Wiki Formatting 
The wiki's featured on BGG, RPGG and VGG support a variety of standard wiki formatting features as well as some specific to the site. We use a similar markup style to Wikipedia. While not 100% identical to Wikipedia or mediawiki's format it is very similar.
Database Item Links
A number of special tags exist to quickly link to BGG, RPGG and VGG content. These items will link to the appropriate page and substitute the name of the game, designer, publisher, etc.
BoardGameGeek
After the equal sign (=) insert the item ID number, it is found within the URL for a game, company, person, user, etc. "Alternate Hypertext" is just where you would insert your own text, otherwise the item name will show by default.
[1] A "thread" refers to the posts made within the main forums or the game forums. An article is one post within a thread. The article may or may not be the first post in the thread. The article ID number for the first post in a thread will almost certainly be different than the thread ID number.
[2] Family Tag
[3] You should use "Filepageid" for files, not "fileid". Filepageid is the number of the file page. Most of the time the number in N/A needs to be different from the number of the file page. If you want to use fileid for some reason, you can find the fileid when looking at the HTML source of the file page, search for the filename or description and you will see something like <span id="result_88465_filename"> on filepage 78382, so you need to use [fileid=88465].
[4] [boardgame=] will only work on wiki's, not in the forums. [gameid=] and [thing=] will work on both the wiki's and the forums.
[5] The person/designer tag checks the item type; It doesn't check if the "person" is a designer or an artist. Therefore the person tags work for both designers and artists.
[6] Links to a BGG publisher also work for the company tag.
RPGGeek
After the equal sign (=) insert the item ID number, it is found within the URL for a game, company, person, user, etc. "Alternate Hypertext" is just where you would insert your own text, otherwise the item name will show by default.
[1] The person tag works for designers, artists, authors, producers and production staff.
NOTE: Some systems have been reused and altered to suit the needs of specific domains. Because of this some tags will work across multiple domains for different item types. The "family" tag is the greatest example of this.
VideoGameGeek
NOTE: Some systems have been reused and altered to suit the needs of specific domains. Because of this some tags will work across multiple domains for different item types. The "family" tag is the greatest example of this.
Tables
To insert a table of contents, simply type
[[toc]]
The TOC can be changed in a few ways, to add an option to the toc separate it by a space and use the following format option="value". The table below has the options and the values that it can accept.
option
|
Values
|
Description
|
type
|
ul, ol
|
If used this can change the toc to show as an ordered list instead of unordered. The default is unordered.
|
float
|
left, right
|
You can make the toc "float" on the page and have the text wrap around it. If you don't add anything the toc will show on the left with the text not wrapping
|
title
|
text
|
You can change the title of the TOC from 'Table of Contents'. Only non-html characters are allowed.
|
limit
|
1-3
|
You can limit how many levels of the heading will show on the TOC. Without it it shows every heading on the document.
|
3. Sectional Headings
3.1 Creating Wiki Sectional Headings
Sectional headings are putting equal signs on either side of the heading. Please do not use only one equals sign on a side (=text here=). This causes a title the size of the page name, which is taken care of automatically. The recommended starting point is two equals signs.
wikitext
|
Example
|
= Header =
|
= Alpha =
|
== Header ==
|
== Beta ==
|
=== Header ===
|
=== Gamma ===
|
==== Header ====
|
==== Delta ====
|
Also note that you can create a Table of Contents automatically linking to each heading in the article by adding: [[toc]] This generates a table like the one shown at the begining of this article.
Note that you should leave a blank line after these kinds of Headers, or else strange formatting will occur in the displayed result, making the header physically closer to the previous section than the following section. Compare the following:
3.2 Using Sectional Headers for View Jumps Within The Wiki
You can use the sectional headers as anchor points to which you can jump. Within the wiki itself you can either jump within the page to a sectional header, or you can jump to a sectional header on another wiki page
Code:
[[Page_Name#Sectional_Header_Name]]
- Replace blanks in names with an underscore ("_") for safety
Use a vertical bar "|" (the "pipe" symbol) to create a link while labeling it with a different name. The first term inside the brackets is the link (the page you would be taken to), while anything you type after the vertical bar is what that link looks like.
E.g. [[RPG_Geek_of_the_Week#Tips_for_Creating_the_Poll|Tips and Tricks]]
To create jumps to wiki pages from the forums see: Forum Formatting
4. Text Formatting Basics
4.1 Wiki Markup Tags
Format
|
Rule
|
Example
|
Result
|
Italicize Text
|
2 apostrophes on each side
|
''italicize text''
|
italicize text
|
Bold Text
|
3 apostrophes on each side
|
'''boldtext'''
|
boldtext
|
Bold and Italicize Text
|
5 apostrophes on each side
|
'''''bold and italicized text'''''
|
bold and italicized text
|
Additional
- 4 apostrophes don't do anything special -- there's just 'one left over'
- Newlines do nothing in the text, but a single blank line starts a new paragraph.
- 4 hyphens in a row will create a horizontal rule.
- A colon (:) indents a line or paragraph.
4.2 HTML Markup Tags
Some HTML tags are allowed. However, you should avoid HTML in favor of Wiki markup whenever possible.
