How to edit a page
From PermaWiki
This article is designed to be a quick introduction to basic wiki editing. For more complete instructions, see how to edit a page (full).
You need to have an account to begin editing. If this isn't already the case, you can sign up here or hit the create account link in the upper right.
When editing a wiki, all of your changes are reversible, and all edits are saved in the history, and attached to your account. This means that nothing can be permanently lost or erased, so you needn't feel too shy about making mistakes or modifying what's already there!
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How to start a page
To start a new page, either click on a red link (meaning that the article doesn't exist yet), and start typing in the edit box that shows up, or type the name of article you want to create in the search box on the left, click "create this page", and start typing.
How to edit a page
To modify an existing article, click "edit" at the top of the page, and make your modifications.
How to save your changes
Whether you have created a new page or edited an existing one, you will need to save your changes. But before saving, you may want to preview the changes you have made, by clicking the "show preview" button below the edit box. You can also click "show changes" to see the differences between your version and the previous version. Once you are satisfied, it is recommended that you write an edit summary in the "summary" field. This helps inform other editors of the nature of the changes you have made. You can check the "this is a minor edit" box to indicate to everyone that the changes you have made are minor (such as fixing punctuation, copy-editing and minor format details) and not worth reviewing. Now that you are ready to save the changes, click the "save page" button. Your changes are visible immediately.
How to use the history
You don't need to worry about making mistakes, or erasing anyone else's work. At the top of the page, next to the edit button, there is the "history" button. When you click on it, you will see a list of every version the article has gone through, right back to its creation. This means that if for some reason you want to return to a previous edition of the article, you can! Just click on the edition you want to restore, indicated by the date and time it was saved, which will prompt this edition to appear, and then click edit, just like you would for a normal article, write an edit summary (if you see fit), and save it. Alternatively, you can copy and paste parts of previous editions into the present one.
To quickly return to the second-to-last edition, you can also click "undo", at the end of the latest line in the history. "Rollback", right next to it, will undo all the edits by the latest editor, assuming they have made a string of edits and you want them all to be undone (which should be pretty rare).
How to use the discussion page
Each article comes with a discussion page. You can access it by clicking on the "discussion" tab at the top (if it's red, that means no one has posted on it yet). You can then start a new topic by clicking the little "+" button, or you can click the "edit" button just like any other article.
When leaving a comment, you should sign it by using four "~", like this: "~~~~". This will leave your user name and the date and time. Do not sign the edits you make to articles, just your comments in discussions.
In some cases it might be better to keep all the discussions in the article itself, such as course name, but for other articles, such as information articles (kombucha, fermentation), and already very long or intricate articles (Course:Overview, Budget planning (2009)), it is best to keep the discussion on the discussion page. Use your own judgement.
Basic editing
The most basic things you need in order to edit the wiki will be found in the editing toolbar that appears when you click "edit". You can also type in the syntax like this:
- [[fermentation]] = fermentation (a link to another article; if it's red it means it doesn't exist yet; note that the case of the first letter does not matter, so you don't need to capitalize an article title for the link to work)
- [[budget planning (2009)|planned budget]] = planned budget (hides the real article title in favour of something you want everyone else to read)
- =Title1=, ==Title2==, ===Title3=== are the 3 first levels of headers available (it goes on, but you get the general idea)
- '''Bold''' = Bold
- ''Italics'' = Italics
- a * creates a bullet, like the on that starts this line. ** will increase the indent by one, and so on.
Redirects
Redirects are useful if you want people to be sent to an article that has a different title. For instance, when people type "help" in the search bar, they are sent to "List of help pages" (same if you click on "help"). This can also be useful for plurals, alternative spellings, etc. To create a redirect, go to the page you want to redirect to another article, edit it as you would any other article, and place #REDIRECT [[destination article]] in the page and save. For example, the "help" page says #REDIRECT [[List of help pages]] .
Images
To upload an image, you must click on "upload file", on the left under the search bar. Once an image is uploaded, it can be put into an article by using the following syntax: [[Image:Image title.JPG|thumb|size|comment]], where the size is expressed in number of pixels (such as "200px"), and the comment will appear below the image.
Please respect copyright on images so that we avoid trouble!
Categories
See How to find what you are looking for#Categories for information on how to use categories.
