WikiIslam:Source Editing: Difference between revisions

Formatting a WikiIslam article differs from when writing on a standard word processor. Wikis use text codes to create particular elements of the page (e.g., headings). This markup language is known as wikitext (or wiki-markup) and is designed for ease of editing.

Font

Bolding and italicizing are done by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes ('):

Bold emphasis should only be used within quotation boxes or when the name of an article's subject in an encyclopedic page is first mentioned. In all other cases, italics should be used when emphasis is needed (this should be used sparingly and only when absolutely needed). Underlining and ALLCAPS should be avoided.

Sections

Headings and subheadings are a way to improve the organization of an article. If there are two or more distinct topics being discussed, the article should be made more readable by inserting a heading for each topic — that is making each into its own section. This can go up to subsubsubsubheadings.

If an article has at least four headings, a table of contents will automatically be generated. Headings do not form a part of the main text. They only indicate the general topic of that particular section, and should not contain information not found within its main text. So when choosing titles for headings and subheading, questions or long sentences should be avoided.

Lists

Quotations

When quoting a source, the Quotation template should be used. The first parameter is the reference for the text being quoted (this parameters can be left empty if references are being cited via ref tags). The second parameter is where the actual quotation is placed.

There are many templates available for Islamic sources (e.g. Qur'an, Bukhari, Muslim, Dawud, Malik's Muwatta, Tirmidhi, Nasai, Majah and Tabari). To quote an Islamic text, the relevant template for referencing that particular text must be placed within the first parameter of the Quotation template.

For quoting general sources, a modified version of the Cite Web template is used. The modified Cite Web template must be placed within the first parameter of the Quotation template.

In-line Citations

Single Citation

An example of a reference being made on a page:

Here is what has to be typed:

This is how to provide inline citations.<ref>This is the reference text. [http://example.com/ Links can also be provided]</ref>

At the end of an article, there should be a "References" heading and below that:

{{reflist}}

The wiki will then automatically do everything else to produce the reference. To edit the reference section produced at the bottom, edit the <ref> tags.

Multiple Citations

For multiple citations of the same reference or footnote:

<ref name="name here">details of the citation</ref>

Thereafter, the same footnote may be used multiple times by adding:

<ref name="name here"></ref>

Multi-Columned References

For ease of reading, when a page includes many citations, the standard {{reflist}} template should be replaced by {{Reflist|30em}} (for 10+ citations).

Links

Internal Links

Internal link can be added by enclosing the name of the target page in double square brackets ([[]]). If the page exists, it is displayed in blue, if it does not, it is displayed in red. Leaving red links should always be avoided. Piped links can be used when the displayed text is required to be different to the page title of the actual target page ([[page title|desired text]]). This is often required because WikiIslam uses title-case for capitalization of headings.

External Links

Most articles also include links to supplementary external web content (i.e. an "External Links" section). These sections should always be placed below the "See Also" section and above the "References" section. Links should be kept to a minimum (about two) and should be beneficial to the page in some way. They should not be provided just for the sake of providing them. They should include additional information that is not available or out of the scope of WikiIslam. External links should always be archived and can be cited using the External link template.

See Also

• Additional help with formatting and other related issues can be found at Help:Contents, WikiIslam:Standardization, WikiIslam:Citing Sources and WikiIslam:Article Style and Content Guide.