Alternative History:How to make articles

This guide will focus on how to use the Source Editor, the code that most of our experienced editors use. The Source Editor is the best way to take advantage of all the features of the MediaWiki software. The Visual Editor is easier to use but doesn't give as much versatility.

To begin making articles, simply click the "Add a Page" icon at the upper right corner of any page. Then type in the name of your article, hit enter, and write away.

Layout

Sections

Create section headers by putting words between equal signs =.

Four or more headings cause a table of contents to be generated automatically.

What you type	How it looks
=Single equal signs=	Headers with the same style as the title - not used very often.
==Double equal signs==	Section headers, like the word "Layout" above.
===Triple equal signs===	Subsection headers, like the word "Sections" above.
====Quadruple==== and =====quintuple equal signs=====	Even smaller nested sections, also not used very often.

Lists

Description	What you type	How it looks
Bulleted lists	Item 1 Item 2 **Item 3	Item 1 Item 2 Item 3
Numbered lists	#This #Will #Look like ##this	This Will Look like This
Indented lists	;Header :Item one :Item two ::Item three	Header Item one Item two Item three

Horizontal line

Four hyphens ---- creates a horizontal line and breaks the text. Section headers also do this automatically.

Block Quote

Putting text between the tags <blockquote> and </blockquote> will indent text on both the left and the right:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Poem format

The tags <poem> and </poem> allow you to preserve line breaks and spacing:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

Text formatting

Text styles

Description	What you type	How it looks
Italics	''example''	example
Bold	'''example'''	example
Bold italics	'''''example'''''	example
Underline	<u>example</u>	example
Strikethru	<s>example</s>	~~example~~
Smaller font	<small>example</small>	example
Bigger font	<big>example</big>	example
Superscript	<sup>example</sup>	^example
Subscript	<sub>example</sub>	_example

Monospace

Type <code>Check this o u t</code> to generate a small chunk of monospace text: Check this o u t.

Start each line with a space to make a larger block in monospace:

Colors

Set text color like this:  This is an example...

Set background color like this:  This is an example...

Set both like this:  This is an example...

To get a color, you can write either the name or # followed by a hex code. The sixteen colors below are the most common. A list of supported color names can be found at the Wikipedia article on Web Colors; hex codes for the full range of colors can be found at Color-Hex and many other websites.


Color	Hexadecimal	Color	Hexadecimal
black	#000000	silver	#c0c0c0
gray	#808080	white	#ffffff
maroon	#800000	red	#ff0000
purple	#800080	fuchsia	#ff00ff
green	#008000	lime	#00ff00
olive	#808000	yellow	#ffff00
navy	#000080	blue	#0000ff
teal	#008080	aqua	#00ffff

Fonts

To display text in a different font, type: "Text Goes Here" - this will display as "Text Goes Here".

Available fonts:

Arial
Arial Black
Arial Narrow
Comic Sans MS
Comfortaa
Copperplate
Courier
Courier New
Georgia
Impact
Helvetica
Papyrus
Times New Roman
Noteworthy

Links

Internal links

To make links to pages on the Alternate History Wiki, use double square brackets [[ ]]: [[Main Page]] gives you Main Page.

If you wish to link to something where the title is different from the text, use the vertical pipe |, thus [[Alternative History:Terminology|Words]] will look like Words, but link you to the page Alternative History:Terminology.

Links to pages that don't exist show up red. You can create a page by clicking on a red link. This is a good way to create pages and ensure they aren't orphaned.

Links to sections

The # sign lets you link to a section of a page. [[Map Games#Active Map Games|Active Map Games]] links directly to the Active Map Games section of that page.

External links

To link to other websites, use single square brackets [ ]. With no alternative text, these links show up as numbers. So the text [https://nava.org/good-flag-bad-flag/] displays as [1].

If you want your link to have a name, use a space (not a vertical pipe like for internal links). So [https://nava.org/good-flag-bad-flag/ Good Flag, Bad Flag] displays as Good Flag, Bad Flag.

Additionally, a bare URL will display as a link with no additional markup: https://nava.org/good-flag-bad-flag/

Interwiki links

To link to most other wikis, you can use special interwiki links. The code is like internal links, using double brackets and the vertical pipe.

[[wikipedia:World War II]] displays as wikipedia:World War II.
[[wikipedia:World War II|]] displays as World War II.
[[wikipedia:World War II|Second World War]] displays as Second World War.

