New Character Page Tutorial - Navy

Introduction

All new recruits are required to create and maintain a wiki page profiling their primary player-character. This tutorial will cover the basics of that process, but please note that before you may create/edit pages on the Vast Empire's wiki, you must first register an account.

Creating a new page

The first thing you'll need to know is how to create a new page. This may be accomplished in three easy steps:

• First, type your character's full name (or, alternatively, only his/her callsign) into the wiki's search bar.
• Second, press the Enter key. The wiki will search for an existing page with that title, and will not find one.
• Third, when confronted with the 'Search Results' page, click on the red link in the middle of the sentence 'Create the page "your character's name (or callsign)" on this wiki!'.

By clinking that red link, you create a blank page with your character's name (or callsign, if you typed that into the search bar) as its title. This newly-created page will hold all of you character's information and stats, which you are responsible for keeping up-to-date during your time in the VE.

Linking your new page with categories

Before you do anything else, you should link your page to the archive that lists all of the other character pages. This too is relatively simple:

• Put the following at the bottom of your wiki page: [[Category:NavyMembers]] [[Category:Your Current Rank]]
• Remember to replace “Your Current Rank” with the actual data, and update it as necessary. You begin your Navy career as a Crewman.

The first bit of code links your page to the Navy Members list. The second bit links it to the Naval rank board (so change it when you get a promotion, which will first happen immediately upon graduation from training). These two links should remain at the very bottom of your Wiki page.

Saving your work

Now's a good time to save your work. This too is simply done, by clicking the Save page button under the editing window. The page will refresh with all of your changes. To continue working on your page, click the edit tab at the top to return to the editing window.

A request: please do not make slight edits, by clicking the Save page button, then changing a little more on the page and saving again, then fixing a typo, and clicking-to-save yet again, etc. Making multiple edits to one page in a row makes things untidy for the wiki moderators. Instead, avail yourself of two of the other features just below the editing window: click the "This is a minor edit" box before you save when you are only making a minor edit, and use the Show preview button to check how your coding looks before saving it. The Show preview button will show you what the current code will look like when it is saved, without creating a save log for the moderators to sort through, and you can scroll down the previewed page to the still-active editing window, to continue working. Only use the Save page button when you are really ready to save your work.

Copy/Paste - the easiest way to code

Often, people who are new to wiki coding find the symbols and patterns you need to use obscure, and... unforgiving of mistakes. The easiest way to get a page up (and to start learning the basics of wiki coding, if only by osmosis), therefore, is to copy the code from a page with features you like the look of, paste that code into your page, and change the text content without touching the formatting code.

So, to help you get your Character Page up and running, the Academy has developed the Navy New Recruit Copy/Paste Profile, an example of a basic character page with no information filled in yet. Open this example wiki page in a new window or tab, and click the page's edit tab. Select all of the Copy/Paste Profile's example code, and copy it. Then, paste the code into your newly-created page, above the category tags at the bottom. MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT OVERWRITE THE EXAMPLE, TEMPLATE PAGE! Then, it's a simple matter of filling in the various fields with information specific to your character, on your character's page (NOT ON THE TEMPLATE PAGE!).

This will give you a functional-if-basic wiki page for your character.

Coding symbols

If you want to start personalizing your page beyond the basic template, you'll need to learn and use the various symbols of wiki syntax. This is encouraged, but it is also beyond the scope of this tutorial. Search engines are a good place to start teaching yourself about wiki coding, but you can also ask any Navy member any specific questions you may have.

This link will take you back to Chapter 1 of both training Schools (whether you're in enrolled in Flight School to become a pilot or Command school to become a capital ship officer): Character Development.