Christian Punk Initiative:Getting Started

''' Getting started with editing this wiki. '''

''' We strongly recommend using a Desktop (PC or Mac) because editing the wiki on a mobile device has severe limitations. '''

In order to make adding information to this wiki nice and quick, and to keep it as uniform as possible, we make use of templates. Why templates? Well, let me tell you about that in this article):

In order to use a template, you'd simply go to the template's page, copy the bit that the page tells you to copy, paste it into the page that you are editing and fill in the blanks. It's that easy!

If you still need help, please read the Step-by-step Guides!

Step-by-step Guides
Some guides to help you get started with adding pages. Read at the very least the highlighted text:

Before You Start
Before you can start editing or adding pages, you will need:

- An account with this wiki. Click Here to create one, or Click Here to log in.

- An understanding of how to enter text (most people have that, so you should be fine ;-) )

Creating a new band page
If there is no red link for a band to click on, then you should go to your user page by clicking your name at the top of this page. If you have never been there, the link will most likely be red. On your user page first add the text  Example Band  and replace "Example Band" with the name of the band that you wish to add. If this is the first time you access your user page, you will need to click "Create" first. Save the page and you will see that the text that you have entered has just changed into a red link. This is where the fun begins! Click the red link, and you will automatically start to create the page. Open Template:Band in a new browser window, and copy the text that you see there. Now go back to the page that you are creating, and paste the band template which you have just copied. Fill in the blanks on that template, for as far possible. Nobody expects you to have all the answers, so leave blank what you don't know. Save the new band page and feel good about the work that you have just done! :-)

Or enter the band name here, and hit "Create":

 TIP : Wanna Help adding bands, but don't know any bands to add? Have a look at this page for a list of bands that are queued up to be added. We want you to at least the country of origin and as many albums/recordings as possible. Extra points if you can add a home page, or contact info! (not that we are keeping score!)

Adding a discography to a band page
The discography template is designed to be used on band pages, on the "|discography=" line. Navigate to the band page for which you wish to add a discography. Click the "Edit" link on that band page. In the source text which is now visible, find the line that says "|discography=". Go to the end of that line and hit "Enter". Open Template:Discography in a new window, you will see that there is a multi-line template and a single-line template. They do the same thing, but some (often experienced) people prefer a single line version over the multi-line one. Copy one of the two template versions and fill in the blanks. The only mandatory lines to change are |album_title= and |year=, if you leave out album art, the template will automatically use a placeholder image and mark the page as needing album art (see this category for a list of such pages). Hit the "Show preview" button to see if all looks okay, and if/when satisfied, click the "Save page" button. Tadaa! You have just added a discography entry. Repeat steps 6 and 7 if you wish to add more albums to the discography. Make sure to add any extra discography entries on a new line after the first one.

Adding band members to a band page
Navigate to the band page for which you wish to add a band member. Click the "Edit" link on that band page. In the source text which is now visible, find the line that says "|band_members=". Go to the end of that line and hit "Enter". Open Template:Members in a new window, you will see that there is a multi-line template and a single-line template. They do the same thing, but some (often experienced) people prefer a single line version over the multi-line one. Copy one of the two template versions and fill in the blanks. The only mandatory line to change is |name=, if you leave out the instrument, the template will automatically show "unknown instrument" and mark the page as lacking that info so that it can be added later (see this category for a list of such pages). Keep in mind that the template can only handle A SINGLE instrument per instance. If a singer, for example, also plays guitar you should add that artist twice, once as the singer and once as guitarist. Hit the "Show preview" button to see if all looks okay, and if/when satisfied, click the "Save page" button. Tadaa! You have just added band member. Repeat steps 6 and 7 if you wish to add more band members. Make sure to add any extra members on a new line after the first one. NOTE! On some pages, the section "|former_members=" is missing. If you want to add former band members on such a page, you may add that field to the band template yourself. Adding entries for the former members is done the exact same way as for current members.

Creating an album page
(coming soon)

Creating an artist page
(coming soon)

Uploading an image
Uploading an image is usually a quick and easy process. Here are the steps: Click the "upload file" link in the tools menu on the right. Click the "Choose File" button. Find the file that you wish to upload, then select it and click the "okay" button. Adjust the Destination filename if needed (see Image_Naming_Conventions for naming schemes. At the bottom of the page, there will be another button, called "Upload file". Click that and after a few seconds the page will change and show you the image which you had just uploaded. Now you will want to use the picture in a band page or an artist page, so select the file name of the uploaded image, WITHOUT the "File:" part and hit CTRL-C to copy the text. Then go to the page where you want to put the picture, edit that page, find the right spot for the image and paste it in the proper place on that page by hitting CTRL-V. (Note that Mac users will have to use Command-C and Command-V instead)

New Version of an Existing Image
Suppose that this wiki has a poor quality image of some album art, say, 120x120px and very blurry, but you have a crisp 800x800px version and you wish to contribute that version to make the wiki better. The first thing that you need to know is that you can, and should, replace the existing version so that the new version is being used right away! Do not upload it as a new image, because then you would have to find all the pages that use the bad image, then replace all instances of that image with the new filename, and that's a headache and a half.

So how to upload a new version?

I'm glad you asked! Find a page that uses the old version of the picture and click the picture. The page belonging to that image now opens. Scroll down until you find the link "Upload a new version of this file", you can find this link beneath the File History section. Click the "Upload a new version of this file" link and you will see an image upload page, but with the destination file name already filled in. Now follow the same steps as for uploading a new image, only this time you are not supposed to adjust the destination file name. When happy, click the "Upload file" button and you are done! Note that you may have to refresh a few times before you see that the new version of the image is being used.

List of Available Templates
For reference: the templates that we have on this wiki are the following:

Naming albums
The names of album pages will be automatically formatted properly, as long as you use the Discography template. Do note though that self-titled albums must be named after the band. So for example, The Crucified's first album is considered to be called The Crucified, and not "Self-titled".

Image Naming Conventions
Images have to be named a specific way, especially album art, this is to prevent conflicts with other titles.

''' NOTE THAT THIS PAGE IS NOT COMPLETE AND UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

In other words, use the info here as well as you can, it will definitely get you on your way. If you get stuck, please ask an admin! '''