To link to another wiki on Fandom/Wikia, use the format [[w:c:wiki-name:pagename]]. So to link to Southern Victory on the Turtledove Wiki, you use [[w:c:turtledove:Southern Victory]] to get w:c:turtledove:Southern Victory.

Language code prefixes can also be used for our sister wikis, for example with "de" for German: [[w:c:de.althistory:Chaos|Chaos]] for the German Chaos timeline. It's important to use the name of the page in the target language. So w:c:ru.althistory:Napoleon I doesn't work, but w:c:ru.althistory:Наполеон I does.

A list of available interwiki links can be found at w:c:community:MediaWiki:Interwiki_map.

Images

What you type	How it looks	Notes
[[File:logo.png\|thumb\|Our old logo]]	Our old logo	Most common way to display an image with a caption. Automatically floats to the right side of the page.
[[File:logo.png\|thumb\|left\|100px\|Our old logo, but smaller]]	Our old logo, but smaller	Adding "left" or "center" (or "centre") realigns the image. Adding a number followed by "px" resizes it.
[[File:logo.png]]		The bare image with no frame or caption. Image displays full-sized unless the size is specified.
You can also [[File:logo.png\|50px]] display the image in running text, like this.	You can also display the image in running text, like this.	Only works when the image is small: resize the image by adding a number followed by "px". Often used for placing flags next to country names: Seychelles
[[:File:logo.png]] [[:File:logo.png\|]] [[:File:logo.png\|Althistory Wiki Logo]]	File:logo.png logo.png Althistory Wiki logo	Use a colon : to link to an image without displaying it. The vertical pipe \| displays the filename without the prefix. After the pipe, you can add other text, as with any other link.

Image galleries

Galleries display multiple images together.

<gallery>
Flag of Seychelles.svg|Seychelles
Flag of Slovakia.svg|Slovakia
Flag of South Africa.svg|South Africa
Flag of Suriname.svg|Suriname
Flag of Thailand.svg|Thailand
Flag of Tonga.svg|Tonga
Flag of Trinidad and Tobago.svg|Trinidad and Tobago
Flag of Tunisia.svg|Tunisia
</gallery>

Templates

Main article: Alternative History:Templates

To place a template, write its name between curly brackets {{ }}: {{language}} yields:

This is an alternate language

This article is about a language that has diverged from the OTL. You can comment on this page's talkpage

Different templates have different markup. Infoboxes and such have many different items separated by vertical pipes |.

You can link to a template without using it, using the same markup as for categories and images: type [[:Template:Language]] to get Template:Language.

Tables

Basic tables

The following creates a basic table:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Caption text
|-
! Header text !! Header text !! Header text
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|}

Caption text
Header text	Header text	Header text
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example

This explains what each element does.

Table element	Wikitext	Required	Usage notes
Table start	{\|	Required
Table caption	\|+	Optional	Only between table start and first table row.
Table row	\|-	Optional	Can be omitted before the first row.
Table header cell	!	Optional	Consecutive table header cells may be added on same line separated by double marks (`!!`); or start on new lines, each with its own single mark (`!`).
Table data cell	\| or \|\|	Optional	Consecutive table data cells may be added on same line separated by double marks (`\|\|`) or start on new lines, each with its own single mark (`\|`).
Table end	\|}	Required

Sortable tables

Just add the word "sortable" after "table". Now it can be sorted alphabetically by any column.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Medieval empires
|-
! Empire !! Leader !! Year of birth
|-
| Mali || Mansa Musa || 1312
|-
| China || Kublai || 1215
|-
| Rome || Andronikos || 1259
|}

Medieval empires
Empire	Leader	Year of birth
Mali	Mansa Musa	1312
China	Kublai	1215
Rome	Andronikos	1259

Tools for tables

There is a lot of complex markup that can be done with tables; see wikipedia:Help:Table.

This MediaWiki table generator tool is a handy shortcut.

Signatures

A basic signature with timestamp, to use on talk pages and so forth, is four tildes ~~~~: False Dmitri (talk) 20:05, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Three tildes leaves just your username: ~~~ False Dmitri (talk)

Five tildes generates just the timestamp: ~~~~~ 20:05, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

You can create a customized signature in My Preferences. The even fancier signatures that some people use are special template pages that they made for themselves.

Turning off wiki markup

Finally, the tags <nowiki></nowiki> turn off formatting, which was used above in my explanations.

Description	What you type	What it looks like
Categorize an article	[[Category:Timelines]]
Link to a category (without putting the article in the category)	[[:Category:Timelines]]	Category:Timelines
Link without the prefix	[[:Category:Timelines\|]]	Timelines