Meta:Guidelines

This is a sample page for the tsgdoc Wiki and can be used as reference for creating new pages. Note that this introduction is conventionally placed above the Table Of Contents (TOC), so visitors can immediately see what this page is about, instead of having to scroll passed the TOC.

For more general wiki conventions and formatting help , visit the MediaWiki Formatting Guide.

If you're looking for something to contribute to this Wiki, look here for pages that need fixing:

• Category:Pages that need updating
• Category:Articles with dead external links

Page Names

Page names should be descriptive and unique. Use singular nouns instead of plurals when possible (e.g. "Keyboard" instead of "Keyboards"). This makes linking from singular words easier:

✅One [[Keyboard]], Two [[Keyboard]]s.
❌One [[Keyboards|Keyboard]], Two [[Keyboards]].

Both result in: One Keyboard, Two Keyboards.

Sections

Always try to group and categorize your information in a logical and user-friendly way. Prevent redundancies: only create subsections if there are more of them at the same level (levels are indicated by number of = signs before and after the section header), otherwise just collapse to the parent.

For some reason, Erik seems to always start at level 2 ('=='). It makes the jump in font-size between the header and text a bit less jarring, but it's mainly done out of a force of habit. Help him break this spell by properly starting your sections at level 1.

You can add many levels of subsections as you like, but after level 3 they become quite hard to distinguish and will clutter the TOC. If a subject requires many sub-subcategories, consider giving the subcategory its own page. Alternatively, if the sub-subcategories are only small in content, you could make non-TOC headers with simple bold text.

Links

Links should be descriptive, and inform the user of where or what the link is directing them to.

Dos

✅ Check our official website.

✅ How to format links

⚠️ It can be ok to use full URLs if they're short and/or clear, like https://ru.nl/

Donts

❌ Click here for more info.

❌ Visit https://www.ru.nl/en/departments/faculty-of-social-sciences/technical-support-group-tsg

Download Links

See also: Template:Download link

You can use a custom template for download links. This adds a little icon in front of it so users can see the link leads to a raw file or direct download. This is to prevent people accidentally downloading things they didn't intend to.

⬇️Placeholder image (png)

{{Download link|media=Placeholder.png|Placeholder image|png}}

Familiar Sites

This Wiki has custom templates for linking to commonly used resources that are (more or less) under our control. It helps users identify where external links are going, and know it is safe to click on.

Gitlab

See also: Template:Gitlab

 Lab computer scripts

{{Gitlab|tsg/Labcomputer|Lab computer scripts}}

Surfdrive

See also: Template:Surfdrive

 LSL LabRecorder (zip)

{{Surfdrive|b8Rp29u8MGhjb1v|LSL LabRecorder (zip)}}

ℹ️ If you want to upload files to the Surfdrive to share on this Wiki, TSG members should place them in the folder "TSG Wiki Resources". This folder should be visible and accessible for all TSG and lab support members. If not, please contact Erik van den Berge.

Dead links

If you encounter an external link that no longer works, e.g. if you get a 404 error message or the whole website doesn't exist anymore:

1. Try to find where the intended content has moved to and replace the link url.
2. Check the page history to see who may've created the link in the first place; ask them to fix it.
3. Add the {{Dead link}} tag after the link.

Pages with dead links will automatically show up on Category:Articles with dead external links.

Images

Right-floating image thumbnail with description.

To optimize screen space, images should be placed in a floating window, aligned to the right side of the screen. Larger images can be automatically resized to thumbnails, by specifying the thumbnail width. 300px is the preferred thumbnail size. Adding a description underneath the image is appreciated. For more image formatting guidelines, visit the MediaWiki Images Guide.

Inline Images

Images that are used, for instance, as part of a step-by-step tutorial can be placed inline, with larger size to make them more readable. The exact size is up to you, but the width should not exceed 720px.

Caption

You can prevent text that is placed after the image from flowing next to the image by placing an HTML break behind it.

Tables

For tables, use the Wikitable markup. It is more readable and easy on the eye than the default one. There are multiple ways to create rows and columns, some used in the example below, but for more information, consult the MediaWiki Table Formatting Guide.

By default, table columns will scale to fit the contents of the cell, but this usually results in a messy-looking table. Set fixed column-widths to keep the table nice and tight.

