User:Rthiggins/MediaWikiTraining

For a more granular look at what I've been practicing, please head over to sandbox (little s), which is less formal than the official Sandbox (big S) developed as part of the training program.

Questions

Pending questions

• Is there a difference between the <del> and <strike> tags, either in their actual effects or in the way they're used?
• What is the purpose (if any) of all the additional attributes defined in the <pre> tag on the intermedate training page? I couldn't discern any differences between how it displays on the training page vs my experimental page where I just used <pre> without attributes.

Answered questions

How does one define the image description attribute?

1. Any text not recognized as an attribute value (e.g. 960px, baseline, thumb, etc) is interpreted as description text. If there is more than one unparsable (is that the right term?) string, the one that appears last will be used as the description.

2. For example, [[Filename:Derek Zoolander.png|500px|Hansel|baseline|So hot right now]] would use "So hot right now" as the descriptive text, ignoring Hansel.

3. In non-thumbnail images, the descriptive text shows up when mousing over the image. For images set as thumbnails, the description is displayed with the image as a caption.

MediaWiki training tracker

Beginner exercise

Well, it's time to practice everything you've learned here. Hopefully you haven't created your user page and user talk pages yet. If you have, you can still continue with this exercise, though skip the creation step listed at the beginning.

1. Create your user profile and user talk pages by clicking the red links as mentioned in User pages and functions. Add an introductory line of text to each page and save them.

2. Next, add a subpage to your user page (as described in How to create a page) called Sandbox. Do this by first adding an internal link to your user page, saving it, and then clicking the associated red link that appears. Add an introductory line of text to the Sandbox subpage and save it. (Hint: if you still need help, use User:Shawndouglas as a guide.)

3. It's time to play in your sandbox! Let's add two paragraphs about your favorite subject in grade school or university. You need to include the following elements in this text:

• at least one main header
• at least one subheader
• an example of bold text
• an example of italicized text
• your choice of either a bulleted or numbered list
• one definition list
• at least two internal links (the page Special:AllPages may come in handy)
• at least two external links, with link text
• proper spacing

4. Go to your User talk: page and choose to watch it.

5. Go to your user preferences and make all of the suggested changes listed in the Preferences section, including selecting the "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed" option.

6. Go to User talk:Shawndouglas, select "edit", add a new header, and leave a comment stating you've completed the beginner exercise. Be sure to sign your comment!

Intermediate exercise

1. Open your sandbox for editing. Read over your previously written material concerning your favorite subject in grade school or university. We're going to modify this content a bit.

2. After re-reading your content, think of what additional words, numbers, facts, multimedia, etc. you could add to your topic that would utilize what you learned from this training document. You may have to write a new paragraph, rearrange content, etc. See item three for the specifics of what you should be adding.

3. Integrate the following items into your existing content, modifying the text and its organization as needed:

• at least two examples of intermediate non-blockquote text formatting described on this page
• at least one blockquote of text; preferably use a quote from a book, journal, or web page with content relevant to your topic (use Google Books, Google Scholar, etc. if you need help)
• at least one relevant to semi-relevant image from Wikimedia Commons (WC); if you can't find such an image, choose the closest thing you can find from there
• a table with at least a header row, two normal rows, and three normal columns; use the class "wikitable" and at least one example of colspan= or rowspan=
• (optional) a WC sound or video file if applicable to your topic

4. Save your work. Also, note the exact source of the quote you pulled for this exercise. You're going to need that information for the advanced training exercise.

5. Go to User talk:Shawndouglas, select "edit", and under your original header you started from the beginner exercise leave a comment stating you've completed the intermediate exercise. Be sure to sign your comment!

1. Open your sandbox for editing. Read over your previously written material concerning your favorite subject in grade school or university. Again, we're going to supplement this material with what we've learned in this training session.

2. After re-reading your content, think of how you can 1. use "Template:Ombox" effectively in your topic content and 2. apply citations to the text you've written. If your text is lacking in facts, add some information that would require a citation or two.

3. Integrate the following items into your existing content, modifying the text and its organization as needed:

• one {{ombox}} template, including the following parameters: type, image, style, and text
• a section called "External links" (using a header) at the bottom, and under that a bulleted list of at least two external web links relating to your content (refer to the beginner training if you don't remember how to do this)
• a "References" section at the bottom of the page (after "External links")
• at least three unique citations using proper citation templates

4. Remember that quote you added to your text in the intermediate training? You were asked to note the exact source of the quote. Well, now is the time to apply the correct citation template to that quote and populate it with the details of the source. Place the citation at the end of the quote, complete with a unique "ref name".

5. Add your sandbox page to the category "User sandbox". Save your work

6. Go to User talk:Shawndouglas, select "edit", and under your original header you started from the beginner exercise leave a comment stating you've completed the advanced exercise. Be sure to sign your comment!