User:Forgottenlord/Help New Features

This is a draft for a potential consolidated help page on the Social Features

Uploading Avatars
To upload an Avatar for your profile:


 * Step 1: Save the selected image to your Computer.
 * Step 2: Click "Upload" (the link is underneath your pre-avatar image).
 * Step 3: Click Browse, and select the file of the image you want to upload.
 * Step 4: Hit OK
 * Step 5: Enjoy your new avatar

Awards
Awards are another new feature of Halopedia. They are automated and are given after accomplishing a certain amount of various objectives. They are awarded automatically for five categories of activity on Halopedia.


 * Votes: Voting on User Blogs, one vote can be given to a blog if you agree with it. An award is given for increments of 5, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000 total votes.


 * Comments: Comments of any kind on User Blogs are recorded. Awards for these are given for increments of 5, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, and 8,000 total blog comments.


 * Edits: Editing mainspace pages is recorded, regardless of the size of the edit. Awards for these are given for increments of 5, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, and 8,000 total page edits. No edits of any kind on pages other than mainspace count toward this number.


 * Friends: The number of friends on Halopedia that a user has is awarded Awards in increments of 5, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, and 8,000 total friends. Foes do not count toward this number.


 * Recruits: Recruiting other people to join Halopedia is awarded in increments of 1, 3, and 5 recruits.

Blogs Generally
Blogs are, well, blogs. More accurately, its the community opinions through a critique-- check out Special:ArticlesHome. Blog pages are wiki pages like any other, except that they are framed so that they have only one author. Edits are typically of the non-substantive variety -- that is, edits for formatting, grammar, layout, wikification are accepted, but changes to the authors tone or thesis are discouraged. Blogs use a custom skin specific to the Blog: namespace. Moving a page into the Blog: namespace will result in that page receiving that skin. Skin nuances:
 * The page has an author attributed to it. The author can be added/edited by adding the page to
 * The author’s name appears on a by-line and in the “About the Author” box. The author’s “About Me” section from his or her Social Profile is also in that box.
 * The page’s creation and last edited date appear under the by-line
 * Other contributors (that is, others who edited the page) appear in the “About the Author” box.
 * Users other than the author who voted for the article also appear in the “About the Author” box

Blog articles make it to the top of the blog homepage -- Special:ArticlesHome -- when they receive a certain number of votes and/or unique commentors commenting.

Each blog article has comments at the end of it. For more information, about the comments, see below.

Blogs vs Forums
Blogs are not meant to be a replacement of Halopedia's forums. While forums are meant for discussion, blogs are meant to present the viewpoint of a single author. If your intent is to gather opinions or input of other members of the community, it belongs on the forum.

If the blog is more suited for the forums, the admins will indicate that it belongs on the forums and a minimum of 24 hrs will be given to move the blog to the forums

Blog rules
Blogs must:
 * 1) Be Halo or Halopedia related.
 * 2) Have a thesis or purpose
 * 3) Be understandable to the average user.

Warnings for violations will be given and 3 consecutive warnings will result in a ban.

Commenting
You can add comments to any page on the site. To add comment functionality to a page, put on the page.

You can also add the following elements within the &lt;comments&gt; tag: Enter usernames separated by commas to allow only those users to add comments. You can, effectively, lock comments by putting something like Allow=DNL there. By default, comments can be rated positively or negatively by any logged-in user. This allows users to only give pluses to comments.
 * Allow=Usernames
 * Voting=Plus

Article and Halopedia policy pages should not be given a comments section.

Did you know
The "Did You Know" area on the sidebar pulls from a template; specifically, Template:Didyouknow. If you look at the template itself, you will see that there are a lot of lines, each within an &lt;option&gt; hook. You can put any DYK-type of item in that page, and the Did You Know part of the skin will randomly pull one each time. There are two "choose" groups -- that is, two &lt;choose&gt; tags, each with its own &lt;option&gt;s -- that the sidebar chooses from. You can add more groups (or cut down to one) as the community sees fit.

Importing Images from Flickr
You can import appropriately-licensed images from Flickr via Special:ImportImage


 * 1) Click on "Search Flickr".
 * 2) Type in your search term and hit search.
 * 3) Click on the “import this” checkbox next to all images you want to import.
 * 4) When you have selected all the ones you want to import, click on “import images” on the top right

This will cause the following to happen:
 * 1) A new page in the Image: page will be created for each image you import.
 * 2) The image will be placed in . So if you searched for Halo, all images you import will be placed in Category:Halo.
 * 3) Using the Gallery features (below), you can display these images on a specific page of your choosing.

Importing Videos from YouTube
You can import videos from YouTube Special:ImportVideo

1) Click on "Search YouTube". 2) Type in your search term and hit search. 3) Click on the “import this” checkbox next to all videos you want to import. 4) When you have selected all the ones you want to import, click on “import videos” on the top right

This will cause the following to happen:
 * 1) A new page in the Video: page will be created for each image you import.
 * 2) The image will be placed in . So if you searched for Halo, all videos you import will be placed in Category:Halo.
 * 3) Using the Gallery features (below), you can display these videos on a specific page of your choosing.

