Building a wiki is a lot like building a Minecraft world. First, stake out some some territory. Wiki “territory” can come in the form of both unexplored land, such as pages that don't exist yet, or run-down, fixer-upper pages that could use some renovation. Once you find yourself some white space, mine it out with your keyboard and build something there. If you see a block out of place, perhaps someone made a typo. Don't bother asking; just fix it!

This page explains wiki editing in a nutshell. If you think nutshells are hard, just ask the capuchin monkeys.

Anything. You can even edit the start page, or this document, but that is not always the wisest idea. The most appropriate content is automatically placed on the start page, and this document needs to reflect how the wiki actually works. In Minecraft, it is impolite to add random rooms to someone else's home. A similar etiquette applies here on the wiki—it is poor form to rearrange someone's user page on a whim. Speaking of user pages, now may be a good time to create one. Go ahead, tell us about yourself and your creations—after all, you're probably the best person for the job.

Everything you write here will be indexed by Google and saved for all eternity. As such, we ask that you obey the following two guidelines in all of your posts:

1. Refer to other players by their minecraft username. Do not use real names, aliases from other services, or any other personally-identifiable information.
2. Don't post anything you, or your fellow players, don't want the world to know.

It is possible to protect a page so that only logged-in users can view it. To protect a page, start its name with private:. The colon is important. The mumble server page is one such protected page. Please use this feature sparingly.

Choose a name for your page. If it is your user page, it should be your username. If it's about a location, it should be the name of the location. Navigate to that page and hit the Edit button. All pages should begin with a title. The title should be similar, or identical to, the name of the page. The wiki software doesn't understand, on its own, what is and is not a title—it is functionally illiterate, after all. The software needs your help to determine what part of the document is what, and the mechanism by which this is accomplished is wiki syntax. To give your page a title, type something like

====== Wiki Conventions ======

at the start of your page. The equals signs are wiki syntax that tell the wiki software that the enclosed text is a title. Wiki syntax can do all sorts of really cool things, and if you haven't followed the obvious link to wiki syntax page and skimmed it by now, you should probably take a few minutes to do so.

The big toolbar above the page edit text box can help you with the syntax, if you can't remember. If you see something cool-looking on another page that you want to include on one of yours, just edit the page, copy the syntax, and paste it into yours.

Documents should have lots of links. If you reference another player or page in your document, the reference should probably be a link. You can even reference pages that don't exist yet—the link will work if someone writes it up later. Ideally, it should be possible to go from the start page to any page on the wiki in less than three clicks. Feel free to link to things on other websites, such as the Minecraft wiki, but remember that nothing is forever—and hyperlinks are particularly short-lived.

Sometimes it is appropriate to redirect one page to another. The page on the DTA simply redirects to the Dwarven Transit Authority, as “DTA” is really just an abbreviation. To make a page redirect automatically, make the body text

#REDIRECT where_the_page_should_point_to

More tips on using links:

• Include links to pages that don't exist yet—this will encourage someone to create them.
• Create pages that are linked to but don't exist yet. An orange link is an invitation.
• Avoid changing page names and section titles, as others may link to them.
• If you and another contributor disagree on what the name of a page should be—i.e., your links to it have different names—just put in a redirect and be done with it.

Your document should end with a list of descriptive tags which help the wiki software categorize the page. What does your page describe? Is it a location in the world or merely an abstract concept, such as a wish-list? To insert a tag, use the following syntax:

{{tag>some tags here}}

where each tag is separated by a space. Tag names may not have spaces in them. You might want to consider tagging pages about your locations with your username—that way, you can find them later. All tags are namespaced with colons. A leading colon uses the root namespace.

Certain tags are magical—they will make the wiki software link to your page automatically. These magical tags include:

• :location: Anything which describes a point, area, or region in the world should be tagged as a location. There are several specific types of location tags. These tags should be included in addition to the location tag.
  • :home: Any permanently-inhabited space, such as the one in which your character resides. You can have more than one home. Any page with this tag will be listed on the start page.
  • :landmark: If you've spent five hours building a complicated model of something, and you want everyone to see it, include this tag. Landmarks are also listed on the start page.
  • :technology: Machines can be art, too! It doesn't have to look good, but it does have to be useful. If you've built some technology at a specific location you want others to see and use, give it this tag.
• :player: Your user page should contain this tag. User pages are of supreme importance and are linked to, prominently, on the start page.

It is worth nothing that these magical tags all use the singular form—i.e., :player instead of :players.

