--- /dev/null
+## Help on formatting text
+
+Text on this wiki is written in a form very close to how you might write
+text for an email message.
+
+Leave blank lines between paragraphs.
+
+You can \**emphasise*\* or \*\***strongly emphasise**\*\* text by placing it
+in single or double asterisks.
+
+To create a list, start each line with an asterisk:
+
+* "* this is my list"
+* "* another item"
+
+To make a numbered list, start each line with a number (any number will
+do) followed by a period:
+
+1. "1. first line"
+2. "2. second line"
+2. "2. third line"
+
+To create a header, start a line with one or more `#` characters followed
+by a space and the header text. The number of `#` characters controls the
+size of the header:
+
+## ## h2
+### ### h3
+#### #### h4
+
+To create a horizontal rule, just write three or more dashes on their own
+line:
+
+----
+
+To quote someone, prefix the quote with ">":
+
+> To be or not to be,
+> that is the question.
+
+To write a code block, indent each line with a tab:
+
+ 10 PRINT "Hello, world!"
+ 20 GOTO 10
+
+To link to another page on the wiki, place the page's name inside double
+square brackets, so you would use `\[[WikiLink]]` to link to [[WikiLink]].
+
+To link to any other web page, or to an email address, you can just put the url in angle brackets: <<http://ikiwiki.kitenet.net>>, or you can use the form
+\[link text\]\(url\)
+
+----
+
+This style of text formatting is called [[MarkDown]].
--- /dev/null
+Welcome to the your new wiki.
+
+All wikis are supposed to have a [[SandBox]], so this one does too.
+
+This wiki is powered by [ikiwiki](http://ikiwiki.kitenet.net).
--- /dev/null
+[Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/)
+is a minimal markup language that resembles plain text as used in
+email messages. It is the markup language used by this wiki.
+
+For documentation about the markdown syntax, see
+[Markdown: syntax](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax).
+
+Note that [[WikiLink]]s are not part of the markdown syntax, and are the
+only bit of markup that this wiki handles internally.
--- /dev/null
+This is the SandBox, a page anyone can edit to learn how to use the wiki.
+
+----
+
+Here's a paragraph.
+
+Here's another one with *emphasised* text.
+
+# Header
+
+## Subheader
+
+> This is a blockquote.
+>
+> This is the first level of quoting.
+>
+> > This is nested blockquote.
+>
+> Back to the first level.
+
+Numbered list
+
+1. First item.
+1. Another.
+1. And another..
+
+Bulleted list
+
+* *item*
+* item
+
+[[WikiLink]]
--- /dev/null
+WikiLinks provide easy linking between pages of the wiki. To create a
+[[WikiLink]], just put the name of the page to link to in double brackets.
+For example "\[[WikiLink]]".
+
+If you ever need to write something like "\[[WikiLink]] without creating a
+wikilink, just prefix it with a "\", like "\\\\[[WikiLink]]".
+
+Note that there are some special [[SubPage/LinkingRules]] that come into
+play when linking between [[SubPage]]s.
+
+WikiLinks can be entered in any case you like, the page they link to is
+always lowercased.
+
+Note that if the file linked to by a WikiLink looks like an image, it will
+be displayed inline on the page.
Possibly add "next 100" link to it, but OTOH, you can just use svn log if
you need that data..
-## base wiki
-
-Need a toned down version of this wiki with a basic frontpage, sandbox and
-docs to use as a seed for new wikis.
-
## search
* full text (use third-party tools?)