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EGI wiki - how to... use it


This document will provide some rules how to use EGI wiki to keep the space clean, searchable and easy to use.

Before you create a page, please read and understand all of the Rules below.

If you don't, a big stinky monster will come and eat you right on the spot!

Many good EGI editors were not careful and ended their lives this way. ;)


Main principles

In this section you will find a list of principles which you should follow:

Pages hierarchy should be set by using categories
More information about the category structure for operations can be found in Section Page categorization
Page name and URL should be meaningful and as short as possible
The rules how to create a good URL/Wiki page name can be found in Section Page naming
Lead users through your pages by using page content and toolbars
If you want to show to the user what kind of information can be found in your pages please consider to use toolbars or/and index page which will contain all necessary information. How to use toolbars see Section Page structure
Keep wiki space clean and up to date
If you don’t need any more your wiki page or create one with typo please let wiki administrator know so it could be deleted. Try also to keep all your pages up to date – data and links. More information how to do that in Section Wiki space cleaning
Take a look at Wikipedia
EGI wiki is a wiki, not a general page. So to get the best of it we should use it as a wiki. Take a look at Wikipedia where everything is simple, properly categorized and searchable. See http://wikipedia.org
Read rules again ;)


Page naming

Before you decide to Page name please take into account two important things:

  • The name should be meaningful and as short as possible. Thanks to that:
    • You will get a nice URL because URL of the wiki page is associated to the Page name.
    • Your page will be easy searchable through wiki search engine
  • Do not use combining characters other than “_” or namespaces. Otherwise your page will not be easy searchable in wiki search engine.


Example:

There is a page https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Grid_operations_oversight/ROD which is designed for ROD teams. But if you try to search by “ROD” the wiki will not find it.

Why?

Because the key words are: "Grid", "operations" and "oversight/ROD". There is no "ROD" word in this title!


The same situation is with other characters like “:”, “/”, “-” etc.

Gluing words is also not an option. For example: http://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/GridoperationsoversightROD The wiki search engine cannot separate words in a string of characters.


Let’s do that properly:

The ROD page should be: https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Regional_Operator_on_Duty it will gives us a page with the title “Regional Operator on Duty” … and if the acronym ROD is widely used then we can create another page https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/ROD with a redirection to https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Regional_Operator_on_Duty


Last but not least:

  • I know that using paths like http://egi.eu/wiki/Operations/Documentation/Procedures is tempting and looks for us familiar (especially for UNIX users ;) ) but this is not how wiki should be used.
    • Please remember that "/" does not add any meaning. E.g. while organizing a website, a / indicates that a page is within a folder. In wiki names, a “/” is just a “/” (an extra character very likely to confuse the search engine
  • Namespaces e.g.http://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/CSIRT:Documentation creates “an intranet space” on the wiki and are not searchable. It should be only used for internal materials if you don’t want others to find them. But remember that wiki is a public space so think twice if you want to use public wiki for private materials.
  • Wiki is case-sensitive!

Page categorization

Now we have nice page for our ROD teams called: https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Regional_Operator_on_Duty


We would like to somehow mark it as a part of Grid operations oversight activity. To do that we should:

  • use category “Grid Oversight”


The structure of categories can be found here: https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Category:All_categories

You can associate the page with multiple categories but choose the category that:

  • is the lowest in the hierarchy
  • fits best your page content
  • is not in the same root with other category already assigned to your page
  • use existing categories or if you need new one remember to add it to a category tree


If you want to create a hierarchy of your web pages, use categories not URLs!


Last but not least:

  • Do not create pages without category.
  • If you create an acronym page with redirection to other page, please add it only to acronym category [[Category:Acronym]]
  • Put category assignment on the top of your page – it will be easier to find it and change if needed
  • Do not put categories into the templates – it will make very hard to change the category of one page using the template

Category tree

You can also create your own category. To do that you should first find parent category (PARENT_CATEGORY) where you add the new one. Then create a page https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Category:MY_CATEGORY by changing “MY_CATEGORY” into word you’ve chosen and add into page content [[Category:PARENT_CATEGORY]] statement. New category will appear in the category tree.

Page structure

The page you want to provide should be:

  1. Easy to read for users. 
    • Add table of contents [TOC]
    • Add table of contents on the right side {{TOC_right}}
    • Remove table of contents __NOTOC__
    • Use toolbars see Section Toolbars
    • Use categories, see Section Page categorization
    • Use formatting, see Editing tips
    • Start with a short introduction
    • Keep pages simple
    • Doublecheck links in your article.
    • If you want to link to file, put an information that link will open a file eg.: Deliverable (pdf)
  2. Easy to maintain
    • Put all configuration settings (see above list) on the top of the page
    • If you want to put an internal link to wiki page eg. wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Page_name, use wiki semantics [[Page name]]. In such way the wiki will know that there is a link between those pages and in case of removal it will be easy to find linking pages.
    • Do not use HTML tags, use MediaWiki markup for any formating

Toolbars

Toolbar is another great way to show the content and lead users through your wiki space. To create a toolbar for your wiki space you need to create a template and include it on the top of your pages.


Examples:



Wiki space cleaning

If you want to change the name of your page:


If you want to remove a page:

Help

If you need any help with EGI wiki, please contact operational-documentation@mailman.egi.eu

Editing tips

Other quick tips:

  • Paragraph
Text
paragraf
;Text
:paragraf


  • Line

----
  • Redirect
#REDIRECT[[pagetitle]]
  • nice table
col1 col2 col3
text text text

{| class="wikitable"
! col1 
! col2 
! col3
|-
| text
| text
| text
|}

  • nice sortable table
col1 col2 col3
text text text

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! col1 
! col2 
! col3
|-
| text
| text
| text
|}


  • link to category
[[:Category:Opertations]]
  • Index/Main page in the category
[[Category:Media|*]]
  • templates parameters

recall in wikipage

{{template| par1=value|par2=value2}}

in the template

{{{par1}}}
{{{par1|default_value}}}
  • toc right
{{TOC_right}} 
  • definitions
;defition
:text
:text




Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.

More General MediaWiki Information