There are other tags which are not magical right now, but if they become popular enough they will gain their own wiki page. These tags are:

• :info: Generic information about the world that is not location-specific.
• :blueprint: Plans, schematics, and designs.
• :region: An article describing a large area of the world.
• :your_tag: If you want to propose more standardized tags, include them here!

Tag magic is easy to learn—the incantation is relatively straightforward. Anyone can automatically generate a list of pages with one or more tags. If you've tagged a bunch of pages as :butterflies and you want to list all pages which are tagged :butterflies, just use

{{topic>:butterflies}}

and such a list will be inserted into your page. The syntax for the tagging engine is described on an external website and not on the main syntax page.

The content of the page is left largely to the discretion of the author, but here are a few suggestions.

• Use lots of images… but many snapshots of the same thing should go in a slide-show.
• Use a spell checker.
• Leave space to expand your pages in the future.
  • Make use of section headings and, if you're linking to a very long page, anchor links.
  • Consider using topic pages such as DTA Minecarts which redirect to a subsection of another page (in this case, Dwarven Transit Authority#Minecarts)
  • When pages get too long, split them.
• Pages which describe locations should…
  • include coordinates and directions
  • describe and link to what is nearby
  • link to the creator's user page
  • have the appropriate tags, including location and the name of the creator(s)
  • Medium-sized locations should be divided into subsections

“Pics or it didn't happen” is the battle cry of the modern internet warrior. Minecrafters have instant access to a high-quality digital camera, and there is no reason not to use it. Authors are encouraged to upload screenshots, maps, logos, and anything else they feel would enhance the quality of their pages. You can even include blueprints or schematic files of your creations in order to share them with the world. Videos should be hosted elsewhere, however, as the server has insufficient bandwidth to support them.

Multimedia can be difficult to organize or retrieve—the tagging engine doesn't work for media files—and careful organization is necessary.

A namespace in dokuwiki is like a folder on a file system. Namespaces are represented in dokuwiki with colons (“:”). The following namespaces are recommended for image files:

• avatar: Any Minecraft skin, user avatar, or line-art logo.
• blueprint: How-to instructions for a build. Please do not use screenshots to post blueprints; they usually look terrible.
• map: Maps, either actual or logical, of the world.
• screenshot: Any in-game screenshot (i.e., captured with F2)

Once again, namespaces use the singular form of the word. Feel free to create your own name-spaces and organize them. If you've got a bunch of cool screen shots of your treehouse, perhaps you should file them under screenshot:cool_treehouse. Organization is particularly crucial if you want to present multi-image slide shows.

The namespace screenshot:featured is magical, and anything you upload there will be placed in the Featured Screenshots slide show. The featured slide show is intended to exhibit the best things on the server, and “B-roll” images of digging needlessly-giant holes are probably best placed elsewhere.

To upload an image, click on the “Add Images” button in the toolbar. All files should have a descriptive name. Names such as “Sherwood_Forest_On_Fire.png” are far superior to names like “1970-01-01_00.00.00.png.” It is not possible to change the name, or namespace, of an image once it has been uploaded, so choose it carefully the first time. If you make a mistake, delete the unwanted file and upload it again.

Feel free to use images that other people have uploaded in your own pages.

The media manager can be used to insert an image into your current page. To keep loading times to a minimum, use only thumbnail-sized images (i.e., small or medium-sized) in your pages. The syntax page lists the built-in commands for including images, but several plugins are in use on this wiki that further improve image display.

To create a “boxed” image with an inset caption, wrap your image syntax in brackets (“[]”). For example,

[{{my_first_cake.png?120|... but I eated it. }}]

inserts an image on the left side of the page that is 120 pixels wide, in a box, with the text “… but I eated it” beneath it. Wiki markup may be included in the caption text. This command is ideal for including a single image, but multiple images require the use of the gallery plugin.

The gallery plugin can be used to view an entire namespace as a slide-show. It can also include just a single image or a wild-card image search. The media manager includes an option to “Add namespace as gallery,” which will insert a basic photo gallery of the selected namespace. Read the gallery syntax for the full list of features—there are lots of options. A good example of the syntax is included on the featured screenshots page:

{{gallery> screenshot:featured?&lightbox&3&showname&modsort&reverse }}

inserts a photo gallery of all photos in the screenshot:featured namespace. Three columns of images are included per row, sorted by upload date with the most recent first. When clicked, the image will pop up in a full-screen slide-show view that can be scrolled through with the arrow keys—this is the lightbox option.

It is also possible to insert just a single image using gallery. If multiple gallery invocations are given on the same page, you can scroll through all of the images in the popup lightbox view. Sadly, it is not possible to include captions using the gallery plugin.