For binary entries (e.g. Yes/No), a background color can be used to make it easier to recognize.

	Item 1	Item 2	Item 3
Regular Info	Info 1	Info 2	Info 3
Comparison
Template	{{Yes}}	{{No}}	{{Some}}
Result	Yes	No	Some
Custom name	{{Yes|Yeah!}}	{{No|Nuh-uh}}	{{Some|Maybe?}}
Result	Yeah!	Nuh-uh	Maybe?
Manual colors	#9F9	#F99	#FFD

Code

If you want to add code, the syntax might interfere with the Mediawiki syntax. To prevent this from happening, place your code in one of the following preferred ways:

Fixed format text for short, single-line code.

Long code, spans entire width of the page.
Supports syntax highlighting of certain languages, like Python and HTML.
Change the lang="" attribute to the correct language, e.g. lang="python" or lang="html5"
Use lang="text" for non-supported languages.

 1You can also add line numbering.
 2
 3If your code is longer than, say, 50 lines, you can add a style attribute to introduce a scrollbar, as sampled here. For a 50-line cutoff, use style="height:50em; overflow:auto;".
 4Note that this method will cause the print version of the page to cut off the code at the line limit mark and not print the rest of the code.
 5I might fix that, but if it's really crucial to have an entire page full of code, you should probably give it a separate page.
 6
 7<!-- Start Pirate Ipsum-->
 8Prow scuttle parrel provost Sail ho shrouds spirits boom mizzenmast yardarm. Pinnace holystone mizzenmast quarter crow's nest nipperkin grog yardarm hempen halter furl. Swab barque interloper chantey doubloon starboard grog black jack gangway rutters.
 9Deadlights jack lad schooner scallywag dance the hempen jig carouser broadside cable strike colors. Bring a spring upon her cable holystone blow the man down spanker Shiver me timbers to go on account lookout wherry doubloon chase. Belay yo-ho-ho keelhaul squiffy black spot yardarm spyglass sheet transom heave to.
10Sail ho Corsair red ensign hulk smartly boom jib rum gangway. Case shot Shiver me timbers gangplank crack Jennys tea cup ballast Blimey lee snow crow's nest rutters. Fluke jib scourge of the seven seas boatswain schooner gaff booty Jack Tar transom spirits.
11<!-- End Pirate Ipsum-->

For command-line code, you can also style it like this for clarity: ping 127.0.0.1 -n 50 -l 1024

You could also use the <tt> <pre> and nowiki tags if better suited for your needs, whatever works best to present the code as clear and readable as possible.

Emoji

It is encouraged to use unicode emojis (which you can just copy-paste as text) in places where they can draw extra attention, help illustrate your point, or break up the monotony of a long text.

Be aware that emojis may be rendered differently in different browsers or operating systems, so try to pick ones that are common and unambiguous, and also recognizable at the scale they get reduced to when placed in-line on our Wiki. Also, Windows doesn't natively support flag emojis like 🇳🇱, for some reason.

Lastly, don't overdo the emojis, as that could make it seem like our wiki was written by AI.

Examples

ℹ️ This is a piece of (extra) information.

⚠️ This is a warning!

❌ This is a no-go!

✅ This is good.

✨ This is something new!

🚧 This is under construction.

🐽 Oink.

These are just examples; feel free to come up with your own conventions so we can later compare and discuss what works best.

Shields and Badges

Github-style shields or badges are useful for providing software details like programming language and licensing at a glance. There's a case to be made for our Wiki and Gitlab READMEs to use similar layouts and features for more uniformity in our documentation, and so badges could help with that too. Unfortunately, it is currently a bit of a faff to implement badges on our wiki, as hotlinking or injecting dynamic content from external sources is disabled for security reasons.

The workaround:

1. Generate a badge at https://shields.io
2. Create a new CSS rule in MediaWiki:Common.css (see examples below)
3. On the page you want to edit, add a custom span with class="shield" and the id as named in the CSS, e.g.: <span class="shield" id="shield-python310")></span>
4. Add to the list of shields below.

Available Shields

<span class="shield" id="shield-python310")></span>

Banners

If a page is, or needs to be, significantly changed, you can put a banner on top to warn/inform visitors.

{{Notice|Did you know you could add banners?}}

{{Warn|'''Look Out!'''}}

{{Outdated}}

{{Under construction}}