Building a knowledge base

Knowledge base turns part of your site into a dictionary or an encyclopedia at /wiki: entries with a summary, an info box of facts, photos and a full article, browsable A–Z and by category, with a search that suggests entries as visitors type. Editors and above can manage it.

Dictionary or encyclopedia

Choose the kind under Settings. A Dictionary lists entries as a compact A–Z word list; an Encyclopedia shows cards with pictures and gives long articles a table of contents. Both tell search engines what the entries are. Here you also set the heading and introduction of the /wiki page, and switch on Word of the day — one entry featured for everyone each day — and Take suggestions.

Fields: the facts in the info box

Under Fields, add up to 30 fields every entry can fill in — text, number, choice, yes/no or link. They appear in the info box at the top of an entry, and an empty field is simply hidden. Turn on Offer as a filter for a choice or yes/no field, and visitors can narrow the index by it.

Writing an entry

1. 1Under Entries, press New entry and give it a title.
2. 2Write a one-line Summary — it's shown in lists and search results — then pick a category and fill in the fields.
3. 3Add Aliases: other spellings or forms that should find this entry in search.
4. 4Add up to 12 Photos — the first goes in the info box, the rest into a gallery — and, for a dictionary, a Pronunciation recording.
5. 5Write the Article, switch the entry to published and save.

In the article, [[Apple]] links to the entry called Apple, and [[Apple|apples]] does the same with different words. A link to an entry that doesn't exist yet shows as plain text until someone writes it — Wanted entries on the Entries screen lists them, and a click starts one.

Every save keeps the version it replaced. History holds the latest 25, and a restore can itself be undone. Translations holds the title and summary in your site's other languages.

Categories

Categories are one flat list — up to 100 — in the order you arrange them, and visitors can browse the index by them. Deleting a category keeps its entries; they're just left without one.

Import and export

Import CSV brings in up to 2,000 entries at a time. Use the columns Slug, Title, Summary, Aliases, Category, Status and Article — the article in Markdown — plus one column per field, named after it, and separate aliases with ;. A row whose slug already exists updates that entry and keeps the old version in its history. Export CSV writes the same format, so you can edit in a spreadsheet and bring it back.

What visitors see

• /wiki — your introduction, a search box, the word of the day, categories, filters, an A–Z bar and a button for a random entry.
• Search suggests up to eight entries as visitors type, matches aliases and field values too, and asks "Did you mean…" when nothing matches exactly.
• Each entry shows its info box, article and gallery, the entries that link to it, and more from the same category.

Suggestions from readers

With Take suggestions on, visitors can suggest a correction to any entry, or a new entry — from the index, or when a search finds nothing. Suggestions arrive under Suggestions. Accept as draft turns a suggested entry into a draft you can edit; for a correction, make the change in the entry yourself and press Mark as done. Nothing a visitor sends is ever published on its own.