Difference between revisions of "Help:How to Register"

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Latest revision as of 13:32, 7 June 2010

Registering

To register for the site, just click on the "Create an account or login" link at the top of the screen. This will be at the top right of your screen.

You just need to provide a Username and a Password. The username can be anything you like providing it hasn't already been allocated and is appropriate (See Help:Username)

To login, you have to have cookies enabled on your computer. Also if you check the box that says "Remember my password across sessions", this will simplify the login process for you from that computer.

You don't have to login to read the PGVWiki, but you do have to log in to edit articles.

Nevertheless, creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, and it's generally considered a good idea to do so, for a variety of reasons.


User Name

If you create an account, you can pick a Username. Edits you make while logged in will be assigned to that name. That means you get full credit for your contributions in the page history. You can also view all your contributions by clicking the "My contributions" link, which is only visible when you are logged in.

You will have your own user page where you can write a bit about yourself. You can use this page to maintain a list of the articles you have contributed.

You will have a permanent user talk page you can use to communicate with other users. You will be notified whenever someone writes a message on your talk page. If you choose to give an e-mail address, other users will be able to contact you by e-mail. This feature is anonymous; the user who emails you will not know your e-mail address.

Reputation

You don't need to reveal your real identity, but having an account gives you a fixed identity that other users will recognize. It's also easier to communicate and collaborate with an editor if we know who you are.

Sites such as this may get vandalized or spammed - hence the need to register to be able to edit and create pages. Information sources need to be verified and having a username will distinguish you as a reliable contributor and source.

Editing options

There are many features of the MediaWiki software (which powers PGVWiki) that are only available to registered users. For example, one of these features is being able to mark edits as minor.

Minor edits can be filtered from the list of "Recent changes". Marking edits which are not minor as such is considered very rude, so only mark an edit as minor if only a small change, such as a grammar correction has been made.

One very important feature which active contributors will likely use a lot are Watchlists. You will get a new link "Watch this page" on every page you view. If you click that link, a page will be added to your watchlist. This list is basically a filtered view of the "Recent changes" page which only shows changes recently made to items in your watchlist. This way you can keep track of pages you work on without having to follow all changes.

Also, you must be logged in if you want to upload images.

Setting user preferences

Aside from these features, you can customize the way MediaWiki behaves in detail by altering your preferences. There you can change the following display settings:

  • Under math: how mathematical formulae are displayed.
  • Under files: how large image thumbnails are displayed

And various editing preferences:

  • How you sign your name
  • How large the editing box should be
  • How pages should be displayed in recent changes
  • ... and others (they're pretty self-explanatory).