From YWAMKnowledgeBase

With thousands of members from all walks of life, located in nearly every nation on Earth, YWAM staff members are a truly enormous source of information. However, due to the way YWAM is structured, it can be difficult to try to collect all this knowledge. So how can this task be accomplished?

Enter the wiki revolution. Simply stated, a wiki is a website that is collaboratively edited. Unlike traditional websites that are only edited by a select few, a wiki is created by the people who use it. The YWAM Knowledge Base, like YWAM itself, is broad structured and decentralized. If you are a staff member, then you have something to contribute. Maybe you have experience of small group leading in a DTS, or you have first-hand knowledge in frontier missions, or have organized a conference. No matter what you have done in YWAM, you have something to contribute.

To people new to the technology, learning to use a wiki can be a daunting task. However, once you have a bit of practice, wiki technology becomes much easer to use. It is the goal of this guide to make learning about wikis as simple as possible, while still providing a thorough treatment of the topic.

Contents 1 Finding Information 1.1 Browsing by category 1.1.1 Category List 1.1.2 Category Cloud 1.2 Searching 2 Editing 2.1 Registration 2.2 Graphical (WYSIWYG) editing 2.2.1 Basic formatting 2.2.2 Linking 2.2.3 Categorizing pages 2.3 Non-graphical (syntax) editing 3 Joining the discussion 3.1 Adding edit summary 3.2 Watching for changes 3.2.1 Watch list 3.2.2 Document history 3.2.3 Recent changes (global) 3.2.3.1 Watching via RSS 3.3 Discussion section 4 Conclusion 4.1 More resources 4.2 Attend the monthly meeting

Finding Information

How to help people find their way around the site.

Browsing by category

Pages in a wiki are not restrained to a hierarchal structure, in that there is no concept of content existing inside a parent category. Instead, pages have one or more category attached to them. For example, if you look at the bottom of the page on DTS curriculum, you will see that it has the categories DTS, History and Training attached to it. This means that if you go to any of these categories, you will see a link to the DTS curriculum article.

Category List

To see a list of each category in the wiki, click the Categories link in the navigation column to the left. Fifty category titles are listed per page, with links at the top and bottom of the page for viewing the next fifty. Note that whenever a link is displayed in red, this means that the page linked to does not yet exist. If you have something to say about such a category, feel free to be the first to add content there!

Category Cloud

On the main page is a section titled Categories, with a seemingly random collection of links of varying sizes. This is what is called a tag cloud. Every category with five or more pages tagged to it appears in this section, and the more pages, the bigger the link. This gives a convinent visual overview of the entire content of the wiki.

Searching

If you are not sure what categories the information you are looking for might be in, or the category in question is too large to quickly browse, then searching will be the easiest way to find the information. Located just below the navigation bar on the left is the search box. If you know the exact article name, type that and click "Go" to be taken directly to that article. Otherwise, type any applicable key words in the text box, and click "Search."

On the search results page, you will see a list of matching pages, with excerpts from each. The results are seperated into two sections: articles with matching text in the title, and pages with matching text in the content. Notice that as with the category list page, links are located above and below the results for navigating to the next set.

If you were not able to locate what you were looking for with your initial search, you can refine your search with options located at the bottom of the page. For example, if you think what you are looking for might be in the talk namespace, then check that field to include it in your search (more on the talk section latter).

Editing

As stated above, a wiki is created by the same people that use it, which means that you can have a part in improving this resource. Many people think of writing articles for a wiki as a rather daunting task. However, it is easier than you might think. If you would like to find out just how easy, continue reading below.

Registration

To be able to edit content in the wiki, you must first sign up for an account. This is so the website can keep track of who has edited what, and when. If you have not registered yet, please take the time to do so now.

1. Click on the button that says "Login/Register" in the upper-right corner of the page.
2. On the login page, click the link that says "register."
3. On the account creation page, fill in your desired user name, password and email address in the appropriate fields.

The last field in the form is titled "Real Name." Though it is an optional field, it is recommended that you tell us your real name, as it adds a touch of familiarity to your interactions with the community. However, if you are concerned about potential security risks with posting your real name on a YWAM related website, don't let that stop you! This field is optional, after all.

Graphical (WYSIWYG) editing

For most wiki software currently in existence, there exists no way to simply edit content as one would do with an email or office document. Instead, people would use what is known as wiki syntax. The syntax is not nearly as dreadful as many people made it out to be, but it was still an obstacle to many people who would have otherwise contributed to the site. However, as you will see below, the use of wiki syntax is completely optional. In fact, this entire article was written inside the graphical editor.

Basic formatting

To the right is an image of the graphical editor, with numbers attached to lines pointing to the most commonly used editing tools. Here is a summary of what each tool does:

1. This button lets you turn off the graphical editing mode, and edit the content via wiki syntax. If you have already mastered the graphical editor, and want to get a feel for the syntax, write something, and then switch to syntax to see what it looks like.
2. This drop-down menu lets you select various heading sizes and styles. Something of note is the fact that when you use these headings in your articles, the wiki software automatically creates a table of contents for you. To see what this table looks like, just scroll to the top of this article.
3. These three buttons let you embolden, underline and italicize your text.
4. These three tools are used to create and modify links in your content. More on that shortly.
5. These buttons let you make two types of lists: ordered (numbered) lists, and unordered (bulleted) lists.

Linking

One of the most important features of a wiki is it's ability to link to other articles in the wiki, as well as outside websites. With the graphical editor, linking is very simple.

1. Select the text that you intend to turn into a link.
2. Click on the left most button described in section four of the basic formatting paragraph.
3. When the Insert/Edit Link button has been pressed, a new window will appear. Start typing the name of the article you want to link to, and a selection of possible choices will appear below. If you want to link to an outside website, just paste the full URL into the link text box.

