Editing tips

Here are some tips regarding how to properly write an article consistent with the wiki's tone and formatting, as well as information on some extensions we've added on top of DokuWiki's base.

When writing a wiki page, write it as if the reader is someone who has never heard of On Cinema in their life. Since a lot of topics have strikingly little to do with On Cinema, it may take several paragraphs before you need to mention the show. For example, if writing an article about a business Tim has started, describe him in the context of that business, and not the context of host of On Cinema until it is relevant. If a page is about something that didn't originate from On Cinema, or is more abstract, give a short wikipedia definition at the start before pivoting into how it's relevant to On Cinema.

While the wiki is written in-universe, it also needs to be a genuine source of information. These are a bit conflicting, given Tim and Gregg will lie about everything, and the wiki's position is to believe whatever they say. Do not write from the point of view of a die-hard Timhead or Gregghead. Instead, report any factual information that is obviously evident, e.g. events that actually happen on the show, or facts about off-screen events that are undisputed. Look for information given by character with no reason to lie, for example, Joey stating that the mineral rights to the HEI Ranch are worthless.

If Tim or Gregg is lying, embellishing, or just making something up, use words like “reportedly” or “claimed” to demonstrate that while the wiki does take everything the hosts say at face value, it also hasn't seen any concrete proof of the thing happening. As an example, “Empty Bottle was the number one MP3 download upon its release,” takes Tim's word for it, but also comes across as a fact about definitely something he made up. “Tim lied and said Empty Bottle was the number one MP3 download upon its release, with no evidence,” is factually true, but goes against the wiki's spirit of believing anything the hosts say. “Reportedly, Empty Bottle was the number one MP3 download upon its release, according to Tim,” is both technically true, and takes Tim's word for it, but also indicates to to the reader that the claim itself is most likely false.

If Tim and Gregg explicitly disagree on a topic, or a factual source like Joey goes against one of the hosts, do not take a side, even if one is objectively correct. Instead, say something along the lines of “the claim is disputed,” or “it is unclear.” A classic example is which Star Trek is in San Francisco. While Gregg is incorrect about Star Trek 2, we will never actually say that. Our wording is that “there is some debate,” about which is true, and we do not ever point out that Gregg is objectively incorrect. Essentially, allow the bit to continue to play out, even within our pages.

We like to add bits of our own to the wiki, and we encourage you to follow in that spirit. Here are a few gags we like to do:

• Misspelling Mark's name. Whenever you link to Mark's page, feel free to try to spell his name completely incorrectly.
• Terrible/outdated page photos. Look for photos posted in-universe, publicity shots for actors who appear, and if you can't find those, then go for screenshots from the show which a normal wiki probably wouldn't use. Mid-action photos are fun, but don't get too crazy with it. It still needs to be identifiable as the subject of the page.
• Topic whiplash. You can write your sentences in a way that reading them normally makes the events seem even more out of nowhere and ridiculous. Consider the following: “Gregg temporarily became host of the show after Tim was jailed for potentially murdering 20 teenagers at an EDM concert he organized.” Underselling the start of a sentence lets you hit the reader with a whammy midway through. You might also try setting up page links or tweet citations in a similar manner, such as “The tour was suspended because of a vehicular incident” linking to an article about a horrible car crash.

To ease up on some inconsistencies around here, this is the preferred style guide when mentioning content in-universe and out-of-universe:

• When mentioning On Cinema at the Cinema episodes mid-article, don't refer to it by the episode title or by the wiki article title (like On Cinema On Demand Episode 1: "Night Swim" and "Weak Layers"), instead just call it S14E01 or, if the article is related to something in that season, episode 1.
• When mentioning On Cinema podcast titles, just say episode 1.
• Italicize show titles: On Cinema at the Cinema
  • Season 13 and Season 14 should be referred to by their in-universe names, and therefore italicized: On Cinema and More! In the Morning and On Cinema On Demand
• Italicize movie titles: Mister America, Oh God!
• Italicize the individual seasons of Decker: Decker: Classified, The Animated Adventures of Jack Decker
• Italicize Oscar Specials when referred to by their full name: 10th Annual On Cinema Oscar Special
• Put show segments in quotes except when listed in an infobox: “On Cinema On Location”
• Put Decker episode titles in quotes: “All Good Things...”
• Put song titles in quotes: “Empty Bottle”
• Misc. content, like 🚨 MAJOR DEKKAR ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨 + "Ride With The Devil" [Official Music Video], should not be italicized or quoted. I think. We'll see.