HTML Tag
|
Markup Example
|
Result
|
<br>
|
HyperText<br>Markup Language
|
HyperText
Markup Language
|
<code>
|
< code >
This is monospaced
font without space
Stripping
< /code >
|
This is monospaced
font without space
Stripping
|
Comment
|
< nowiki >< !-- Not visible -- ></nowiki>
|
|
<pre>
|
< pre >
This is monospaced
font without space
Stripping< /pre >
|
This is monospaced
font without space
Stripping
|
<sub>
|
HyperText <sub>Markup Language</sub>
|
HyperText Markup Language
|
<strike>
|
<strike>HyperText Markup Language</strike>
|
HyperText Markup Language
|
<u>
|
<u>HyperText Markup Language</u>
|
HyperText Markup Language
|
<nowiki>
|
<nowiki>'''This won't be wikified'''</nowiki>
|
'''This won't be wikified'''
|
Notes:
- <nowiki> is not really a html tag, but it has the html type format. It is special wiki tag which you can use when you do not wish to have wiki markup applied to whatever is surrounded by the "nowiki" tag set. < nowiki >This won't be wikified< /nowiki >. (remove the spaces before and after the angle brackets)
- You can also use a combination of the nowiki and html comment command to leave invisible comments in the text of a wiki page. (Again, remove the spaces before and after the angle brackets)
- < nowiki >< !-- this won't be visible unless you edit the wiki page...-- > < /nowiki >
5. Lists
Lists are easy to create - use a star for each level of the list. If you prefer a numbered list, use the # sign in place of the appropriate star for the level you want enumerated.
For example:
* Item A
* Item B
*# Item B-1
*#* Note A about B-1
*#* Note B about B-1
*# Item B-2
Becomes:
- Item A
- Item B
- Item B-1
- Note A about B-1
- Note B about B-1
- Item B-2
Note that you only need to enable enumeration in the first item at that level. This greatly facilitates switching between bullets and numbers.
6. Links
Links to other wiki pages are created by putting the page name in double square brackets.
e.g [[BoardGameGeek]] becomes BoardGameGeek.
If the page does not exist already, a user following the link will be taken to a blank page.
Links to outside pages are created by putting the URL and the text in single square brackets.
e.g [http://gamestoredb.com/ Game Store Database] becomes Game Store Database
The link name appearing on the page may be changed by inserting the "|" character followed by the wanted name.
e.g [[Vae_Victis_Index|Vae Victis]] becomes Vae Victis.
Note: Following a link to another wiki page transfers the user to another webpage within the same window. Following a link to a ouside page opens a new window. Don't use the outside page format unless you want the user to get another window. Good Wiki design usually has wiki pages spinning in the same window.
Wiki page redirect links can be created with [ redirect=TARGETPAGE ] (remove the spaces before and after the square brackets).
Redirects allow you to transfer users trying to open one wiki page to another. For example, you might want to transfer all requests for a wiki page named "BGG" to a wiki page named "BoardGameGeek."
Links (especially many Wikipedia links) may contain some "unsafe characters" which do not translate properly by the wiki markup. Use the %xx escape sequences below instead for the given character:
- %21 ! (exclamation mark)
- %23 # (number sign)
- %24 $ (dollar sign)
- %28 ( (left/open parenthesis)
- %29 ) (right/closing parenth.)
- %2A * (asterisk)
- %2B + (plus)
Wikipedia links also should not have the trailing "/" character as the page will not load properly from the wiki link.
7. Images
7.2 External Images
Simply type the URL to the image and it will appear in the wiki page.
https://cf.geekdo-static.com/images/geekdo/bgg_cornerlogo.png
Becomes:
8. Table
8.1 Simple Table
NOTE: If you have two tables, one immediately after the other, use a line with a space to keep them apart.
Thus:
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5"
! Heading1
! Heading2
|-
| Entry 1A
| Entry 2A
|-
| Entry 1B
| Entry 2B
|}
Becomes:
Heading1
|
Heading2
|
Entry 1A
|
Entry 2A
|
Entry 1B
|
Entry 2B
|
You can double the ! and | to put multiple items on same line. So:
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5"
! Heading1 !! Heading2
|-
| Entry 1A || Entry 2A
|-
| Entry 1B || Entry 2B
|}
Becomes:
| Heading1 |
Heading2
|
| Entry 1A |
Entry 2A
|
| Entry 1B |
Entry 2B
|
You can use HTML attributes with a table, as shown here:
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="margin-left: 10em"
! Heading1
! Heading2
|- align="center"
| colspan="2" | Entry A
|-
| style="background-color: lightgray" | Entry 1B
| Entry 2B
|}
Becomes:
Heading1
|
Heading2
|
Entry A
|
Entry 1B
|
Entry 2B
|
8.2 Forground and backgound Colors in Tables
It does not seem possible to set the colors of just text within the Wiki. However for tables you can set the foreground and background colors.
{| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="margin-left: 1em"
|-
| style="background-color:#bf4984;color: #00b0ff" | This is a test of setting an '''arbitrary''' bg color and fg color...
|-
| style="background-color:#49bf84;" | This is a test of setting an '''arbitrary''' bg color...
|-
| style="color: #00b0ff" | This is a test of setting an ''arbitrary'' fg color...
|}
becomes:
This is a test of setting an arbitrary bg color and fg color...
|
This is a test of setting an arbitrary bg color...
|
This is a test of setting an arbitrary fg color...
|
9. Horizontal Rule
Type: ----
Example:
four dashes
----
starting in column 1
Result:
four dashes
starting in column 1
10. More Formatting Tricks
See:
|