Categorizing pages

As I stated in the browsing by category section, articles do not exist in categories, but instead one or more categories are attached to articles. What I did not tell you is that all an editor needs to do to "put" an article into a category is to simply link to it. Here is an overview of the process:

1. Go to the very end of the page, and click in a blank space where you want the category link to be. It is not strictly necessary for this link to be at the bottom of the page, but this is a good convention to follow.
2. Click on the same Insert/Edit Link button used earlier.
3. Instead of typing the name of an article, begin by typing "Category:" followed by the name of the category. For example, if you were writing an article about DTS, you would type "Category:DTS."
4. Click the OK button, and repeat this process for any other categories you want to link to.

Non-graphical (syntax) editing

Though not strictly necessary, it is possible to edit the original syntax of a page. In fact, when editing in graphical mode, you are actually just using a visual tool that generates the code for you. Using wiki syntax is beyond the scope of this article, but if you want to learn more, read the article How To Write in Wiki code.

Joining the discussion

Because a wiki is collaboratively edited, wiki software is specially designed to facilitate discussions. Though after reading the previous sections you should have enough knowledge to add and edit content, the synergistic nature of a wiki really starts coming out when you work with other people to improve the site. Therefore, the rest of this guide is focused on utilizing tools to collaborate with others.

Adding edit summary

As you will see in the screen shot to the right, there are several features located below the main editing text box. The first of these are a text box labeled "Summary." Please always type a summary of the edits, and this information will appear in the change log. Also you can mark a change as a minor edit. It is important to write a brief description of your edit so that everyone can easily see what your aim was in making the edit.

Watching for changes

There are several methods for watching for changes in the wiki. These tools include your watch list, viewing the document history, and viewing the global change history.

Watch list

Your watch list gives you the ability to watch pages of interest for changes. When editing a page, check the box labeled "Watch this page" below the edit summary. If you are not editing the article, click the button titled "watch" at the very top of the page.

To view your watch list, click "my watchlist" near the top-right corner of the page. On this page, a summary of each edit is listed, in chronological order. There is a lot of information included for each edit event, including:

• A link titled "diff" which will take you to an overview of the differenced between the current version and the previous one.
• A link titled "hist" which will take you to the complete edit history for that page.
• A link to the pages that has been edited.
• The name of the user who made the edit, which is a link to their user page.
• A link to the talk page corresponding to that user's page.
• A link to a list of contributions made by that user.

Document history

Each article has a history page (link located at the top of the page), which shows a chronological list of changes to that document, with all of the same information that is shown in the watch list. To see the difference between two revisions, just select both of them from the list, and click the button titled "Compare selected versions."

Recent changes (global)

A great way to keep track of what has been going on throughout the site is with the "Recent changes" link, located in the navigation bar to the left. This page will show you all of the same information that can be found in your watch list or page history, but with a site-global scope.

Watching via RSS

RSS is a great way to keep track of new content added to your favorite blogs, websites, and wikis. If you use RSS, you can add the recent changes page to your feed reader. A description of how to use RSS is beyond the scope of this article, but if you would like to read more on the topic here.

Discussion section

As with the history section, each page also has a "discussion" section, commonly referred to as the talk page. This page works just like any other page in the wiki, but with the purpose of discussing changes to the associated article. Just as with other pages, the talk page also has a page history.

Always be polite in discussions but feel free to state your opinion and defend your opinion strongly. It is important to also sign your comment so we all know who said what, when. You can sign your comment by typing --~~~~

Discussion pages should never be deleted as they are a record of how an article got to where it is today. Sometimes the process is as important as the decision. If you want to start a new subject then start a level 2 heading (e.g. ==New Subject==)

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has helped demystify the use of the YWAM Knowledge Base, and has made it easier for everyone to use. Just like this site itself, this article is a collaborative effort. If you have finished reading this article and would like further assistance, feel free to post your questions and comments in this article's discussion section. If you are familiar with the use of the wiki, and have something you would like to add to this article, or would just like to fix a typo, please do so. Also, do not hesitate to contact someone on the help desk if you need assistance.

Help! For help please contact the Help Desk team who are always willing to assist:

Name (edit)	Mobile Phone	Email	Skype status - Click on this once to make a skype call	Availability
Kevin Colyer	0032 (0) 484 683 003	kevin@ywambrussels.be		09h00-17h00 GMT+1
Steve Sullivan	0044 (0) 7973 463314	ssullivan@oval.com		09h00-17h03 GMT+0
Crashsystems	001 (386) 269-0840	crashsystems@gmail.com		08h30-17h00 GMT-6
neo	0061 (0) 431 936 416 (Virgin Mobil Australia)	Please use this contact form and choose the Category "YWAMKB Help"		When ever I'm online... GMT+8
Little Eagle	0047 (0) 93684939	littlereagle@hotmail.com		09h00-16h30 GMT+1

If your skype availability is not correctly displayed then this is how to fix it:

Open skype and under Tools/Options/Privacy/Show advanced options there is a check box called 'Allow my status to be shown on the web'. Enable it. That should fix the problem

(If you would like to join the HelpDesk team then please add your details above)

More resources

(note: If you think there an article ether on this site, wikipedia or elsewhere which would help people who have just read this article, please post it here)

Attend the monthly meeting

Perhaps you have just read this article, and are interested in collaborating with others to see how you can help make this resource better than ever. If so, you are officially invited to our monthly meeting! Once every month we have a live chat session that is held on Skype. If you would like to attend the next meeting, be sure to check the main page often for details concerning the next meeting.