Harry Potter Wiki:Help

Registration and logging in
You can read and edit pages without creating an account or logging in. To create an account (which is free), just click the "create an account or log in" link at the top right corner of any page. You only need a single login for all Wikia.

Creating an account is the only way to clearly attribute your work. Without a username, edits you make on any Wikia will be attributed to the numerical IP address of your computer instead. Logging in therefore also increases your privacy, because your IP address will be hidden once you are logged in.

There are many other benefits, such as user preferences, the ability to move pages, and a watchlist to keep an eye on selected pages. See "Why create an account?" on Wikipedia for some more arguments.

Policies
Do not submit copyrighted material without permission. The best content is usually written from either personal knowledge or through the synthesis of research from multiple sources. For a more detailed discussion of copyrights, see Wikia copyrights.

Wikia encourages an atmosphere of friendliness and openness. Members of the community are expected to behave in a generally civil manner. You should always assume good faith on the part of other editors.

See Wikia policies and the terms of use for more information.

Editing
Like all wikis, you can edit any non-protected page. Your changes will be visible immediately. Just click the "edit" link that appears at the top of every page.

Explain your edit in the "Summary" box between the edit window and the save and preview buttons. eg: "typo" or "added info on xyz".

Use the "Show preview" button to check your edit and get the formatting right before saving. Remember to save your preview before moving on.

If you are logged in, you can mark an edit as minor by checking the This is a minor edit box to let people know your edit is not something substantive.

To try editing, open a new window and go to the Sandbox (which is an editing test area), and then click the "edit" link. Add something and click save.

Formatting
Most text formatting is usually done with wiki markup, so you don't have to learn HTML.

Bold and italics
Bold and italics are added by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):


 *  italics  is rendered as italics. (2 apostrophes on either side)
 *  bold  is rendered as bold. (3 apostrophes on either side)
 *  bolded italics  is rendered as bolded italics. (2 + 3 = 5 apostrophes on either side)

Headings and subheadings
Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article. If you can see two or more distinct topics being discussed, you can break up your article by inserting a heading for each section.

Headings can be created like this:
 *  ==Top level heading==  (2 equals signs)
 *  ===Subheading===  (3 equals signs)
 *  ====Another level down====  (4 equals signs)
 *  =====Another level down=====  (5 equals signs)

If an article has at least three headings, a table of contents (TOC) will be automatically generated. Try creating some headings in the sandbox and see the effect on the TOC.

Indenting
To indent text, place a colon (:) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline (pressing Enter or Return) marks the end of the indented paragraph.

For example:

This is aligned all the way to the left.</tt>
 *  : This is indented slightly.</tt>
 *  :: This is indented more.</tt>

is shown as:

This is aligned all the way to the left.
 * This is indented slightly.
 * This is indented more.

Bullet points
To insert a bullet, use an asterisk (*</tt>). Similar to indentation, more asterisks in front of a paragraph means more indentation.

A brief example:
 *  * First list item</tt>
 *  * Second list item</tt>
 *  ** Sub-list item under second</tt>
 *  * Isn't this fun?</tt>

Which is shown as:
 * First list item
 * Second list item
 * Sub-list item under second
 * Isn't this fun?

Numbered lists
You can also create numbered lists. For this, use the number sign or hash symbol (#</tt>). Using more #</tt>s will affect the level of indenting.

Example:
 *  # First item</tt>
 *  # Second item</tt>
 *  ## Sub-item under second item</tt>
 *  # Third item</tt>

Shows up as:
 * First item
 * Second item
 * Sub-item under second item
 * Third item

Dashes
As of MediaWiki 1.5, -- and - will be rendered as emdashes or endashes depending on the context.

Links
Links are important on wikis to help readers navigate your site.

Internal links
You can extensively cross-reference wiki pages using internal links. You can add links to existing titles, and also to titles you think ought to exist in future.

To make a link to another page on the same wiki, just put the title in double square brackets.

For example, if you want to make a link to, say, the Wikia page, it would be:
 *  Wikia </tt>

If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can add an alternative name by adding after the pipe "|" divider (SHIFT + BACKSLASH on English-layout and other keyboards).

For example, if you wanted to make a link to Leland Chapman, but wanted it to say "Bounty Hunter" you would write it as such:
 * View the Bounty Hunter ...</tt>

It would appear as:
 * View the Bounty Hunter...

When you want to use the plural of an article title (or add any other suffix) for your link, you can add the extra letters directly outside the double square brackets.

For example, you would write:


 * <tt>Leland is a Bounty Hunter. .</tt>

It would appear as:


 * Leland is a Bounty Hunter.

Interlanguage links
Some Wikia are available in multiple languages. To add a link in the sidebar from an article on the English Wikimac to the German version of the same article, type:
 * <tt> iPod </tt>

"De" is the language code for German. The link will appear in the sidebar as "Deutsch" and link to The German WikiMac iPod article. This only works on wikis with multiple languages on different sites.

Interwiki links
To link to another Wikia, you can use its title followed by a colon and the article name, instead of using the full URL.

For example, the creatures wiki home page is at Creatures:Main Page, which can be typed as
 * Creatures:Main Page
 * rather than as http://creatures.wikicities.com/wiki/Main_Page

This style of link works for any wiki in the interwiki map, not just for Wikia. See Help:Interwiki link.

Redirects
To redirect automatically from one page to another, type #REDIRECT and then put in brackets the name of the page to be redirected to.

For example, you could redirect from "Cats" to "Cat". That way, anyone typing either version in the search box will automatically go to "Cat".

Wiki variables and templates
Use to see the current Wikia. For instance,   on this site prints out as .

You can also create your own templates. After you create the page Template:XXX, using the command  will include that content in your current page. So, if you have something that needs to be included on many other pages, you might want to use a template.

Discussion pages
Discussion or "talk" pages are for communicating with other Wikicitizens.

To discuss any page, go to that page and then click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Add a new comment at the end, or below the comment you are replying to.

Sign your comments by typing <tt> ~ </tt> to insert your username and a timestamp.

Use indenting to format your discussion. Standard practice is to indent your reply one more level deep than the person you are replying to.

Experiment by editing the talk page of the sandbox.

User talk pages
Everyone has a user talk page, on which other people can leave public messages. If someone has left you a message, you will see a note saying "You have new messages", with a link to your user talk page.

You can reply on the user talk page of the person you're replying to or on your own talk page beneath the original message. If you reply on their talk page, they will receive notification of it.