Help:Rhowena's Q&A

A Q&A-style guide I made covering every question I could think of at the time of writing (If you have any that aren't answered here, tell me). In codes, I have underlined anything that is not transcribe literally. If you are looking for something specific, Ctrl+F is your friend.

Page Basics
First, make sure your spelling is correct (Galrick used to be called “Garlick”), then search for the title of the page you want to make in the sidebar if capitalization is debatable (every letter of a page name but the first is case-sensitive) or if someone might have misspelled the title as above. If you thus ascertained that the page does not already exist, enter the page title in the address bar (adventurequest.wikia.com/wiki/ Page_name ) or click “Create this page” if you did a search.
 * How do I make a new page?

Two tips for any other uber-page writers who may be reading this: 1. If you can’t finish it in one session, save your progress in Word or similar. This gives the added advantage of spell-check. 2. Headings make a long page a LOT easier to read. Compare this to this.

Above a page’s title is a row of buttons I hereby dub the “Edit bar” since the “Edit this page” button is farthest on the left and thus the first one you should see.
 * How do I edit an existing page?

On the far right side of the Edit bar are two tabs: “Article”/"Help page"/"User page" and “Discussion.” Click “Discussion” and start the page or click “Leave message” in the Edit bar if it is already started. Put ~ after your message to generate a signature so we know who is talking.
 * How do I comment on a page?

Use the “Move” button in the Edit bar. The old page name will become a redirect to the new one.
 * How do I change the name of a page?

A redirect is a page that automatically goes to another page.
 * What is a redirect?

When a page is moved, the old page title becomes a redirect so that the links to it do not have to be redone. Ones not so made are to anticipate errors in capitalization or spelling someone might make in the address bar or a link so as to avoid giving the false impression that the page they intended to go to does not exist.
 * What are redirects for?

To make one, create a page with the text #REDIRECT Name of page to redirect to. To edit one, go to the redirect, then click its name under the title of the page it currently redirects to.
 * How do I make/change a redirect?

Only admins can delete pages, so you’ll have to wait for me or another to deal with it. (I am on pretty much daily though so you shouldn’t have to wait long.) You can, however, bring it to our attention. If it is spam (and for the record, I consider whining spam), blank it. If you have some other reason, post it on the page’s talk page.
 * How do I delete a page?

Formatting
Taken mostly from the cheatsheet on Wikipedia proper.

Put two apostrophes on each side of the text, like ’’this’’.
 * How do I make italic text?

Put three apostrophes on each side of the text, like ’’’this’’’.
 * How do I make bold text?

There isn’t any wikicode for underlines, so you have to use HTML tags: like this.
 * How do I make underlined text?

Put two to six equal signs around the heading name, like ==this==. The more equal signs, the smaller the letters. Note: Heading, bullet, number, and indent marks are only applied if there is no literally transcribed text before them on the same line.
 * How do I make headings?

For a bulleted list (like I am using for these questions), put a * before each item. For a numbered list, use a #. You can put multiple *s or #s next to each other (**, ***, etc.) to make sub-lists.
 * How do I make lists?

Blockquote tags: Quoted material. If there are line breaks, you will have to indent each line as follows:
 * I want to quote something. Is there a special format I can use?
 * : blah
 * : blah
 * : blah which gives you
 * blah
 * blah
 * blah

Name of page or  What you want the link to say. To link to a certain heading of a page, add # Full name of heading after the page name without a space.
 * How do I link to another page in this wiki?

Web addresses are made into links automatically. If you want the link to say something different: [ Webaddress What you want the link to say ].
 * How do I link to a page outside this wiki?

HTML-style nowiki tags, like this.
 * How do I transcribe []’s and such literally, rather than having them interpreted as code?

Accounts
The only requirement is a working e-mail address. To make one, click “Create account” at the top of the page and follow the instructions.
 * How do I make an account and what are the requirements?

Registered users have additional editing powers (marking edits as minor, moving pages, and uploading files, among other things), you can take credit for all of the edits you make if you use multiple computers, use widgets, and a user name is easier for others to remember and recognize than an IP address.
 * What are the benefits of having an account?

