Help:Editing pages

It's very easy to edit the contents of a wiki. It only takes a few clicks.

1. Click the “Edit” page tab at the top of the page.
2. Make changes to the text.
3. Click the “Save page” button.

Simple as that!

Editing rules, editing conventions, and formatting

If you have never used MediaWiki before, an overview of the facilities provided for formatting text using 'wiki markup' is available in the formatting section, along with instructions for inserting links, and images. Please note that there are a number of restrictions on the MediaWiki markup supported by the processing tools, please consult the Module pages section in the DevWiki Course Structuring page for details of these restrictions.

Edit Summary

Before you save a change, you can enter a short note in the Summary: box describing your changes. The Summary box is not enforced - if you want to follow Wikipedia's convention, feel free to do so, but any descriptive summary is allowed, as are empty summaries.

The summary gets stored alongside your edit, and allows people to track changes in the wiki more effectively.

Cancelling editing

The edit pages in this wiki have a protection mechanism against inadvertent cancellation of edits: when viewing an edit page, any navigation operation other than clicking on 'Save page' or 'Preview' will open a confirmation request (this includes attempting to close the browser page, clicking on any links, using the browser history, or manually changing the URL in the browser location bar). Clicking on 'OK' will confirm the navigation operation and destroy your edits, while clicking 'Cancel' will keep you on the edit page with your edits intact.

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 isn't something to worry about too much, but it's 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.

Other types of editing

With wiki edits you can start a new page, move (or rename) a page, or even delete a page:

• Help:Starting a new page
• Help:Moving a page
• Help:Deleting a page

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