Thank you for registering!:TTU

Thank you for registering!

Welcome to the TTU Wiki, and thank you for being interested enough in the project to sign up! I'd like to pass on some useful information and ground rules. You don't have to read it all right now -- this message is located on the WelcomeNewUser page, and there's a link to it on your user page. (The top menu bar always tells you who you are, and clicking your name there goes to your user page.)

Information specific to TTU Wiki

If you're new to the idea of wikis, a brief tutorial is in the next section down. However, if you're already familiar with wikis, this should be all you need to read:

Now that you've registered your account, you can edit most pages. Want to do some test edits to learn the system? Visit SandBox. Other good places to start are your user page, CommentsPage, QuestionsPage, and WikiRequests (or you can simply return to the page that originally prompted your registration). Please jump right in -- this isn't a closed community, it's just set up with a few hurdles to keep the access threshold beyond the reach of spambots and easily bored vandals.
You can also leave comments anywhere using the "Add Comment" link at the bottom of a page. If for some reason you can't edit a page but want to make a contribution to it, add a comment and the rest of us will join in the discussion!
If you have a long-term interest in TTU and want to help shape the wiki, BaxilDragon will happily add you to the list of WikiEditors. (See that page.) That gives you extra editing rights, including access in the event of a spam/troll lockdown.
The software base is WikkaWiki. Page names must be in CamelCase (aka ConcatenatedCapitalizedWords), and text formatting is a little different from the "big guys" (like Wikipedia) but intuitive. Usually, to link to a page all you have to do is type its name out: e.g. CharacterDennisRedwing comes out on pages as "CharacterDennisRedwing."
Each group of TTU concepts has its own category (e.g. Stories, Characters), its own namespace (e.g. all Stories pages begin with the word Story), and its own template for new page creation (e.g. TemplateStory, TemplateCharacter). To properly make a new page, see CreatingNewPages.
Over the long term, I'd like to migrate all universe information here and all stories to http://www.tomorrowlands.org/story/ . The wiki isn't the place to post a TTU story that you've written, but it's a great place to write about your story so that readers can find it! The wiki's job is to keep everything categorized and cross-referenced, and give writers an encyclopedic reference of the universe.

Wiki Basics

Not sure how to contribute? Not sure what's appropriate? Here's a quick summary.

A User-Driven System

A wiki is a piece of software that allows a group of people to collaborate on a project via the Web. If you've used Wikipedia, you've already seen the power of wiki. A wiki is designed to let anyone edit any page -- no information on the wiki "belongs" to any individual user; it's all collaborative.

Contribute as much as you want, in whatever ways you want. You can add new pages and new ideas; you can refine other people's ideas by editing their pages; you can be one of the quiet heroes who cleans up spelling, grammar and formatting; or you can do it all!

Wiki manners and wiki goals

Be respectful, but (as Wikipedia says) be bold. An edit doesn't ever completely destroy what was there beforehand -- you can see or reload prior versions of the page from the links at the bottom. So if you make a bad change, you (or someone else) can easily revert it. (It's good wiki manners to use the SandBox if you want to make some test edits and see how the system works.)

It's also good manners to approach the wiki with its collaborative nature in mind. Don't alter other people's work in major ways -- post comments, build consensus, and then change. If in doubt, add rather than modify. Start conversations.

For the TTU wiki, I've added some safeguards rather than allow truly open editing, but the principle is the same. I want the story universe to be a creation of all of us, rather than me handing down rules from on high. I want to craft your ideas into the world's canon, and let you play with mine. Information that's already been used in stories is well-established, but the rest of the universe is an open book.

Basic page structure and editing

This wiki is built on a series of pages with "CamelCase" names -- like WelcomeNewUser or the HomePage. To move between them is easy -- any capitalized words that are run together like that will be interpreted to link to another wiki page. You can also create links with any text; see FormattingRules for details. If you link to APageThatDoesntExist, following that link will let any wiki editor start a new page there.

You can edit existing pages with the "Edit Page" link at the very bottom left. If it doesn't show up, you probably need to log in, or you might not have permissions to make changes. (For example, administrative pages are locked to everyone but BaxilDragon.) Depending on your user settings, you can also double-click anywhere on the page to edit it.

The FormattingRules page (and the "Help" button on the edit toolbar) describe how to make text look different on your pages (like bold or italic). These formatting instructions are stored as specific characters inside the text you enter, just like they are in BBCode or HTML (if you've used either of those on Web forums). The built-in toolbar on the edit screen automates almost everything you should need. Also, if you click to edit an page, you can look inside the editing window to see how its existing formatting is stored.

TTU : WelcomeNewUser