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Anyone can edit

In a wiki, anyone can edit almost any page. (No, we're not kidding.) Editing pages is the best way to active participation, as compared to making comments from the sidelines. This website supports deliberation and facilitates participation. A wiki with open content is one of the best ways to build consensus.

Is it your first time in a wiki? Don't worry! Be bold. All versions of every page are saved in the history so there are no mistakes that can't be easily fixed. Other editors and senior editors will be glad to help. Just ask!

Point of View

In a wiki understanding the point of view is important:

• Every page is written from a specific point of view (POV) - 1st person, 3rd person, neutral POV, sympathetic POV, etc. All editors should try to stick to this point of view.
• Adding comments or questions into the text is ok, but keep in mind these can become stale and it makes work for others to clean up or remove them later.
• When you edit something, make it better, don't undermine it. For instance if the page is a proposal, you should strengthen that proposal on that page. Put a counter-proposal on a different page and link to it.

Protected pages.

Occasionally you will find a protected page, locked page or archived page that requires special permissions to view or change. If you can see the "edit" button, it means you have permission to edit that page.

Starting an edit

To begin an edit, click an edit button (found at the top-right and bottom left). If the edit button is not available, you do not have permission to edit that particular page. When you click the edit button, you will see a new page containing the 'source text' in an editing area. This is called the edit window. The source text contains both the content and the wiki syntax with tells the software how to display the content. Look for the wiki syntax guide at the bottom of the edit window to learn about wiki formatting. Usually there are also formatting buttons, hover over these to see their descriptions.

Making changes

The editing window contains a simple word-processor that you use to make changes to a page. Simply add, change, cut, paste and delete text as you would in a word processor. At any time, you may click on the "cancel edit" if you decide not to proceed.

Edit conflicts

When you start an edit, you may receive a warning of a simultaneous edit - another user is editing the page at the same time. If this occurs, you probably should come back later, or make a comment instead. Simultaneous edits are saved individually as separate versions, but only the last editor to save will see their efforts reflected in the current version. Others will have to retrieve their changes from the history file.

Previewing

It is best to preview page every couple of minutes to check how your finished page is looking. Click on the 'preview' button below the editing area. This will open the preview window, which includes another edit window below.

The edit comment

If the preview looks good, you are ready to save the page. You should enter an "edit comment" just below the edit area — make a short explanation of what changes you have made, so people looking at the history page can understand. (For example, "fixed several typos" or "added link to European study", or "improved wording of third paragraph").

Create a page

In a wiki, you create a page by linking to it. Edit any page, put any page name inside double parentheses and "save". The wiki software will create pages on the fly with no real limit. Since they take up only a small bit of space on a hard drive, they never need to be deleted (and shouldn't be). To remove a page, just remove all the links to it.

Saving Safely

Before you save pages or even hit the preview button, to be safe, use Control-A Control-C (for windows users) to save your edited text to the clipboard. This is a very important precaution, particularly if you have been working on your edit a long time. If you have lost your internet connection for example, you will lose your work. Using Ctrl-A Ctrl-C means that no matter what, you will be able to open a word processor, and recover your work by pasting (ctrl-v). After Ctrl-A Ctrl-C, click save. Your edits will be permanently saved into the wiki database and you will be returned to the normal page view.

• Don't use your browser's "forward" and "back" buttons when editing. To cancel an edit, use the "cancel edit" link at the bottom of the edit area. To edit a page a second time, click on the edit link again.

Code of Conduct

Note that all edits are recorded along with the username of the editor. IP addresses are recorded for anonymous editors. Abuse of the editing function will result in a loss of access privileges (logged in or not users can be blocked by IP). All editors should have the capability to revert a page to an earlier version if a Bad Edit is made.

To add a picture

1. In edit mode, use the upload picture field at the bottom of the edit form.
2. click Preview.
3. The image will show up in the preview window, and a link to the picture will appear in the edit window. (often at the top or bottom) Cut and paste the picture link to wherever you want it.
4. Preview again.
5. Save.

note: if any html is allowed on that page, you must change the curly brackets in the IMG tag to angle brackets.

see also:

• Good Edit
• Bad Edit
• Good Editor
• Bad Editor