Help:Contents

Information about Civicwiki

Information about Civicwiki

Our "About" page is a good way to learn about Civicwiki (we often call it CW). Our Readers' FAQ page is another good source - or it will be when we have some questions people frequently ask.

How to Browse and Search

Searching

Every page has a search box in the upper right corner that has the word 'Search' in front of it. Type a phrase that represents what you are looking for in that box and press 'Enter'. A search results page will appear that lists articles with your phrase in the title or in the text of the page, with links to those pages.

If there is no page with a title matching your search phrase, you will be invited to create such a page. That is one way to initiate page creation.

Browsing

Topics and subtopics

Civicwiki is organized into topics and subtopics. In wiki-speak, these are called 'categories'. When a category is assigned to another category, it becomes a sub-category. In this way a topic tree (category tree) is developed. There are a few top level categories which represent the trunk of their own topic tree. These have a link on the top right of the CW Main page. Each such link connects to a home page (called a 'portal') for that top level category. Each portal has a description of the main topic for that category and the kinds of articles and subtopics that should be assigned to that category.

The sidebar

On the left side of the page you see the sidebar. This is a set of links with self descriptive titles that connect to pages that display information about Civicwiki. The sidebar is always visible.

How to edit an article

Register as a user

The first requirement for editing a page is that you register as a user. To register is simply to create an account.

First request an account. As soon as one of our bureaucrats approves the request, CW will send you and email to validate the account.

We ask that all registered users supply and validate an email address. That will allow you to reset your password and allow us to communicate with you about your edits and the articles you create when we think it will be helpful to you and the content you provide. It also helps us manage the site by reducing spam and vandalism.

Edit an article

Most of the editing done by users will be to articles rather than other types of pages - such as this help page.
CW uses Mediawiki - the same software used by Wikipedia.

• Unlike Wikipedia, CW also uses SemanticWiki. All articles are created and edited using a Semantic Form. (Non-article pages do not use the form.)

If you can edit a page in Wikipedia, you can edit a page using our form since the approaches are both based on Mediawiki and therefore similar. The form used in Civicwiki provides more templates. Simply take a moment or two to look at the way it is organized. It should be straightforward for a user who has edited or written a wiki page.

If you are a stranger to wikis, it will take a little more time to grasp, but you should still find it straightforward and learn it with a little experimentation. There will always be a help bar at the top of the text window that will show you most (but not all) of the options for formatting text, inserting links, images, tables, etc. Most HTML tags and formatting function. We think that there are exceptions, but don't know what they are at this point.

Our bureaucrats have had a range of experience with the form approach - from "I don't get it" (neophytes) to "what's the big deal".

There is a tutorial for editing an article that provides more detailed information. For some this will be helpful. If you have a little experience, it will just slow you down.

Inserting infoboxes

If you are familiar with Wikipedia articles, you are familiar with the infoboxes that appear on the right side of many of the articles that add image, graphic, and textual information to the article. The article form attempts to make this easy for you by providing an infobox template.

For detailed help, use our tutorial on editing.

How to write an Article

Writing your first article

not yet written

Suggestions

I have a suggestion for a new category

not yet written

I have a suggestion for an Article

not yet written

I have a suggestion for what you can do with your stupid wiki

If you want to give us a constructive comment, please put it on the talk page for Jeff or Glenn.

If it isn't a constructive comment, please don't bother us.

Report a problem with an article

not yet written

I heard this really great joke

We love jokes. Share it with us and other CW users by putting it on the joke page. There are some rules, however.

1. Keep it clean. Off color jokes will be deleted and may result in your being blocked from all editing and writing.
2. Don't poke malicious fun at any person or group. It'll be deleted.
   There is a fine line between laughing at and laughing with someone. Non-malicious fun is ok, but err on the side of caution. If it gets deleted, that means we thought it crossed the line.
3. Don't use the jokes page for advertisements or links to other websites. Each joke must be self contained.

When you add a joke, first click on the 'Add New section' button. Then type your joke into the text box for the new section. You can add an infobox if it somehow adds to the joke. We'll use this approach for now. If we get lots of jokes, we might have to figure out something else.