Help:Getting started

From ELDWiki

Staff wiki help pages
Main help page
Help topics
Getting started Accounts Editing syntax Creating new pages Categories Images Templates RSS Uploading files
Learning more
Other resources

This is a wiki for the various committees of the Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. A wiki is a website that anyone can edit. The software used for this wiki is MediaWiki, which is the same software than runs Wikipedia.

Getting started with editing

To edit a page, first make sure that you are logged in. Then click the "edit" tab at the top of the article you wish to edit:

Type your text, using MediaWiki syntax as appropriate to format your text. Then hit "save" at the bottom. Be sure to include an edit summary as well!

Edit summaries

The Edit summary is a line of text that is displayed in the page history, as well as other places. An edit summary should strive to answer the question, "Why did you make this edit?". Providing an edit summary, even if the edit is minor, makes the wiki work better by quickly explaining to other users what your change was about. Though not required, it is considered very good form to add an edit summary.

A good edit summary briefly describes the changes you have made, and if not self-evident, why you’ve made them. It is acceptable to refer to a note left on the article discussion page if you have a long explanation for your changes. A more detailed explanation (up to a point) is generally better than a vague one: “rewrote database section for clarity” is better than “rewriting.” However, for minor edits, simply noting “spelling” or “typo” is fine. Edit summaries are not searched or indexed, so very important information should probably go on the discussion page as well. There is a 200 character limit for edit summaries.

Discussion pages

Discussion, or talk pages, are meant for discussion about articles and other pages. The discussion page is a good place for discussing the content of a page without changing the page itself. Every page on the wiki(except for a few autogenerated special pages) has an attached discussion page, which may be accessed by clicking on the "discussion" tab at the top of the article. Each article or page's discussion page is meant for discussing that particular article or page.