Help:Automatic conversion of wikitext

Sometimes wikitext (the syntax used when editing a wiki) is automatically converted to something else when you save the page.

What is signature expansion?

A signature (a link to your user page and a timestamp) is automatically created wherever you type ~~~~. Signatures can be highly customized.

See Help:Signature.

What is a substituted template?

Normally, a template named {{something}} will appear to expand to whatever is at [[Template:Something]] when the page is saved, but if you edit the page you will still see {{something}} in the wikitext.

However, if you substitute a template, the text "{{subst:something}}" will actually be replaced with whatever is at [[Template:Something]]. If you edit the page again after saving, you will no longer see {{subst:something}} in the text.

See Help:Substituting templates.

What is the pipe trick?

By adding a pipe or vertical bar ("|") before the closing brackets in certain links, you can hide namespaces, clarifying words in parentheses, or words after commas.

• [[Someone (author)|]] is converted to [[Someone (author)|Someone]].
• [[Project:Something|]] is converted to [[Project:Something|Something]].
• [[w:Something|]] is converted to [[w:Something|Something]].
• [[Some City, Some State|]] is converted to [[Some City, Some State|Some City]].

See Help:Pipe trick.