Facilitator's Technical Manual
Housekeeping
If you have comments or questions please select the Discussion tab above and put them there. Either Jeff or Levi will get back to you. You can also email us: [email protected] and [email protected]
Introduction
The purpose of this technical manual is to help SRF facilitators and staff learn the basic editing and navigation functions of our Knowledge Bases (KB). As you may know, our KB uses MediaWiki as its platform. Therefore, you can use the very robust help functions of MediaWiki by selecting the Help About MediaWiki from the left menu on any page of our KB. We also have a sandbox page on the first page of the OnTrack2026 Knowledge Base where you can experiment. Experimenting in the sandbox is easy because you can preview the changes you make and learn by example.
Most important, be bold, we have version control so any mistake you make, no matter how big can be reverted to the original page at any time.
How to edit our knowledge bases
There are two ways to edit our Knowledges Bases (KBs). The visual editor and the source editor.
Visual Editor
The visual editor is the easiest. Pressing the edit button located next to the read button will take you to the visual editor.
Editing with the visual editor is similar to editing a text document with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Libre Writer, but a little less user friendly.
Inside the visual editor at the top you will see edit functions. Further to the right you have the help button, the notice button, the page options, and an option to switch from the visual editor to the source editor. Hover over any of the icons to display their name.
Note: Some actions can only be edited in the source editor so even if you don’t plan on using the source editor it’s helpful to know a bit about how it works.
Source Editor
The source editor is the original editor for MediaWiki. To edit with source, you will need to use either MediaWiki markup language or HTML. Wiki markup language is more intuitive than HTML so there is a simple trick to editing in source mode: You can compare what the source editor has done to the final product in the preview mode. For example, if you wanted to write a page about pizza it would look like this in MediaWiki markup:
Adding Images
To add images within the visual editor click the insert tab, and under the drop-down, press images and media.
After clicking on the images and media tab you will see the options to either search or upload. The search function allows you to choose from images that are already uploaded to the KB (MediaWiki) or to upload images from your device and insert them into the page.
After inserting your image, you have the choice to add a caption which will appear below the picture.
To resize the image click on it and then click and drag one of the corners.
MediaWiki Markup
You can see an example of calling an image in wiki markup in the picture in the previous section. The syntax will look something like this.
This tells the KB which image you’re looking for and how to get to it. You can add parameters, such as size, alignment, alt text, captions, and whether it appears as a thumbnail. Here’s an example of what that syntax would look like.
The first parameter is “right” which specifies the alignment. This tells us which side of the screen the image will align to, you can pick left, right, or center for this. The next parameter is 200px which tells the image how big to appear. By default, images appear as the size they’re uploaded but you can change that by specifying the size in pixels. In this example, I only specify one size value, the x value, and the picture automatically resizes the y value, but you can specify both if need be. That syntax would look like this. X value is always first then the Y value.
[[…|200x145px|…]]
After that, tell the image to be a thumbnail, with the parameter thumb. The thumbnail is what the box around the image is, it just makes the page look neater. I suggest using it, but it isn’t a necessity if you aren’t adding a caption. The next value is the alt text, and the final value is the caption. Both of which I explained above in the visual editor section. All of these can be in any order you’d like to put them in, and you can decide not to include anything you’d like.
Headings, Table of Contents and Font Styles
Visual Editor
Using the Format Paragraphs option you can change heading sizes, insert quotes, and denote the page title and sub-title. You simply highlight the text you’d like to change into a header and select the header size from the drop-down menu. Once you create three headers, either major or minor, MediaWiki automatically creates a table of contents.
You can turn the table of contents (TOC) on and off for different sections within the same MediaWiki page. To hide the TOC for a specific section, add the __NOTOC__ magic word before the section header. This will prevent the section from appearing in the TOC. To display the TOC for subsequent sections, add the `__TOC__` magic word at the point where you want the TOC to appear. This will generate the TOC starting from the next section header.
Use the appropriate section headers (in source mode: `==`, `===`, `====`, etc.) to define the sections you want to include in the TOC.
Here's an example of how you can structure your page:
__NOTOC__
== Introduction ==
This section will not appear in the TOC.
__TOC__
== Section 1 ==
This section will be included in the TOC.
=== Subsection 1.1 ===
This subsection will be included in the TOC.
== Section 2 ==
This section will also be included in the TOC.
__NOTOC__
== Conclusion ==
This section will not appear in the TOC.
How to upload a document for viewing in the KB
We have two different type of document uploads. The, presented here is upload for storage. The second is uploading a document as a page action item, is covered in the SRF Staff KB User’s Manual.
As a facilitator you have the user rights to upload documents to the KB.
1. Click on the "Upload file" button in the left sidebar of any page.
3. On the "Upload file" page, click on the "Choose file" button to select the document you want to upload from your local computer.
4. Once you have selected the document file, the file name will appear next to the "Choose file" button.
5. In the "Destination filename" field, you can provide a meaningful name for the file. By default, it will use the original file name, but you can modify it if needed.
6. Optionally, you can provide a summary or description of the document in the "Summary" field. This can help others understand the purpose or content of the file.
7. If you want to overwrite an existing file with the same name, select the "Overwrite existing file" checkbox. Be cautious when using this option, as it will replace the existing file permanently.
