20:45, 28 June 2013 (PDT)

Just upgraded mediawiki from 1.20.2 -> 1.20.6

Here is the transcript for future upgrades. Literally takes just 1-2 minutes when it goes well.

 394  cd /var/www/servers/freegeekseattle.org/
 ...
 402  tar xzvf /tmp/mediawiki-1.20.6.tar.gz
 403  rm wiki
 404  ln -s mediawiki-1.20.6 wiki
 405  cd mediawiki-1.20.2/
 406  cp LocalSettings.php ../wiki/
 407  cp -a images  ../wiki/
 408  cp -a extensions ../wiki/
 409  cd ../wiki
 ...
 411  cd maintenance/
 412  php update.php

@@ Line 39: / Line 39: @@
 Once you've done that, consider bringing the issue to someone's attention by talking it up on [[IRC]] or posting to the [[Main Page| mailing list]].
+=Editing advice=
+# Discuss proposed (big) changes - not individual edits, but large-scale structural or vision changes- either here, on IRC, or on a special list to be created if necessary.
+# Use the Talk: pages, accessible on the tab labeled "Discussion" at the upper-left corner of the relevant wiki page. This is a good place to make note of proposed changes before you make them, or to talk about the larger context of a series of smaller edits you're making, or to explain why you've changed something that might be contentious.
+# Don't make monster edits. Adding a big block of text is fine, but committing a bunch of additions, deletions and other changes all in one edit is bad, because it makes difficulty in un-doing things. If you make a monster edit and then want to roll back _part_ of it, you then have to do it by hand- and the next item becomes impossible.
+# Use the history. If you are on fire to re-do something large and complex (see item 5) but you don't have time to leave the page in a good state, you can commit what changes you have time for and then roll the page back to the state in which you found it. Then, when you have time, you can merge your changes back in and continue.
+# If you're working on a large and complex page, and you didn't write it yourself, keep in mind that it represents the effort of other people. Don't chop things up willy-nilly, and use the "Summary:" field on the Edit page to explain why you made each change. Even if no one else actively works on the page, these blurbs will help you to remember what you did and understand why you did it. Don't assume that you'll be able to remember in two years why you made today's commits.
 =Maintenance info=