User:Pedant/Footnotes

When there is enough text on a page, broken into sections and subsections using section headings, a table of contents is automatically generated...

spaces
'Your Holiness', (smiles) it looks like there's no space there but there is. There are several ways to format text to keep it formatted, one is to start a line with a space... like this... which will format the text as a pre-formatted section. With a box around it. With that technique though, very long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long,long, long lines will extend past the edge of the page, and become ugly, so you would need to keep that in mind: when formatting your text and include 'carriage returns' and a space at the beginning of each line.

(putting a blank line between lines starts a new box)

you can also use html coding, but sparingly, not everyone knows html, and some of it won't work on the wiki (not sure what won't, but pretty sure there is some)

character entities
so you can use the html character entity (<--- look at that link, how you link to a given section within the article) to 'hard code a space    or    multiple spaces by using more than one in a row. '''that doesn't seem to work any longer... hmmm'''

All character entities start with an ampersand '&' and end with a semicolon ';' the three that are used most on wikipedia are probably the non-breaking space (nbsp) and the em dash (mdash) &mdash; an em dash is a dash the size of the letter M, basicly a dash as wide as the font is tall: (&mdash;) as opposed to a hyphen (-) and is used where a dash would be appropriate &mdash; such as to offset text for emphasis &mdash; where a parenthesis would not be appropriate (or whereever needed).

the dash
The manual of style can tell you more about stylistic recommendations.. basically it says that a hyphen should not be used as a dash but that two hyphens are acceptable -- and future versions of the mediawiki software will convert two hyphens -- into a dash &mdash; there is also an en dash, rarely used which is as wide as the letter N and coded using – – (note I am using a 'nowiki' tag to 'escape' the wiki code to show you the coding, that's the third common use of html... except it isn't html really.

inline comments
Also used are comment tags would render as this:

allowing you to insert comments inline, where appropriate. Try not to overuse any of these...

Other html
There are also insert and delete and note the closing tag is the same as the opening tag but with a '/' slash. Also underline, use very sparingly if at all and emphasis and strong which render the same as the apostrophe wikimarkup:2 apostrophes, three apostrophes, five apostrophes (which I noticed you used to start an article) ... mostly those aren't used, the apostrophe version is preferable. Also subscript and superscript or any really ugly combination of those: like a strong strong emphasis with a strong superscript which you can see the wiki software refuses to make extra strong...

back to your question of spaces
back to your question of spaces: you can also use 'cite', 'blockquote', 'code', 'pre' (all 4 of which essentially work for preformatted text, in a similar manner) and other markup

citing references
one that is very useful is 'ref' which is used like this which leaves a numbered link up here, and a footnote at the bottom of the page. Mostly, don't use html if wikicode will work, and concentrate more on the content than its appearance. The tools are just there if you need them. You can also make references with just an inline external link with no link text to link to an external source or with link text like this if that's suitable, but neither of those will make a note at the bottom.

(footnotes do not seem to work on user pages see User:Pedant/Footnotes to see this text with footnotes that work...

the stuff at the bottom of an article
This is a fairly presentable way to add inernal and external links to an article:

see also: the wikipedia style manual for more information than you will be able to absorb in one sitting. external links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MOS which links to the same place and this which also does

in closing
Hope this helps... look around and explore, and try the search box. You can put search strings such as how to edit or references in the search box and a lot of times that will get you what you want. Lastly, where to put your signature in an article... you don't have to, if you are logged on the history page for the article will show your name next to the edit, if not logged on it will record your IP address instead. Of course, on talk pages and in discussions you put it at the end of your comments.

(very long comments, sign at the top and bottom
For very long comments, you can start with three tildes and a colon...

User:Pedant: to help readers to follow who is speaking without scrolling to the end, where you still put your signature using 4 tildes. I do this if I type a long comment in the middle of a long discussion, it's rarely done, but I do it. Better (as others would advise) is not to leave extremely long comments like this one, because it is assumed that we read everything and don't skip anything in discussions, and its just presumptuous to write a hugely long comment, expecting all other readers to read it all. They won't. Thye will often consider it rude to leave a long comment.

shorter is generally better
Everyone has a different idea of what is too long and generally, the shorrter the better. And break it into paragraphs, huge blocks of text with no formatting or paragraph breaks just won't get read and will make you look like a dick <--which is a useful core policy, LOL. Have fun, and don't let it get overwhelming. I promise to write a shorter answer next time. Maybe even just a link. User:Pedant 18:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)