How to Contribute to Calgarypedia

From Calgarypedia

Registering an Account

In order to edit or create pages on Calgarypedia, you must first register an account. To register for a Calgarypedia account, all you need is a valid e-mail address. Click the "Log in/become a contributor" link in the upper-right corner and follow the instructions to register your account. A verification e-mail will be sent to your address when you register. Click the link included in the e-mail to verify your account. It will bring you back to Calgarypedia, at which point you can log in and begin contributing.

Editing Pages

Calgarypedia is a wiki – a collaborative collection of knowledge about Calgary to which anyone can contribute. All of Calgarypedia's pages have an "Edit this page" tab at the top left that allows users to add and change content on existing pages. When you click the link, it takes you to Calgarypedia's editing interface. From there, you can add and edit the text on the page and either save it instantly or preview your changes before you save the page.

Adding Pages

You can add entirely new pages to Calgarypedia. Like Wikipedia, Calgarypedia relies on relations between topics to link pages together and build structure within the site. When you make a new page or add to an article on Calgarypedia, it's important that you link it to other pages on the wiki so it's easy to find.

There are two ways to add pages to Calgarypedia. You can make text that references a specific topic on an existing page into a link by editing the page (see Linking inside Calgarypedia). Also, if you search for a specific term on the site that doesn't have its own page yet, Calgarypedia gives you the option to create it.

Images

While Calgarypedia does not allow its users to upload images directly to the wiki, external images can easily be embedded into articles on the site. Simply copy and paste the URL of the image you would like to place in the document into the article and the image will appear on the page when it is saved.

Moving / Redirecting Pages

If you feel an article has been improperly titled, you can change its name by clicking the Move tab at the top of the article. Calgarypedia will prompt you to enter a new name for the page. Be warned that moving a page will affect the references and links to that article on other pages on Calgarypedia. Alternatively, you can make a redirect page, which will simply act as a screen door for the original article. For example, if you search for Calgary Dining Guide and no article exists with that title, you can create a new page called Calgary Dining Guide that redirects to another article with the correct title, Calgary Restaurants. Redirect pages require only one simple command.

How to make a redirect page

To redirect page A (the redirecting page) to a different page B (the target page), enter the following redirecting command at the top of the redirecting page.

#REDIRECT [[NAME OF PAGE B]]

Talk Pages / Discussing Topics

Every article on Calgarypedia has a Discussion tab, which allows Calgarypedians access to that article's talk page.

If there's something in you think belongs somewhere else, or a fact that you would like to discuss with other users, you can voice your concerns on the talk page. Other Calgarypedians can then see what you've written and discuss the topic.

When you are logged in to your Calgarypedia account, you will see a link at the top right to 'my talk', which shows you all the pages you are discussing. For more information on Talk pages, see Wikipedia's Tutorial on Talk pages.

My Preferences

When you're logged in to your account on Calgarypedia, a list of options in the top right corner of the page becomes available, including my preferences. Inside my preferences, you can change the email address that Calgarypedia uses to send you notifications and a host of other options that change the way the site presents information and interacts with you.

These include:

• User profile
• Files
• Date and time
• Editing
• Recent changes
• Watchlist
• Search
• Misc
• User profile

Article Revision Histories

The History tab allows Calgarypedians to view all the changes made to a specific article. The revision history page lists the most recent changes at the top of the list, and shows what users made each change.

Watching Pages

If you'd like to see changes other users are making to a page on Calgarypedia, simply click the 'Watch' tab on the article you'd like to monitor. You'll then be notified whenever someone makes changes or additions to that page.

Linking inside Calgarypedia

Linking to other topics on Calgarypedia is easy. Just click "Edit this page" on the page with the term you want to link, and in the editing interface, you simply need to add two square brackets around the term. For example:

The Bow River runs through Calgary and intersects with the Elbow River.

To link to the pages on the Calgarypedia site about the Bow River, click "Edit this page" and add brackets to the term Bow River. Like this:

The [[Bow River]] runs through Calgary and intersects with the Elbow River.
When you save the changes to the page, the text will appear as a link. Like this:

The Bow River runs through Calgary and intersects with the Elbow River.

The text then becomes a hyperlink to Calgarypedia’s page on the Bow River. If no page currently exists for the term you are linking to, Calgarypedia will prompt you (or whoever clicks on the link) to create a new page for the term.

External Links

In order to maintain the credibility of information on Calgarypedia, it’s important that contributors cite sources and include external links to source material wherever possible. There are a number of ways to include links when writing on Calgarypedia.

Formatting

Instead of traditional HTML coding, or a "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" interface, Calgarypedia uses simple text codes in the Wikitext language used on Wikipedia and other wikis on the internet. This makes it easy for anyone to format pages on Calgarypedia - no programming knowledge required.

Here are a few quick examples:

For more tips on formatting inside a wiki, see Wikipedia's Tutorial on Formatting.

External Links / More Help

Here are some links to resources on how to work with wikis: Your First Article on Wikipedia: a guide to some things you should know before creating your first encyclopedia article The Five Pillars of Wikipedia