Editing Guide

General Editing

 * First, always check out our Rules. These touch upon the basics of how we expect users to edit, and everyone needs to abide by these. These are mandatory to look over.
 * Media Wiki's Help portal is a great resource. This is the official help Wiki for MediaWiki, which is what Miraheze uses. Use the main page or search to find information on what you're confused about if this guide can't help.

We suggest looking over the following:
 * Miraheze FAQ (What is Miraheze?)
 * Preferences (Customizing your user experience)

Sandboxes
A sandbox is a term for a private editing space on a Wiki. You can make one of these for yourself to use by going to YourName/Sandbox and creating the page. In your sandbox, you can test edits and learn to use Miraheze. For example, here's Paul's Sandbox! A sandbox is most often used to test out editing and page formatting to make sure it will look the way you want it to. We encourage making a sandbox if you're unfamiliar with editing on Miraheze at all.

Page Guides
When creating pages, we ask that you follow our page guides. Each page needs to follow a certain format, and pages that completely ignore this format can even be flagged for deletion. Here's our Guide category! These pages exist so that you can use them as bases for each new page.''' When making a new page, you can even hit "view source" on a guide page, copy the entire content, and paste that guide into the new page you're making. Then, fill out each space in the page as needed!''' Most page guides have templates in them. If something in a template doesn't apply to a page, you should remove the placeholder text and leave that section of the template blank.
 * Reminder: Follow all Wiki Rules. Trying to coin a term on a page is not allowed. (Read why in the following section.)

Sourcing
Unacceptable Sources: Citing an entire Wiki page is not allowed. If a Wiki page has citations, those citations themselves can be used on the page on our Wiki. Another Wiki's page is a result of up to hundreds of edits by hundreds of different users and not a singular source, and the information within it can be completely changed at any time, making it an invalid source.
 * Sourcing is mandatory. Not having sources for coining or definitions is not acceptable. (Always use a web archived source unless the original can't be archived for whatever reason.) Pages need to have citations, or use the template CitationNeeded to indicate that it needs to have a cited source added. A citation must be added using the "Reference" tool, next to the information from the source.
 * Entire Wiki pages (LGBTA Wiki, MOGAI Wiki, Wikipedia, Mogaipedia, etc)
 * Page As Original Source: Making a page to coin a term and having it be the original/only source of coining is not acceptable. Wiki pages shouldn't be used for this. Wikis are aggregates of information, not sources of them. Wiki pages are not social media and shouldn't be used as original posts. A coining post can be made in forums, on Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, or on nearly any other site.

In the instance that a term has been coined by making a Wiki page, the edit history for that Wiki page that includes the page's creation can then be used as a source. However, this is disallowed on our Wiki, and coining terms through making a page is met with the same treatment as breaking another rule of the Wiki.

Acceptable Sources:
 * A tutorial and masterlist of common sources is here! This is not a complete list, and users can cite (nearly) any website or published piece of media. In general, one should feel free to make their own judgement on whether or not a site is trustworthy enough to be cited as a source. Tumblr or other blogging website links are acceptable sources (for example), but web archive or archive.is links are greatly preferred to help preserve content, and we encourage archiving any links you might add to an article, especially original coining posts. If you don't have a link at the time of editing a page, adding Template:Cleanup and specifying what the page needs is acceptable.

As a general rule: If Wikipedia wouldn't allow it as a source, neither would we. Repeatedly creating articles with no sources (and no usage of the templates mentioned previously) may result in temporary bans.

TLDR: We prefer web archived links, and entire Wiki pages are not valid sources, nor is it ok to try to coin something with a page as the original source.

