Help:Getting Started

From M3P
Revision as of 12:38, 15 September 2010 by Alexgrech (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Registering

Before you can submit or edit content on M3P, you need to create an account. Click on 'log in/create account' in the top right hand corner of the main page, choose your username and password, and submit a valid email. Within a few minutes, you will receive an automated email, asking you to confirm your email and activate e-mail features on M3P by clicking on a link inside the message. That's it. You're now ready to contribute to M3P.

Submitting Content

Creating a new page

Creating a new page through internal linking

1. To create a page for a particular keyword you must edit an existing page.

2. To edit the whole page, click on the edit button on the wiki menu bar. To edit a portion of a page, click on the edit link just beside the section.

3. Higlight the keyword that you want to create a page.

4. Click on the internal link button, the third icon after bold and italicize icon. Represented by an underlined Ab symbol.

5. Click save. The higlighted word becomes red (note: red means the page doesn't exist).

6. Click on that word in red, then do the necessary edits and save. Hence, a page is created through internal linking.


Creating a new page through word search

1. In the search box on the left side of the wiki, there is a search box.

2. In the search box, type in the word you want your page to be named.

3. Click search.

4. If the page doesn't exist, this comes out.

5. Click on the "create this page" (in red).

6. Do the necessary edits and insert the necessary data.

7. Click the save button.


Editing an existing page

Another way of contributing to M3P is to edit an existing page. Just click on the edit button on the top of the relevant page and insert your content.


Wikis are all about editing, so dive in and make some changes. Don't worry about making mistakes. Other people can correct mistakes later, so have confidence, and give it a try! There can be all kinds of editing conventions, rules, and philosophy governing the editing of wiki pages, but the "be bold" rule overrides these!


In general try and write as clearly and concisely as possible. Make sure you are always trying to do something which improves the M3P's contents. An edit might be to contribute whole paragraphs or pages full of information, or it could be as simple as fixing a typo or spelling mistake.


When you need to use some type of formatting e.g. new headings or bold text, you do this using wiki syntax. The bold and index characters are in the box at the top of the section you are editing.


Before you save a change, you can enter a short note in the Summary box describing your changes. Don't worry too much about this, or spend too much time thinking about it, but try to give a little description of what you just changed e.g. "fixed typo" or "added more information about sunflowers". The summary gets stored alongside your edit, and allows people to track changes in the wiki more effectively.


It's a good idea to use the "Show preview" button to see what your changes will look like, before you save the page. This is also related to tracking changes because every time you save, this is displayed to others as a separate change. This isn't something to worry about too much, but it's good to get into the habit of eliminating mistakes in your own work, by using a preview before saving, rather than saving several minor corrections afterwards.

Uploading media files

As the wiki is still in beta test mode, uploading of media files is disabled until further notice.



We're still working on simple help documentation for users of this website who want to collaborate on this project. Meanwhile, please feel free to explore without instructions for now and check back later if you still need guidance.

You may also want to consult the Mediawiki User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.