8. Click the "Upload file" button to initiate the upload process.
9. MediaWiki will process the upload, and if successful, you will be redirected to the file description page.
10. On the file description page, you can view information about the uploaded document, such as its size, dimensions (if applicable), and the upload history.
11. To use the uploaded document within wiki pages, you can link to it using the file name syntax: [[File:Document_Name.extension]] Replace `Document_Name.extension` with the actual name and extension of your uploaded document file.
12. You can also display the uploaded document directly on a wiki page by using the `[[File:]]` syntax with additional parameters. For example: [[File:Document_Name.extension|thumb|left|Document description]]
This will display a thumbnail of the document on the left side of the page with the provided description.
Once the document is uploaded, it will be stored in the wiki's file repository, and you can easily reference and use it within wiki pages using the appropriate file syntax.
What are links and how do you use them?
You should think of links as directions. They are a line of text that tells your computer where to go to find the information that it needs. Links are usually just the page’s name surrounded by two sets of brackets. For example, if you wanted to link to the main page, you would type [[Main Page]] in the source of the page you’d like to link to or press the insert link button in the page.
How to create pages
Step 1: Create a link to the page in the page you want to access.
Go to a page the page you’d like to connect a page to. This should be a page that is related to the page you wanted to create. For example, I’d go to the space page of my wiki and create a link to a page about Pluto. The link should appear red at first, that’s because this page doesn’t exist yet.
Step 2: Click on that link
Clicking on this link should take you to your newly created page.
Step 3: Edit page
Fill the page with information about your topic.
Step 4: Save the page
Saving the page allows it to be seen by other users of the KB. You can go back and edit it at any time.
Moving Pages
Moving a page changes it’s URL. This is useful when you’ve misspelled a page's name or want to change its namespace. A namespace is a way to organize and categorize subject pages. Namespaces allow you to group related pages together and differentiate between different types of content. They provide a hierarchical structure and help avoid naming conflicts between pages with similar titles. Namespaces allow facilitators and KB staff to limit access to politically and commercially sensitive content. See the Facilitators Operations Manual for more detail on controlling access to delicate information.
Go to the page you want to move. You can do this by searching for the name or by navigating through the page hyperlinks.
In the upper right-hand corner, there’s a dropdown that says More. Selecting it will bring up the “move”, “delete”, and “purge cache” options. Select the move option
In the dropdown menu next to the page's name, there should be a list of namespaces. Use the down arrow key to go through the list of namespaces. In that list, you select the namespace and if you'd like to change the page's name you can edit it in the text bar next to the namespace window.
Important Note: Don’t forget to unselect redirect box below the namespace dialogue box. Redirecting can help reroute people trying to find the page you moved. In some cases, you can accidentally cause a redirect loop when trying to use this option. A safer option is to go back and edit the page links that lead to that page but this can be tedious if a page is popular so choose which version you do carefully.
To edit links after you have changed the namespace, find the pages that link to the old page using the What links here option in the left sidebar menu. In the page bar insert the name of the old page without the modifications you made to it. Searching for it should pullup at least one link.
Step 5: Go through the pages and change the links
Go to each page displayed under the “The following pages link to…” section, find the old link, and change it to the new page link.
Putting a page in the correct namespace
By making sure subject pages are in their proper namespace we help maintain security in terms of who can see certain pages. For example, by making sure the Facilitator namespace is tied to a particular page insures that only facilitators will see this page and customer Stakeholder will note. Stakeholders, depending who they are have their own namespaces.
You can move the page to the correct namespace using the "Move" functionality in MediaWiki. Here's how you can fix the namespace issue:
1. Navigate to the page that you want to move to the correct namespace.
2. Click on the "More" tab at the top of the page and in the pull down you will see the "Move" tab. Select the “Move” option.
3. On the "Move page" screen, you will see the current page title and the option to specify a new title.
4. In the "To new title" field, add the appropriate namespace prefix followed by a colon (":") before the page name. You may need to scroll down with the down arrow on your keyboard to find the namespace you want.
For example, if you want to move the page to the "Facilitator" namespace, you would enter:
a) Facilitator:Page Name
b) Optionally, you can provide a reason for the move in the "Reason" field. This helps maintain a clear history and explanation for the page move.
5. If you want to leave a redirect from the old page to the new page in the correct namespace, keep the "Leave a redirect behind" checkbox selected. This ensures that any existing links to the old page will automatically redirect to the new location.
6. Click the "Move page" button at the button of the screen to initiate the move process.
7. MediaWiki will move the page to the specified namespace and update any internal links pointing to the old page.
8. If you left a redirect behind, the old page will now serve as a redirect to the new page in the correct namespace. Since you belong to the user category that allows move pages and change namespaces you have the proper user permissions to do this. If you don't have the necessary rights to move the page, you may need to contact an administrator or a user with appropriate permissions to assist you.
9. After moving the page to the correct namespace, it's a good practice to review and update any other pages or links that might be affected by the move. This ensures that the wiki maintains its consistency and avoids broken links.
10. If you have accidentally created multiple pages in the wrong namespace, you can repeat the above steps for each page to move them to the appropriate namespace.
How to create a stakeholder account
How to search in the facilitator namespace
What is protect mode?
How to retrieve deleted pages?
How to fix redirect,
