Help:Contents

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Spot a mistake, omission, broken link, other issue? Please just create an account and fix it - it's easy!


Making a small change is simple: once logged-in, click the Edit button at the top of a page or next to a section title, make the appropriate change to the text, add a brief summary to explain why the edit was needed, and finish by clicking the Save changes button - done!

There is a quick-start guide for what to do when noticing an error on the wiki‎. The contributor's guide and the wiki editing guidelines provide advice on how to make quality edits.

For the occasional quick fix, don't worry too much about formatting or style though, the important thing is to fix errors or add missing info to the wiki.

If having any trouble getting started, there should be people willing to help on IRC, in the #gentoo-wiki (webchat) channel (just be patient, replies can take a very long time).

Note that some articles are protected from public edits, such as the handbook and project pages. Issues on these pages can still be reported though.

For anyone willing to help the Gentoo community out a little more than with the occasional quick fix, please do check out the contributor's guide and the wiki editing guidelines to learn how to make quality edits. The help improve Gentoo by getting involved with documentation! page lists many of the ways wiki content can be improved.

The wiki help pages provide useful information about using the Gentoo wiki (as opposed to documentation for Gentoo itself, which the Wiki contains).

These pages contain information for readers (click here if just browsing the wiki), though the bulk of the content is for contributors, with explanations of how to add and change content correctly.

The Gentoo project needs help from its users - see the help improve Gentoo by getting involved with documentation! page about what anyone can do to help out. Making a useful change can often take just a few clicks!

If noticing an issue on any page, see the what to do when noticing an error on the wiki‎. Making quick fixes to the wiki is easy, even for a newcomer!

The contributor's guide is invaluable for getting stared editing wiki pages, for anything more than a simple correction. It explains wiki fundamentals, goals and general workings - all the basic information to start editing articles.

Please read the official Gentoo wiki guidelines before making anything more than the most basic changes or fixes. The guidelines explain how to properly write and lay out pages, to create well-formed articles, while maintaining a coherent style across the wiki.

The Wiki project page has more information about how the Wiki is run. See also the Gentoo wiki FAQ, and the about Gentoo wiki page.

Gentoo developers can check out Developer Central for help on procedures involved in working as a Gentoo dev.

Tip
For people looking for help using Gentoo Linux, the main Gentoo Wiki page and the Handbook are the principal online sources for Gentoo documentation. This "help pages" section is only about displaying and editing the documentation, not about actually using the documentation contents.
See also
For those looking for help from the community for a particular issue, after having checked all the documentation, see the support page.
Important
All contributions must comply with the copyright policy and with the AI policy. Be sure to understand the contribution requirements, and please follow the code of conduct when engaging in all wiki activity.

The wiki project aims to maintain a respectful, constructive environment - please be polite and considerate of other users. All wiki edits should be made in the spirit of moving the project towards the common goals. Documentation and discourse should be objective and rooted in fact. The project is consensus-based - please listen to the admins, devs, and other editors.

Reading and browsing the wiki

Reading the Gentoo wiki is much like browsing most other websites. Wiki accounts are only required to fix or flag‎ any errors a casual reader might notice, or to contribute or improve content.

The following articles are available to help readers browse the wiki:

Detailed public information is available about the wiki, and wiki editing activity (this will usually be of more interest to editors than to casual readers):

Wiki accounts

To edit pages or communicate with wiki editors, users will need a wiki account.

Accounts provide a main user page which is conventionally used as a public profile page, to provide personal information that may be of interest to other wiki users.

To send messages publicly to other users, accounts include user talk pages.

Subpages in each account's user namespace can be used as a staging area for wiki work, to create draft articles, to keep notes, etc.

Each account has a preferences page for personalizing how the site is shown and behaves.

Accounts allow monitoring for changes to select articles by adding them to a watchlist.

See also
See the wiki project page for information about deleting, renaming accounts, changing email address, etc.

To resume, here are the help pages relevant for using a wiki account:

Editing

As explained at the top of this article, helping out on the wiki is easy - these are the main articles for starting to contribute:

Check out the wiki project page for information about how the wiki project is organized, contact info, roadmap, information on using the wiki, renaming or deleting accounts, etc.

Note that some pages are protected, and don't allow all users to change them directly (see that link for information about what to do if changes need to be made to those pages).

Others in the community can be thanked for their contributions via the "Thank" link, found on an article's Revision history page (click More→History, then find the "Thank" link next to the specific revision).

Note
Please come join us on IRC on the #gentoo-wiki (webchat) channel, if looking to edit the wiki! (The web chat should work well for anyone not wanting to set up an IRC client.) This is where the contributors come to chat about the wiki and what is currently happening. Questions, comments, or suggestions welcome! The channel can be quiet sometimes, but everyone will try to answer any questions the best they can!
Tip
For experiments and to try things out, the sandbox page may be used.

Basic editing and formatting

These pages explain how to create and format content on the wiki:

Though these pages provide basic information on how to create content, the next section has important information for maintaining quality and consistency across the wiki.

How to correctly format and organize content

Please follow advice in the following articles as a first step to maintaining content quality and organization (after the contributor's guide‎ and guidelines‎ of course):

  • Blueprints - please use these examples as guides for article layout
  • Starting a new page - how to go about creating a new page for the wiki
  • Categories - please use categories to logically organize articles

Where to store pages on the wiki

Articles about where to store pages on the wiki:

  • Subpages - how to hierarchically organize pages
  • Namespaces - about the different wiki "sections" called namespaces
  • Transclusion - including contents from one page to another

Maintaining page organization:

Images and files

Uploading and using images and files:

  • Images - how to integrate images into articles
  • Managing files - how to upload and manage files and images

Templates

Templates help layout standard or repetitive elements. See the help page on Templates about what templates are and how to use them on the wiki.

The Template sandbox and test cases page provides information on the various subsidiary pages that must be created to support any new template.

List of templates on the wiki: All templates.

Template categories:

Advanced editing topics

These topics will more rarely be required for most editors:

  • External searches - linking to search engine queries
  • Magic words - tags associated with a return value or function
  • Semantic MediaWiki - storing or querying information attached to wiki pages
  • Bots - about programs to perform automatic actions on the wiki
  • Patrolled edits - marking edits as reviewed, not really used on this wiki

Discussing wiki content and edits and asking for help

Participants are asked to abide by the rules in the Code of Conduct.

Talk pages are an important tool to communicate with other users, suggest corrections, or additions to wiki articles.

Please read about signatures before writing in talk pages.

Important
Remember that these pages are for discussing wiki content, management, editing, and related subjects only. In case of issues using Gentoo, see the support page.

User talk pages can be used to communicate directly with other wiki users.

For more dynamic communication, come join the #gentoo-wiki (webchat) IRC channel. Be aware that the channel can be slow sometimes though - participants are from around the world so people are in different time-zones.

Translating wiki articles

See the Help:Translating page on how to request a translator account and how to properly translate wiki articles.

The process is slightly different from editing pages, as it uses the MediaWiki Translate extension.

See also

External resources

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