Help:Your first edit

From WikiParenting

This is a guide to some things you should know before editing your first article.

1. Click the "Edit Article" tab at the top of an article to start editing. This will open a new page with an edit box containing the editable text of the original article.
   
   
2. Read these guidelines before applying any changes:
   1. Content that violates copyright will be deleted. Do not contribute copyrighted content, instead use content (re)written in your own, unique words. Click here to report copyright infringements.
   2. Please do not contribute any content containing personally identifiable information.
   3. Only public domain resources can be copied without permission, this does not include the vast majority of web pages or images.
   4. Articles or edits that are created for advertising purposes will be deleted. Click here to report spam.
   5. If you don't want your writing to be edited or redistributed by others, do not submit it.
   6. Articles that do not cite reliable sources are more likely to be deleted.
   7. More information about Wiki markup can be found in the editing cheatsheet.
   8. To experiment, please use the WikiParenting:Sandbox.
   9. In addition to our rules above, please read our complete set of contribution rules before creating or editing an article.
      
      

3. Edit the article. You can markup your text by using Wiki markup tags. There are three ways you can apply markup tags.
   1. You can use the blue markup buttons on top of the edit box. First select the text or location where you want to insert the markup tags and click the selected button to insert the tag. If you selected text, the opening markup tag will automatically be inserted before the text and the closing tag after the text.
   2. You can use the markup box below the edit box. This box contains shortcuts to the most frequently used tags. When you click a shortcut the markup tag is inserted in the edit box, similar to how the blue markup buttons work.
   3. You can insert markup tags manually. Please take a look at the editing cheatsheet of a complete list of markup tags.
   
   
4. Click the "Show preview" button, located at the bottom of the page, to see how your changes will look. Remember, in preview mode your changes have not yet been saved!
   
   
5. Select the appropriate categories if you just created the article or if you think the article should be categorized different.
   
   
6. Write a short edit summary in the small text field located just below the list of selected categories. You may use shorthand to describe your changes.
   
   
7. If your edit is a minor edit, you should check the "This is a minor edit" box. Minor edits are typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, etc.
   
   
8. Click the "Save Article" button if you're satisfied with your preview and article categorization. Your changes will be visible within a few minutes to all users. But don't worry, you can edit your changes any time you please.
   
   

The show changes button

You can see the difference between the article containing your edits and the previous version of the article by pressing the "Show changes" button.

The rest of the tabs

Besides "Edit Article" you can see several other tabs as well:

• Discuss Article = a talk page where you can discuss the article and edits.
• + = add a new section to the current page.
• History = a page where you can see previous edits and roll back.
• Rename = a page where you can suggest to rename the current article to a better title.
• Create Article = a page where you can create a new article.

Sign your discussion pages

You should remember to sign your messages on (among others) discussion pages, but you should not sign edits you make to regular articles. In page histories, the software keeps track of which user makes each change, provided that you are logged in with your username. In case you aren't logged in, your IP address will be used instead. To sign, use ~~~~.