Help:Writing Good Articles
From YWAMKnowledgeBase
General Remarks
In order to help the user the wiki has the following features:
- Easy linking from page to page (and to other sites)
- A powerful search tool available from every page
- A simple tool to group knowledge in categories
- The ability to upload pictures, sounds, documents for the user to get hold of straight away.
The wiki has some interesting values implemented in it's software:
- It is Democratic - anyone can edit anything. It belongs to nobody and everybody.
- It is Social - all edits are logged by who made them and what they added or subtracted
- It is Collaborative - It is not one person's tool but OUR tool, if we value the knowledge it contains
- It is Easy to use - well this is relative of course, but it could be much harder! (Have you ever edited raw HTML code?)
- It is Quick - wiki means "Quick" in Hawaiian. Users can easily see and monitor what they have contributed and how it is changing
- It is Free - Free as in Freedom, not Free Beer!
Starting a Page
It is not that obvious how to start a new page. It is somewhat backward in that you write the name of the page and make a link to a non-existant page and then follow the link to this page! Normally you would get an error message but in a wiki the software knows that this means you want to make a new page!
You can start a page in several ways:
- You have to be logged in to edit!
- You can click on a link highlighted in red and be taken to that page in editing mode.
- In the address bar of your browser you can add a page name after the /index.php/ bit. eg. http://mail.ywambrussels.be/sskcwiki/index.php/This is a great new page .You will be taken to a page called "This is a great new page" and informed that there is no text. Click on the small edit tab on the top of the box above.
- You can start editing an existing page that ought to have a link to your new article. You then using the square brackets link notation make up a page name for your new page [[This is a great new page]]. When you save the page you will have a new link in red ready to click on as in 2 above. (This is handy feature as you can write out a lot of links of pages you need to write before you come to make each page and then come back and write them later.)
Writing a page
- Try to write long pages rather than lots of small pages that you click from one to the other. You are allowed to have long pages in the wiki. You can make a structure using heading levels from 1 to 4 with the added bonus of the wiki making a little page of contents automatically for you as it the top of this page (if you have more than 3 headings). It is much easier and tidier to maintain pages this way.
- It is important as much as possible to have one style for writing articles. The Wikipedia Manual of Style is a great guide to a professional and consistent style. We also have started our own Style Guide.
- It is much more fun when others are working on the wiki at the same time. It came be a lonely job otherwise. Try to get others involved.
- When should I make a new page? When you want to write about a different subject altogether and it can be contained well. e.g. the Outreach - Best Practice is best as one page but the case studies e.g. YWAM Plymouth are better to have a page each
- Use Categories to tie pages together in groups and to logically organise them - Once a page is marked as a member of one or more categories these are automatically compiled into lists by the software and hence take little maintenance.
- It is very handy to have a browser that uses tabs. The wiki can be slow to use and often you will want to refer to other pages. This author likes to have many pages open to make finding link names easy and to speed up the editing. You can actually have lots of pages open for editing at the same time - it is only when you click Save page that the server records the changes. The server is designed to handle lots of users at once.
- Use the Show preview button frequently to check for obvious errors, bad links (right click and choose open page in a new tab to avoid loosing changes), poor layout etc. Then save!
- Always type a brief summary of the edit you made to the page. Check the minor edit box to indicate a minor correction or edit.
- You should be proud of your work and will be eager to see what others think. Check the Watch this page box to add a page to your Watch List (see top right). If you visit this page frequently you will see who has made changes and when! Keep your eye on the Recent Changes link in the navigation box to the right. You can also enable/disable email notification of changes of your watch list in your preferences.
- You should make lots of mistakes! Really, you should. This is a collaborative exercise and we need to help each other and to learn the strengths of this tool
- You can move pages but try not to - it is better to think what a page should be called than to change it after. Have a look at index of all pages and see what you might want to call your page.
- When ever your article touches on the subject of another try to include a link to that article. If you want to link to helpful definitions you can link to an external source such as the Wikipedia or the Wiktionary. If you cross link your article well people will be easily see how the information ties together.
- In the opposite manner you need to make sure your article is not lost! There are some pages that are orphaned and there is no way get to them except a direct search. There are pages that don't belong to a category too and hence will not be found often. You can track these orphaned pages, uncatergorised pages and other oddities in the Special pages section.
- Dumping content from word processor or other articles you have written is great. But please take time to tidy it and make it suitable for the wiki. Add in headings using proper markup add in links etc. The aim should be that the information will look no different in presentation than on other pages.
- Feel free to spruce up presentations with interesting tables and pictures. Keep the Help:How To Write in Wiki page open in a tab, use the preview button frequently and even print off the
handy reference card for writing in wiki.
So what are you waiting for? GET WRITING!
(You might want to learn a little more about Help:wiki namespaces as this helps you understand how the wiki is organised but for the moment get writing!)