We extensively use the WRAP extension here, it's incredibly useful. Read the plugin's page on DokuWiki for all the stuff it does by default.

We tend to use WRAP box, info, todo a lot, like so:

<WRAP box>box</WRAP>
<WRAP info>info box</WRAP>
<WRAP todo>todo box</WRAP>

Which looks like:

We've added more classes to the extension that will be covered here:

For the quotes that you see at the top of almost every page, we tend to just use the standard WRAP box style, albeit with some alterations. Bold the quote text. On a new line, use WRAP attribution, enter three dashes (makes a long dash: —) and then cite whoever said it unbolded.

<WRAP box>
**I WILL GO TO BED SLEEPING EVERY NIGHT**
<WRAP attribution>--- Tim Heidecker</WRAP>
</WRAP>

For tweets, instead of WRAP box, use WRAP tweet. Do not bold the text. For the attribution part, we'd like a link to the tweet, with the link text being @username, MM/DD/YY ti:me p.m. PST, though admittedly that is not the most enforced and it might be simplified later on.

<WRAP tweet>
Tweet text
<WRAP attribution>--- [[https://twitter.com/greggturkington/status/148901470241173504|@greggturkington, 12/19/11 3:04 p.m. PST]]</WRAP>
</WRAP>

Since season 14, Tim and Gregg have for the most part abandoned X and started using the comment section on HEI Network's videos and articles instead. We decided to make WRAP templates for both Tim and Gregg's comments. Use WRAP heitim for Tim, WRAP heigregg for gregg. If Tim replies to Gregg or vice versa, layer it inside the current WRAP statement.

<WRAP heitim>
Tim statement!
<WRAP attribution>--- T. Amato, 1/3/24 8:39 a.m. PST</WRAP>
</WRAP>

<WRAP heigregg>
Gregg statement!
<WRAP attribution>--- Gregg Turkington, 1/3/24 4:18 p.m. PST</WRAP>
<WRAP heitim>
Mean Tim reply
<WRAP attribution>--- T. Amato replying to Gregg Turkington, 1/5/24 4:20 a.m. PST</WRAP>
</WRAP>
</WRAP>

Generally, we won't highlight any random user's comments unless Tim or Gregg reply to it. If that's the case, use a standard WRAP box for the user.

While we use Alwaysdata's free plan, storage is quite limited, at just 100mb. We're already halfway over the limit so the last thing we need to do right now is upload images. Instead, we've been using Imgur to host images. Just upload an image to Imgur and then embed it like so:

{{https://i.imgur.com/rIyCkjp.jpeg?250%}}

Note the “?250%” at the end. That resizes the image to a healthy size. You can go smaller if you think it looks too big still.

We use another addition to WRAP, WRAP figure, to have an image in a box with a caption similar to Wikipedia. To do this…

<WRAP figure right>
{{https://i.imgur.com/rIyCkjp.jpeg?250%}}
Gregg holding a movie
</WRAP>

Note the addition of “right”, that forces the figure to align to the right of the page. Left works too, but might look a little funky sometimes.

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We have templates similar to those you see at the bottom of Wikipedia articles thanks to another extension, WST. You can see the current templates we have here. There's more work to be done there, to say the least.

Linking a template is simple. Just use the page id for the template and this:

{{wst>chaplin}}

If you need to edit a template, remember when linking articles you have to link outside of the /template/ namespace. That just means adding a colon before the page name.

[[:tim]] will work, [[tim]] will not

WST has support for modular templates, but we do not have any templates that support that yet.

Another plugin helps us with tags. You'll see them at the bottom of the page. Except this one.

{{tag>popcorn movie_time}}

Tags with multiple words (like “gregg turkington”) must have underscores in lieu of spaces.

Another plug-in helps us with citations. I forget what its called.

We use two citation labels, cite and fn (footnote). Use cite for citing sources, fn for misc. content.

[(cite:label>The citation goes here.)]
[(fn:label2>The footnote goes here.)]

Make sure to give your citation/footnote a label, name it something brief yet precise. The features will act weird otherwise, and it helps you reuse a citation later on. To do that…

[(cite:label)]
[(fn:label2)]

Quaker Oats fed radioactive cereal to mentally disabled children as an experiment.[(cite:oatmeal>[[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fernald-quaker-oats/]])][(fn:oscar11>This fun fact was stated during the //[[:oscar11]]//.)]

Quaker Oats fed radioactive cereal to “mentally disabled” children as an experiment.^[1]1)