Help:Editing Pages

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M3P is a wiki, meaning that anyone can start a new page, edit or improve existing ones, and the change is done immediately for all readers.

However, some pages are protected for obvious reasons. These might be pages of published newspaper articles or other pages directly related to the administration of M3P.

When you start a new page or add to an existing one in order to improve it, no matter how small your edit may seem, you can be proud of being a part of this community that is helping make M3P better - all those edits and contributions add up!

Editing

Editing most m3p pages is easy. Simply click on the "edit" tab at the top of a m3p page (or on a section-edit link). This will bring you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the current page.

In this box, you can type in the text that you want to add, using wiki markup to format the text. A quick reference to wiki markup can be opened in a new window by clicking 'Editing help', found near the 'save page' button.

Never start a line with a leading space unless you want the special formatting it causes. Paragraphs can be separated with a blank line.

When you have finished editing, you should write a short edit summary in the small text-field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend. To see how the page looks with your edits, press the "Show preview" button. To see the differences between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page, press the "Show changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, be bold and press the "Save page" button. Your changes will immediately be visible to all m3p users.

Talk (discussion) pages

Talk pages are similar to articles in that they also have a "new section" tab to start a new section or edit the whole page.

Minor edits

A check to the "minor edit" box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the version with your edit and the previous version: typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, etc. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute.

Major edits

All editors are encouraged to be bold, but there are several things that a user can do to ensure that major edits are performed smoothly. Before engaging in a major edit, a user should consider discussing proposed changes on the article discussion/talk page. Once the edit has been completed, the inclusion of an edit summary will assist in documenting the changes. These steps will help all to ensure that major edits are well received by the m3p community.

A major edit should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is major (not minor), even if the edit is a single word.

There are no necessary terms to which you have to agree when doing major edits, but the recommendations above have become best practice. If you do it your own way, the likelihood of your edits being reedited may be higher.

When performing a large edit, it is suggested you periodically, and before pressing 'save page', copy your edits into an external text editor (preferably one without formatting, such as Notepad). This ensures that in the case of a browser crash you will not lose your work. If you are adding substantial amounts of work, it is also a good idea to save changes in stages.

Wiki markup

Wiki markup is the extra information (apart from the text which will be displayed) you enter in the edit window which tells the MediaWiki software how to display, categorize and process the article.

More information on editing wiki pages

Getting started

Policies and conventions

Helpful tips

Cheatsheet

Naming and moving

Moving a page

Article titles

Namespace

Style and layout

Tools

See also