Help:How to Use the BumpWiki
From BumpWiki
|
|
Contents |
Introduction
If you're reading this, it probably means you're interested in becoming a BumpWiki contributor, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest and desire to help other Ford enthusiasts. You're just a few steps away from sharing your knowledge and experience with others who could greatly benefit from it.
Remember that with great power comes great responsibility! Please do your best to make sure your information is as complete and accurate as possible. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!
What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language and a Web Browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. (The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.) A single page in a wiki website is referred to as a "wiki page", while the entire collection of pages, which are usually well interconnected by hyperlinks, is "the wiki". A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing, and searching through information.
Almost any page you come across is totally EDITABLE. Also, any text that is highlighted red is in need of editing/creation. This means you will be the first to create that page or entry in the BumpWiki!
Getting Started
Obviously, first of all you need to decide if you're going to contribute a tidbit here and there to existing articles by correcting factual errors and minor mistakes, or if you're interested in contributing an entire article. While anyone can contribute in either (or both) ways, contributing a whole article is a bit more involved than minor editing. However, even if you're not a computer coding whiz, after reading this tutorial you should be well on your way to getting your information published. Don't worry about making it perfect the first time around...there will be others here who can help edit your article for improvements later on.
Some Basic Rules
- First and foremost: DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! If you copied the information from another website or any other source other than your own experience, please give credit where credit is due. (More on the proper procedure for doing so will be shown later in this tutorial.)
- Plan your contribution beforehand.
- Know what you want to say, and say it clearly. You don't want leave a reader scratching his head wondering what the heck you just said.
- Do your best to make sure your information is accurate! Just because you read it in a book or saw in on the web doesn't necessarily mean it's true.
- Type it out in a text editor and run it through a spell-check before posting. Some browsers do have a built-in spell-check feature and will highlight words it doesn't recognize and offer suggestions for corrections as you type in the editing window.
- Be prepared to have your contribution picked apart by other users and edited as they see fit. While this isn't a rule per se, it's very important to remember that just as you can edit others' contributions, the reverse is also true, unless the page has been locked to editing by the BumpWiki Admin. If you're the type of person who's going to get upset by someone else's editing of your contribution(s), then save us all the trouble by not posting it here in the first place.
- Just the facts, please! Most contributions should be limited to facts and/or data and should not include personal editorial comments or opinions. The one exception to this rule will pertain to entire 'How I Dunnit' articles, for which editorializing is acceptable.
Minor Article Editing
The bottom line is....if you see an error in any page you see here, simply hit the Edit tab at the top of the page (or the 'edit' link to the right of an article's section title), scroll to the appropriate text in the article and correct it. Next, it's recommended that you you hit the 'Show Preview' button at the bottom of the editing window. This will allow you see see your edits as they will actually appear on the page, and could prevent you from inadvertently editing the wrong area or breaking the page style. If you're satisfied with your edit, simply hit the 'Save page' button under the editing window....and voila', your contribution is now published to the BumpWiki!
|
|
Guidelines for Creating a New Article
So you're ready to create a new article. Here are some general guidelines to follow:
- Search the BumpWiki to see whether someone has written a similar page before you start one yourself. Choose the title carefully.
- Review conventions of the project you are working in regarding e.g.:
- naming conventions; see also Help:Page name.
- whether a separate page is justified; perhaps it is better to add the text to a related page (especially if the text is not very long); that page can always be split later, after it has grown.
- how-to guidance for writing regarding style, content and formatting. E.g. for the Wikipedia project see How to write a great article.
- While creating the page and before saving it, check the What links here link on the creation page. Align the new content with existing links or change the new title.
- If nothing points here, the page is isolated. Links to it will need to be added on other pages.