Manually Adding Videos
You can add videos from YouTube, MySpaceTV, Google Video, and Metacafe at Special:AddVideo. Paste a title you want to call the video as well as the embed code or url of the video you want to import and click Add Video.
 * A new video in the Video: namespace will be created.
 * You can embed the video on any page by typing in 300px
 * You can edit the Video: page to put the video in a category or categories. If you do, using the Gallery features (below), you can display these videos on a specific page of your choosing.

Galleries
For examples of the galleries, check out Images Gallery and Video Gallery.

You can display a gallery of all images in a specific category by using: 

You can display a gallery of all videos in a specific category by using: 

To limit the amount of images/video you want to show up in the gallery, use limit=Number field: For example: 

You can embed the &lt;videogallerypopulate&gt; hook on any page you want.

Halopedia's Points and Level System
The Halopedia experience is only as good as the community makes it. In order for Halopedia to recognize fans who spend their time sharing with other fans on Halopedia, we've come up with an automated point and level system.

Each time you hit the next level, pat yourself on the back and wear your new title with pride! It will appear not only on your profile page, but also on every comment you leave. It's a signal to other users that you are making Halopedia the ultimate community of Halo players. So get your rank up and show it off with Halo pride!

Check out the tables here to see how the new points and level system works.

Picture Game
The picture game (Special:PictureGameHome) is another flavor of polls. Each page has a question and two images. Each image has a caption. Any user can create a "picture game" by uploading and captioning a pair of images and asking a question about them. Click an image to answer the question, and another game will appear.

All Users
Any user can flag a quiz question by hitting the “Report Images” link on the page. Flagging a question puts it in the “Admin Panel” and removes it from circulation until an admin can review the question and then determine if it is more appropreate.

Admins Only

 * An admin can “Protect Images” a quiz question from being flagged (thereby keeping it in circulation). This is useful when a specific quiz question is being linked to by a third party, because a random passerby can otherwise flag the question, destroying the incoming link.
 * An admin can “Edit” the question.
 * Admins can access the “Admin Panel”. From within the Panel, an Admin can edit, protect, delete, or re-instate the question.

Points Rules and Recommendations

 * Pointwhoring (making useless or pointless edits for the sake of garnering points) is explicitly prohibited and will result in a ban with minimal warning.
 * To help ensure that you are not pointwhoring, it is recommended you make use of the preview, minor edit and summary features.
 * Points are far from the only way to garner recognition on Halopedia. Usergroups, in particular, are an excellent way to garner greater recognition within the community.  Since promotions in usergroups are decided by your peers, a promotion in a usergroup is more respected by veteran users than a promotion by points.

Polls
Polls (Special:RandomPoll) are regular wiki pages with some extra stuff added in. Each page is its own question. Answer one question and you'll move on to the next.

All Users
Any user can edit a poll.

Admins Only

 * Only admins can delete a poll (as it’s a regular wiki page).
 * Admins can “Close” a poll. Closing a poll makes it so the results are displayed but users can no longer vote on it.

Quiz Game
The quiz game (Special:QuizGameHome) allows any user to add a trivia question into the site. Each page is its own question. Answer one question and you'll be given a new one.

All Users
Any user can flag a quiz question by hitting the “Flag” link on the page. Flagging a question puts it in the “Quiz Game Admin Panel” and removes it from circulation until an admin can review the question.

Admins Only

 * An admin can “Protect” a quiz question from being flagged (thereby keeping it in circulation). This is useful when a specific quiz question is being linked to by a third party, because a random passerby can otherwise flag the question, destroying the incoming link.
 * An admin can “Edit” the question.
 * An admin can “Delete” a question.
 * Admins can access the “Quiz Game Admin Panel”. From within the Panel, an Admin can edit, protect, delete, or re-instate the question.

User Profile
If you are logged on, you will see on the upper-right corner of every page is a green button that says "Profile". It is pretty self-explanatory, with a few details:

Users with Established User Pages
For most users, their User Page is now a standard looking profile. Because many users have created in-depth, established user pages, those pages default to the standard page, and your standard profile is at the “Social Profile” link. For other users, the editable user page is now your “Wiki Userpage”. You can toggle this by clicking the yellow “Use social userpage”/”Use wiki userpage” button on your profile.

Personal Information
The “About Me” section will appear on any of your Blog (Namespace “Blog”) articles. Also seen on post/comments.

Friending
You can remove a person as a friend by going to their user page and hitting “Remove as Friend”

User Board
This replaces User Talk pages. You can send a message to a person by going to their user page and:
 * Clicking “Send a Message”
 * Scrolling down to the bottom right where there Board is located

You can also mass-message all your friends/foes via the “Board Blast”. On your user page, scroll down to your board and click “Send Board Blast”.

Xbox Gamertag
You can add your Xbox Gamertag to your Social Profile by editing your profile and adding it to the relevant section in the “Halo Tidbits” tab. As of now, we cannot add your Bungie profile.