What does <nowiki>Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki> mean?

Question

Found this: <nowiki>Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki> posted before the Biography section of a profile.

Comments

In edit screen, there are option tabs above the Bio Box and the "W" will create what you are inquiring about.  No idea of it's purpose though.

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Thanks, Patricia

Answer 1

A wiki uses certain characters like equal signs, apostrophes etc. to change the appearance of the text in between: ''text'' (that's two apostrophes, not a quotation mark) make text appear bold: text. Using <nowiki>text</nowiki> makes any such formatting instructions disappear for the text. In your profile this doesn't serve any purpose and should be deleted.

Comments

Thanks Helmut,

I didn't put those signs in...they just appeared

 

Paul

Answer 2

That probably got into the biography by accident when you inadvertently clicked on the edit-screen icon that has a W with a red circle and a slash over it. (I recognize the problem because the same thing happens to me sometimes when I'm typing.)  Feel free to remove it!!!

That's a formatting command that allows you to insert text that looks like Wikiformat code but isn't supposed to be interpreted as Wikiformat code. For example, if you want to insert three ' characters in a row without creating boldface text, you could surround those three characters with the "nowiki" brackets.

Comments

Thanks Ellen

Paul

Answer 3

Well, I think you can remove it in this case.

the nowiki allows you to write something in WikiMarkup, like <ref> etc </ref>, and have it not actually happen. In the case of <ref> it wouldn't become a footnote. Or if I wanted to show someone how to enter a category [[Category: place name]]. Without the nowiki it would become a category, with the nowiki you can see the typing required. Of course every <nowiki. requires and </nowiki> (end nowiki)

I've never used this on a profile, but it's very helpful on help pages and sometimes space pages to prevent the wikitree markup from happening so you can show people how to do things

Comments

Thanks Ann,

 

Paul