Help:FAQ

This page is a SmashWiki help page, intended to be a guide to helping users understand SmashWiki and its functionalities. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.

Greetings, fellow user! I trust you're new, and need some help on how it all works. Here are some commonly asked questions to get you started with this wiki, SmashWiki, or wikis in general. We can't think of every question people will have so feel free to ask any questions on this article's talk page by clicking on the talk button at the top of this article or by clicking here.

What's a wiki?

A wiki is a unique kind of website with contents that can be edited by anyone. SmashWiki, like most other wikis, is designed to provide everyone with up-to-date information about something. The best-known example of a wiki is Wikipedia.

How do I edit and contribute?

To contribute to a page, just click "Edit this page" at the top of the page's contents. Sometimes it may be a good idea to make a new page. While editing a new or existing page, you can format text, and insert links, tables, and many other useful things. The formatting buttons above the editing section can help with that, and you can also click the "preview" button at the bottom of the page to preview your work. Wikis use a special set of symbols called "Wiki markup" to render pages, and you can learn more about them on the editing help page.

Isn't this just like Wikipedia?

Yes and no. While the format is basically the same, Wikipedia is a general wiki that covers virtually everything in minimal detail, while SmashWiki covers only the Super Smash Bros. series with maximum detail. See SmashWiki:About.

What's a "sysop"?

Sysops (or administrators) are essentially the moderators of SmashWiki, appointed to keep everything in order. They can make advanced edits to the structure of SmashWiki and block users who vandalize or endanger its safety. To meet these ends, sysops are entrusted with powers beyond those of a normal user. For a list of sysops, see Special:Listadmins.

Sweet. Can I be one?

If you're reading this page, probably not yet. Users must first become known as active and dedicated contributors, who have made notable and noticable improvements to the wiki, before it is likely the community will trust them with sysop powers.

Oh... I probably don't have anything to add anyway...

Nonsense! There's always something that needs improving on SmashWiki, and it could be you who does it. You could add character information that hasn't been added, improve on pages that haven't been worked on, or even make pages you believe should exist at our wiki. Even if you don't know much about the game, every positive submission is a step in the right direction, no matter how little it is. There are stubby pages to expand, articles that need cleanup, pages that probably should be created, and hundreds of other things that need doing.

Nice, thanks!

You're welcome!

Remember, if you still have any problems, chat with us at the community portal, or feel free to message one of our friendly admins at their talk page.

Hope to see you there!

What's with the different colored links?

There are four different coloured links.

• Blue links are internal links. They link to other pages on the wiki.
• Purple links are visited internal links. If you've visited an internal link, then it will become purple, showing you've visited it before.
• Red links are links to pages that don't exist, or have been deleted.
• Light blue links are external links. They link to sites outside the wiki.

What do the numbers mean in the recent changes?

You'll see some numbers in the recent changes after the time an edit was made. This number indicates how many characters were added or removed from the article. If the number is negative, then characters were removed. If the number is positive, then characters were added. For example,

(diff | hist) . . Help:FAQ; 12:26 . . (+1,000) . . User (Talk | contribs)

would indicate 1,000 characters were added to this article by a user named User, whereas

(diff | hist) . . Help:FAQ; 19:00 . . (-47) . . User (Talk | contribs)

would indicate 47 characters were removed from this article by a user named User.

What is NIWA?

The Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance (NIWA) is a group of wiki communities creating free content with the MediaWiki software.

NIWA began as an organization with the unification of Bulbapedia, Super Mario Wiki, and Zelda Wiki in February 2010. SmashWiki has been a member of NIWA since October 29th, 2010. For the full story of NIWA, please see the NIWA about page.

Any other helpful pages?

• More basic information about editing the wiki
• Learn what user pages, talk pages, and other types of pages are