Templates
Our Wiki uses a variety of templates for organization. Add these by clicking "insert," then "template," and searching for the template you want. (Or by typing two curly brackets:  {{ 

Notice Templates
Notice templates typically go at the top of pages as a notice to all users.
 * Cleanup: A general template that indicates a page needs work somehow. It has a space where you can write a custom message.
 * NeedsPronunciation: For when the page needs its "Pronunciation" section filled out.
 * EditingNote: Usually only used by staff, to indicate a page needs to be kept in a certain style. (An example is how emojiself pronouns are formatted on the Emojiself page!)
 * Separation: When a page might need split to into two different ones.
 * Confusion: When a page might get confused with another one because of similarity, you can use this to clarify.
 * Copied: When a page is copied directly from another Wiki and needs re-written.
 * Joke: When a term may or may not have been serious.
 * HateGroup: Our Wiki also holds pages about hate groups like TERFs, and this template is a warning and explanation about that.
 * Pejorative: For when a term has a history of being a slur or being used to insult a certain group.
 * NotSafe: For when a page may contain heavy discussion of not safe for work content.
 * ProblematicSource: For when a term is related to a media or something else that's problematic or controversial.
 * Problematic: For when a term is genuinely problematic. This template is usually used by staff in the context of "identities" made by trolls/hate groups, such as febfem, superstraight, or similar labels.
 * Template:NotMOGAI has a similar usage to Template:Problematic. It is rarely used because of this.

Infobox Templates
Infobox templates are used on most pages to quickly show information about the label that page is about.
 * Template:Gender is used on gender pages, and an example of it's use is on Guide:Gender.
 * Template:Orientation is used on orientation pages, and an example of it's use is on Guide:Orientation.
 * Template:Gender is used on gender pages, and an example of it's use is on Guide:Gender.

Other Templates

 * Pronoun is used to format a pronoun set on pronoun list pages. (See Pronoun/List for examples.)
 * PronounLists is added to the bottom of third pronoun list pages for naviation.
 * FirstPersonPronoun is the same as Template:Pronoun, but intended for 1stp pronouns. (See 1stp/List for examples.)
 * Template:FalseCoric: Used to denote terms that misuse the "coric" gender suffix. You can read about the history of the suffix on it's page: -Coric.
 * Template:FalseComfic: Used to denote terms that misuse the "comfi" gender suffix. You can read about the history of the suffix on it's page: -Comfic.

Other Tips

 * Check categories! Categories might have descriptions that describe what they're for. For example, this is the category for pages that need Pronunciation sections.
 * All categories are singular, not plural. ("Gender," not "genders"!)
 * When uploading images, please follow our image guidelines. This helps us stay organized.

Profile Page Editing

 * You can do (nearly) anything you want on your personal profile, and we invite you to play around with it and have fun!
 * It isn't necessary (or recommended) to fill in every detail about yourself, especially if you're younger. (Read more about internet safety tips here.)

Userboxes

 * Remember the Tumblr userbox trend? Wikis are where those originated! Here's our userbox category that contains all the userboxes, and anyone is welcome to make a userbox about anything that they want! Userboxes are a fun way to decorate your profile.
 * SocialProfile allows the use of most Wiki formatting, including templates. You can add a userbox by typing into one of the sections of your profile.

Images

 * Please place any images one uploads for their profile in the category "Profile Decor."

Other Customization

 * We suggest browsing our Wiki using the Cosmos skin.
 * Users familiar with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can customize the current skin's file by creating a subpage of their userpage and naming it after the skin plus a .css suffix, "User:Yourname/vector.css" for example. CSS placed in this sheet overrides the skin's CSS. Click here for Media Wiki's help page on this.

Talk Pages
Unlike other formats of Wikis, our Wiki uses the traditional talk pages. (Nearly) every page has a talk page, which can be accessed by adding /Talk to the end of that page. Users then create new sections on that talk page, and sign their entries with their signature, which is made by typing four tildes (~).
 * Please read over Media Wiki's help page on Talk pages if you've never used one before!
 * Your signature can be customized by visiting Special:Preferences.
 * Visit this article on signatures for examples and inspiration on customizing your own signature, as seen in the image above.

I need help with something else...
Please feel free to leave other questions you may have on the talk page, or ask them in our Discord to get quicker replies!