Using and editing the Freecycle wiki

Here's how you can help build this wiki.

Log In

To edit pages, you have to log in. There's a link towards the top right, and you can log in using your My Freecycle id and password.

Currently only group Moderators and Lead-Moderators can make edits.

What needs doing?

You can find work that needs doing in two ways:

• Find pages which don't exist.
• Browsing.

Missing Pages

• Wikis have clickable links, to take you from one article to another.
• If the article doesn't exist, the link will appear in red.
• You can get a list of articles which don't exist....how?
• Then just click on one, and start editing.

Browsing

• Just wander around the wiki, clicking on links, searching, and so on.
• When you find something that's wrong, fix it - click on the Edit link.
• Similarly, if something's missing, add it in.

If you think an article should exist, create a link to it - that way it will show up when people look for work to do.

How do I use the editor?

There are two types of editor you can use.

When you click on Edit, you'll get a What You See Is What You Get editor, a little like Microsoft Word.  This is called FCKEditor, and you can read about it here.  This is easy to use for basic edits.  There are two common things you'll need to do which aren't obvious:

• Adding a link
• Inserting a screenshot

If you click on the Wikitext button on the top left, you'll get the text version. This is a bit cryptic to use, though you soon get the hang of it. You format this using special character sequences. You can find out how to do formatting here.

What's the 'house style'?

A few things to bear in mind:

• Please don't use lots of capitals.
• Use bold text rarely, for emphasis.
• Use italics for terminology, or names of buttons/menu items.
• Use red text very rarely, for warnings about very important things.

Remember that this wiki is for members, who may not have strong IT skills, and may not have English as a first language.

• Use simple language.
• Keep sentences short. If they're long, people won't read them.
• Keep articles short. If they're more than a couple of screens, people won't read them. Often articles get cluttered because there's one specific, relatively unimportant, point which takes a long time to explain. Create another article instead, and link to it.
• Use screenshots. Although it's a bit of a pain capturing them and uploading them to the wiki, they're massively more useful than words. See here for how to capture them.

Keep a clear structure:

• Use lots of links, from one article to another. Think about where someone needs to go next, and add links to help them.
• Use bullets and section headings to provide clear, visible structure.
• Don't be afraid to change the structure of a page. If people just add text and sections to a page, it becomes too long; think about whether it needs splitting, editing or rewriting.

Are my edits reviewed?

Yes. The wiki shows the approved versions of changes.  A separate team of Reviewers will verify your edits and approve them to make them visible to others.