User pages are places for the user in question to give a bit of personal info or whatever. To make one for yourself, click your name in what I am going to call the “User bar,” located where the “Log in” and “Create an account” buttons used to be (anonymous users can have pages too but I think if you are willing to go to the trouble of making one you can spend two minutes signing up properly). User talk pages are for comments directed at a specific user and can be made by going to adventurequest.wikia.com/wiki/Usertalk: User_name
 * What is a User (talk) page for and how do I make one?

A widget is a little box that appears in the sidebar and displays the designated information. To pick some, click “More” in the User bar then “Manage widgets.” A horizontal bar showing the available widgets in groups of four will appear at the top of the screen. Click the + to add a widget. To change the order of the widgets you have, click-n-drag on a widget’s title. To delete one, click the grey X in the upper right-hand corner. I personally use “Recent changes,” “Bookmarks,” and “Top users.”
 * You said registered users can use widgets. But what in the names of the Elemental Lords is a widget?

Well, there are watched pages (Page> Edit bar> Watch) and preferences (User bar> More> My preferences). Watched pages will be bolded in Recent Changes and edits to them will be shown on your Watchlist (accessed via the User bar), though as this is but a fledgling wiki without slews of daily edits I just use Recent Changes. There are too many preference settings to even list here (poke around), but I will go into some I find particularly useful: the skin setting (style and color scheme), time zone, default settings for Recent Changes, and search settings (allows you to search talk, user, help, etc. pages from the search bar).
 * Neat! What else can I do?

Maintenance
“Recent changes” in the sidebar.
 * How do I check for new edits?

Click "diff" or "last" in Recent Changes; or go to the page, "History" in the Edit bar, then select the two versions you want to compare (Tip: select the older one first, then select the right-hand button of the newer one).
 * How do I see what a particular edit changed?

Next to every edit in a page’s history or Recent Changes. If you are undoing a good-faith edit for something like factual accuracy, politely explain why you have done so in the edit summary to avoid hurt feelings and edit wars. Please revert edits only if there is NO useful information contained within; if it is partially correct, just do a regular edit to take care of the incorrect parts.
 * Is there an undo button anywhere?

Outside Information and References
The thing is that AQ’s plotline is not limited to the game proper. The problem is probably that someone used out-of-game info without citing it. Seeing as the vast majority of the playerbase is ignorant of the very existence of out-of-game info, I can hardly blame you for being confused. As to what the info is, it is mostly contained in the Histories (a series of stories by Falerin) and IRC logs. The Histories are, in order, as follows
 * There are some pages on this wiki that contain information that doesn’t look like vandalism but that I have not found despite doing literally EVERY quest in the game. What’s going on?

War of the Words, All That is Evil is Not Dark, Manifestation: The Coming Dark- The first three deal with the events in Deren, Neld, and Vandar before and during The Network’s attack on Lore. Must-reads for anyone wondering about Derenians’ backstories. Confrontation- Probably the most confusing of all, Confrontation alternates between the tales of Xilar and Galrick. The second-to-last chapter requires you to have gotten to the Evil of Omega to understand it. The Path to Greatness- Details the journey of Thorne Lorin until some point not long before Beneath the Shifting Sands. Journal of The’Galin/the Uncreator- Pretty straightforward titles. The Journal of The’Galin includes entries from his mortal life and the first written after his ascension; the Journal of the Uncreator every one written thereafter.

The canon IRC logs were originally archived here by Lkeas, but were moved to Caelwiki when she was no longer able to keep up. The IRChive/Records of the Caelestian Omninaust contains logs from #755 (the original Truthseeker channel), #darkabode (used for RP, set in Falerin’s estate), and #755-totallyooc (Out of Character discussion). The Epics are a series of more structured RP sessions that, with the exclusion of Session XXIX, follow the reality-hopping adventures of a set of analogs (alternate selves- The One starring Jet Li keeps getting brought up as a good illustration of the concept) of the #755/#darkabode seekers until they are recohered in Session XXXVI. Almost all subsequent ones are “bookended” by a #darkabode log.

Article text from source Note: You only need to name a ref if you want to use it multiple times in the same article ( for every time after the first). Add a ==References== heading with under it at the end of the article to generate the reference list.
 * How do I cite my sources so readers don’t find themselves asking the above question?