Brickwiki:FAQ
From Brickwiki
What is BrickWiki?
'BrickWiki is a wiki intended to cover all aspects of what is coming to be known as the LEGO hobby. It is not intended to be a giant set list (like Brickset) or a detailed inventory of elements in every set (like Peeron).
As with any hobby, a large quantity of tricks, lore and other information has developed around the subject through time. Unfortunately much of this information lives in people heads or in various locations without any unifying repository which makes it inaccessible to people who don't know where or how to look for it. BrickWiki serves as a location to collect and organise this information in an easily navigable system.
Why should I sign in/get an account?
If you have an account and are signed in, any edits you make will be marked by your name so that you can get the credit you deserve. Also it means people can contact you to offer help, advice or congratulations. You also get your own user page wiki to put your own details out there for other BrickWikians to see.
BrickWiki is behaving strangely, who do I tell?
Either add a comment to Technical Issues or contact one of the admins (Venkatesh or Astronouth7303).
Where do I find all the useful techy pages?
Go to BrickWiki:Resources.
I would like to meet other LEGO users in my area?
What you want is probably a LUG or other club. Check out the regional category and select your region. Hopefully there is a club listed for your local area. Other places to check out are the Lugnet regional newsgroups and LEGOFan.
I would like to hire someone to do some work for me?
What you want is freelance builders.
I'd like to find out about building techniques?
Go to building with bricks and its sub-categories. It contains a collection of tips and techniques to help you get building.
I'd like to start building models of something I saw in a street/magazine/newspaper/etc.?
You want to start building prototypes then. Following the link will find article with tips, hints and examples (both real and brick) to help you begin.
What is markup?
Markup is just a method of formatting text. If you have ever used html or BBcode wiki markup works the same way juts using different tags. For example if you write ''this'' on a wiki page you will see this where the text is in italics and the apostrophes have gone. For more on markup as usd on BW see Help:Editing.
How do I send someone a message?
To send someone a message, you edit their 'user talk' page. Either enter User talk:USERNAME into the search bar or follow a link to their name and click on the Discussion tab (see this image for help) on the top of the page. Remember to give your comment a 'title' by using ==Some Title Of Your Choice== before your message, and don't forget to sign it (by using four tildes in a row: ~~~~). Doing this will result in a banner in orange across the top of any pages they visit, until they click on their user talk page themselves. If you know who they are in real life you can also send them an email outside the wiki of course... normally there is a feature to send email to those users that allow it via the wiki but right now that feature doesn't seem to be working right. Note: once you do this, you should check their page for replies as well as yours, some users reply on their own page and some on yours...
How do I sign comments or messages?
Just type ~~~~ after your message and when you save the page, it will be signed.
What sort of articles do you want?
Articles about all aspects of the LEGO hobby from building to collecting. Articles about LUGs and fests. Anything of interest to other fans of LEGO products. Writing an article about yourself and your friends might go a bit too far as might writing descriptions about every set you own, but otherwise, write away.
You can also ask for an article over at article requests but remember you are asking volunteers so don't expect or demand a response. Remember though that the less politely you ask, the less likely you are to get what you've asked for.
What are categories?
Categories are a way of arranging information so that related articles can be grouped obviously. See the People category as an example. To put an article in a category, you add [[category:CATEGORYNAME]] at the bottom of your article.
Categorising articles can be difficult and two people may have different ideas about where an article should go. If you want to jump in with the categories, check out the discussion on Conventions about them. If you don't want to do that, just add {{nocategory}} to the bottom of your page.
What is a stub?
A stub is an article which is small but contains enough information to be useful. An article is marked as a stub by adding {{stub}} to the end of it. An article which has no information should be marked by {{superstub}}.
I would like to comment on an article but don't want to edit it?
Go to the top of the page and click the discussion tab (see this image for help). That takes you to the 'talk page' of the article which can be edited just like the article itself.
I've written a big article, but it's missing a couple of points?
You can add a ToBeAdded template at the top of the article in order to inspire future readers to fill in the missing parts. This should only be used in big and nearly complete articles though, for smaller, less complete articles add {{stub}} to the bottom.
I've just seen a page that has been vandalised, what should I do?
The first thing to do is to make a note on the Block requests page alerting the sysops (who can block the offending user if they see fit) to the problem. This should include your name, the offending users name or IP address and the address of the vandalised page. If you know how to revert the page, you should try to revert it to the latest good version. If you don't feel comfortable doing this, make a note on the block request and someone else will fix it.
