Tutorial

How to add your own material to the site.

This is specific advice for the FOSsil Bank. For more general advice:

Internal Links

To link to another page on the wiki, find out what the page's stub is. That's the text after http://www.fossilbank.wikidot.com. For example, the page for the game designer Lunduke is at http://www.fossilbank.wikidot.com/entry:lunduke. Therefore, to link to Lunduke's page you would type [/entry:lunduke Lunduke].

Tags

The other is tagging. Scroll to the bottom of most pages and you will see a number of tags. For example, Lunduke has a lot ('art by-sa comic dos electronic-game gpl html5 linux mac macintosh science-fiction sci-fi software source windows'). That's more than most pages!

A page with the relevant tag appears in lists for that tag. For example, the list of HTML5 software includes Lunduke because Lunduke has the 'html5' tag.

I've made a Complete List of Codes to help you out. Don't be frightened, though: better to give it a go and make a mistake than not try at all. I am instantly told when anyone edits this site, so if you make a mistake I can fix it in minutes or hours.

How to add a new page

This tutorial assumes that you want to create an entry in the catalogue, for example for an artwork, a creator, a repository and so on. If you want to create a category, genre or so on, you'll have to experiment or ask me for help.

To add a new entry to the wiki, go to the 'Add a new page' entry in the sidebar and type in entry:name-of-the-entry (make sure to use dashes instead of spaces and other punctuation). Then just fill in the form by following the instructions.

Fill in the details

0. Title

Make sure the title of the work/source has capital letters and punctuation in the right places.

Example Entry

Lunduke

1. Introduction

Add a one-sentence-long description of the work/source. You cannot include any syntax in this entry (e.g., no // or ** to make words italicised or bold). It will be automatically italicised when published.

Example Entry

A game designer and comic creator.

2. URL

Copy-paste the URL of the work/source.

Example Entry

http://lunduke.com/

This is all you need to do. You can stop here. However, I would prefer that you add to the quality and descriptiveness of the entry by filling in the rest of the form and then tagging the article.

The rest of the details

3. Details

Add more details if you want. Usually, I don't.

Example Entry

This game combines rules from a number of sources, including //The Pool//, //Geiger Counter// and //The Shadow of Yesterday//.

(The // makes the entries italicised: The Pool, Geiger Counter and The Shadow of Yesterday.)

4. Sources

Enter the entry's creator, publisher, host, etc. You can create an internal link to the source (as described above) if it has its own entry on the wiki.

Example Entries

[/source:one-seven-design-studio one.seven.design.studio], John Harper

(The first entry looks like "one.seven.design.studio" to the wiki user).

5. Categories and Subcategories

Identify which category or categories the entry falls under (e.g. books and authors under Literature, songs and musicians under Music). Every work belongs to one or more categories and may belong to sub-categories in that category. On this wiki, we link to categories but not to sub-categories. Write **[/category:name-of-category Name of Category] and then put any relevant sub-categories in brackets after this.

Example Entry

[/category:electronic-game Electronic Game], [/category:software Software], [/category:art Art] (Comics)

(This entry looks like "Electronic Game, Software, Art (Comics)" to the wiki user.)

6. Genres, Platforms, Languages and Engines

This is a catch-all area for groupings of works and sources that aren't categories. Includes:

  • Genres: Stuff like Fantasy, Science Fiction and Supers. You write them: **[/genre:name-of-genre Name of Genre].
  • Platforms: Linux, Windows or Mac. You write them **[/platform:name-of-platform Name of Platform]
  • Engines: For electronic and tabletop games that draw from a unified ruleset. You write them: **[/engine:name-of-engine Name of Engine]
  • Languages: If the work is in a language other than English (including if it is also in English), identify this. You write them **[/language:name-of-language Name of Language]

Example Entry

[/genre:fantasy Fantasy] (genre); [/engine:hackbird Hackbird] (engine); English and [/language:spanish Spanish] (languages)

(This entry looks like "Fantasy (genre); Hackbird (engine); English and Spanish (languages)" to the wiki user.)

7. Licence, Status and Openness

Then you need to write any licences that apply to the work. The internal link is: [/licence:name-of-licence Name of Licence]. If the work is under a single clear licence, then this is all you need to do for this step.

If multiple licences apply, it's unclear which licence applies or if no licences apply, then instead of telling us the licence tell us the work's status instead. The five statuses are: [/status:pd Public domain], [/status:permissive Permissive], [/status:copyleft Copyleft], [/status:noncommercial Noncommercial] and [/status:verbatim Verbatim].

If multiple statuses apply, then instead of telling us its status, tell us its level of openness. The two levels of openness are: [/openness:proprietary Proprietary] and [/openness:libre Libre].

For more details, check out Using this Stuff or the Proprietary and Libre pages.

Example Entry

[/licence:gpl GNU GPL], [/licence:by-sa CC BY-SA], perhaps others

(This entry looks like "GNU GPL, CC BY-SA, perhaps others" to the wiki user.)

8. Copyright Details

Then you need to add any further copyright details.

Example Entry

Permission has been granted to one author to use //Lady Blackbird// commercially.

(This entry looks like "Permission has been granted to one author to use //Lady Blackbird commercially." to the wiki user).//

9. Unique Identifier

Finally, the work needs a unique identifier. If other pages have this identifier as a tag (more on tags later) then they are linked to from this entry.

Example Entry

lady-blackbird

Press Save!

You're almost done.

Tagging

After you've created your page, scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see a button called 'Tags'. Press it. For your new entry to be listed on the site, you have to give it some tags.

  • If it's a work, give it the work tag.
  • If it's a source, give it the source tag.

The rest of your tags are based on what you entered for the work or source above:

  • Entries may need a tag for their source, if it's a source that has its own page on the wiki. If so, add source's-name as a tag.
  • Entries should have a tag for every category and subcategory
  • Entries should have a tag for every genre, platform, engine and language
  • Entries should have a tag for every licence. If you haven't listed a licence, they should have a tag for their status (permissive, pd, noncommercial, copyleft, verbatim). If you haven't listed a status, they should have a tag for their level of openness (libre or proprietary)

Remember!

  • It's better to make any entry — no matter how short, no matter how many errors it has — than not to make an entry at all.
  • You can always publish your entry and then edit it to fix it up
  • You can test that you've done all your links properly by clicking on them. This also lets you check your tags, because if you've done them properly then your entry should show up in a list of works or sources in the categories it belongs to (for example, Flickr has the 'art' tag so it shows up on the Art page)
  • You can see how we've done it on other pages by scrolling to the bottom of an entry, clicking + Options and then Page Source
  • If you have any questions, email me!
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License