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Editing rules, editing conventions, and formatting
The number one rule of wiki editing, is to be bold. Dive in and make changes. Other people can correct mistakes later, so have confidence, and give it a try! There can be all kinds of editing conventions, rules, and philosophy governing the editing of wiki pages, but the "be bold" rule overrides these!
In general, try to write clearly and concisely and make sure you are always aiming to do something which improves the wiki. An edit might contribute whole paragraphs or pages full of information, or it could be as simple as fixing a typo.
When you need to use some type of formatting, e.g. new headings or bold text, you do this using wiki syntax. See Help:Formatting for some of the common types of formatting used. For links and other advanced editing, see Help:Editing.
Summaries
Edit Summary
Before you save a change, you can enter a short note in the Summary: box describing your changes. Do not worry too much about this, or spend too much time thinking about it, but try to give a little description of what you just changed (e.g. "fixed typo" or "added more information about sunflowers") or say why (e.g. "We do not need this navbox anymore"). There is an option on the preferences page to enable a warning that says "Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary. If you click "Save page" again, your edit will be saved without one."
The summary gets stored alongside your edit, and allows people to track changes in the wiki more effectively.
File Summary
A file summary is where one puts a brief the description of the file that they are uploading or why they are uploading it. If they are using it for their own use, they should always put their name in front of it so it does not sound too public to the wiki. An example of a file summary would be "For an upcoming article" or "For my userpage" or "For my sandbox".
Preview
It's a good idea to use the “Show preview” button to see what your change will look like, before you save it. This is also related to tracking changes because every time you save, this is displayed to others as a separate change. This is not something to worry about too much, but it is good to get into the habit of eliminating mistakes in your own work, by using a preview before saving, rather than saving several minor corrections afterwards. There is an option on the preferences page that gives you a preview of the page when you start editing when it is activated.
Show changes
Another option is the “Show changes” button which allows you to see the differences between the current version and your edited version.
Other types of editing
With wiki edits you can move, rename or even start a new page. There is also the delete tool, which is only usually granted to administrators:
Remember you should always aim to improve the overall contents of the wiki with your edits.
Discussion
Every article has its own “talk page” where you can ask questions, make suggestions, or discuss corrections. See Help:Talk Pages.
