How to Edit a ShopWiki Page Contents [Hide] 1 Tips on Editing Wiki Guides 2 Wiki Editors 3 Links 4 Images 5 Product Templates 6 Tables 7 Adding a Comment 8 Minor/Major Changes 9 Watchlist ShopWiki is a wiki, which means that anyone can easily edit or change a page in the main namespace. There are some protected pages on ShopWiki that can only be edited by those with administrative access to the site, i.e., all help pages, including this one, are protected. You must be a registered user to edit or start a wiki guide on ShopWiki. Editing is simple; click the "edit" tab above the text and go. If you are just looking for a place to experiment, your user page is a good place to do this. Click on your username in the above right hand corner and either practice right on that page (viewable by all users) or create a link to a separate page in the namespace "User:Yourusername:practice," which can only be viewed and edited by you (unless you choose to make it public). You can also use the Sandbox to practice with the wiki. Once you are in the editor, you can simply type in your correction and/or additions to the guide. Once you have made your changes, spell check (if you are working in the Rich Text Editor) to fix any typos -- yours or others -- and click the "Preview" button to view your masterpiece. If you are okay with the changes, click "Save Article." If you don't feel like editing an article but want to comment, click the "Add Comment" link at the bottom of the article and write your message. Comments are a good way to discuss the subject and/or dispute a particular point in a guide. Tips on Editing Wiki Guides Always use the neutral point of view (NPOV) for buying guides -- the purpose of the guides are to help fellow users through the shopping experience. If you want to give more personal suggestions on things, try creating a gift guide, or make it perfectly clear that what you are saying is clearly your opinion and may not be the best for every user. Also see our Style Guide for more information. If you want to give your opinion of a specific product, search for that product and contribute to its review. Don't use the guides as a promotional tool for marketing a specific product. The community will edit such material or delete an article if it contains marketing jargon or is clearly an advertisement. Cite your sources. If you are adding some top picks from a certain Web site, give them credit and link to the site so other users can see where the information came from. Link to searches. It's always helpful to link to specific searches within the site to guide the user through the shopping experience. There are many sub-directory pages that link to specific searches for products in a category. These are always helpful. If you can add or improve upon these, please do. But try to stick within the established format/templates designed on the page. Wiki Editors ShopWiki features a Rich Text Editor and a Plain Text Editor for changing the wiki content. The Rich Text Editor is a user-friendly version that looks and functions similarly to many word processing programs. Unfortunately not all browsers support our Rich Text Editor, including Safari and Opera. If you do not have another browser and want to use the Rich Text Editor, you can download Firefox for free here. Otherwise, you will need to use wiki markup to edit the buying guides. Wiki markup is the syntax system used to create the wiki guides. It is really easy to use once you have given it a chance, so don't get discouraged. And remember you can always roll back to a previous version if you make a big mistake. For more information on the Plain Text Editor, look here. Links Links within the buying and gift guides are a great resource for ShopWiki users. You can link to searches, wiki buying or gift guides, external Web sites, product pages or a ShopWiki user page (not recommended). If you are linking to a search in the Rich Text Editor, you have the option of leading the reader to the normal view, grid view or text-only searches. When creating links, please make sure that you link to the exact title of a buying guide. For example, if you are linking to the article on digital cameras but want the link text to be singular, make sure clarify in your markup -- [[Digital Cameras]] . An easy way to link in the rich text editor is to highlight the text you want to link to and hit the link button (the one that looks like a chain). The broken chain button unlinks any text. Images When editing a guide, you are encouraged to include pictures that illustrate the information. You can find product images by clicking the image button (the one with the tree on it) in the tool bar in the Rich Text or Plain Text Editor. This allows you to search for the best image available through our site. You may need to narrow down your search with specific parameters to get the best available picture. For example, if a search for an image of baby clothes doesn't yield the best results, try baby dresses or baby outfits. You may also want to change other parameters like price to get a quality image. After choosing an image, make sure to enter a size in the width box, or leave blank for the default size. If you are using the picture within a template, please use 120 or less for the size. Product Templates Product templates are a good way to organize your wiki page. Horizontal templates are a good way to compare two to five items. The template wizard (marked by the magic wand in the editor) will guide you through the process of adding a template to your guide. Please do not leave any cells incomplete in a product template. (If you create more cells than you need, you can delete the extras by right-clicking on them and choosing "Remove Item.") When creating a template, you have the option of creating a borderless template. If you plan to write more than one or two lines of text under the image in the template, please do not use a borderless template. You also have the option of changing the size of the template. This is always done in percentages -- please do not try to make templates more than 100%. This is a sample horizontal product template: Template Title Color Pencils Acrylic Paints are great for many different arts and craft activities Colored Pens  Pastels Crayons Within the description cells in the templates, you can center the text, add bullets and make links. Be creative and find the best way to get your point across. You may want to check out some other guides to see how the templates are used. You may edit the properties of a product template in the Rich Text Editor with the command + click function (control + click for mac users), which will call the pop-up menu of options to the screen. You can also use a vertical template to detail information about one item next to an image. This can be borderless as well, and you also have the option of changing the size. For the vertical template below, the title was deleted to show the contrast with the version above. You can delete the title from either template type. The width of this template was set at 75%.  Here's what it looks like: Rock Climbing is an increasingly popular sport that requires balance, strength and determination for success. Tables Tables are another good way to organize your thoughts on the page. These should not be used to organize products with pictures -- always use a product template for those types of comparisons. Though we do not have a template wizard for tables, there are template articles, where you can copy and paste the format into your guide. Simply click edit, select all and copy the formatting for the table you want. You can then paste this into your guide. This works in both the Rich Text and Plain Text Editors. The table template links are Table Template x2 for a two column table; Table Template x3 for a three column table; and Table Template x5 for a five column table. To make changes to a table's properties, which includes adding rows and/or columns in the Rich Text Editor, right click (control + click for mac users) on the table and pick the desired option from the pop-up menu. You also have the option of adding a new table through this menu. In the Plain Text Editor, you will need to use the wiki markup to add and remove columns and rows. Check out the wiki markup help page here. For more information on tables, check out this help guide. Adding a Comment Comments are a good way to discuss the subject and/or dispute a particular point in a guide. If you just want to add a comment to a guide without making any major edits, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Add Comment" link. Here you can write a message about a buying guide, asks a question of the community or add some useful information that might help other users. You can also respond to questions or comment from other users. Minor/Major Changes If you have only made minor changes, i.e., spelling and grammatical corrections, formatting or rearranging, type "minor edits" in the comment box next to the "save article" link to alert our editors of the change. Note that this is not the same as adding a comment to a page. Marking significant changes, which includes deleting ANY text, as a "minor edit" is considered bad behavior. Please use the same comment box to alert us to major changes to a wiki page. Watchlist If you have created a new buying guide, made a change to an existing one or left a question in the comment box, you may want to add that particular article to your watchlist. In order to add an article to your watchlist, you must be logged in and have a valid email address for your user account. If you didn't enter an email address when registering, you will be prompted for one when you try to add a guide to your watchlist. Once you have added a guide to your watchlist, you will be emailed when any changes are made to that article. You will not be notified of any changes you make to the article. Wiki 101 | Wiki World