Help:Editing

The feature of a wiki is the ability of all readers to edit articles to improve on the articles.

Editing articles

Policies and conventions

Before you start editing articles, you should look through our policies. Ensure that the content you submit is relevant to MechaBay and conforms by the policies. If in doubt, you can always use the talk pages to ask questions or check if your idea is feasible.

Making edits

Any page on MechaBay can be edited. Click on the "Edit" link at the top of the page. This brings you to the edit page with a text box. Edit the content in the text box.

Summarizing edits

See also: Help:Edit summary

Before submitting your edit, enter an edit summary in the "Summary" field below the text box. This is to inform others about your changes.

Previewing edits

The final thing to do before saving your edits is to preview your changes. Click on the "Show preview" button. Reviewing the preview can help you pick up errors that you might not have noticed while editing in the text box. Correct any errors and preview again. Repeat until you are satisfied.

Saving edits

Click on the "Save page" button and your changes will be applied to the article.

Minor edits

You can mark an edit as a minor edit by checking the "This is a minor edit" option above the "Save page" button. This feature is important as minor edits do not appear in the recent changes page. This can keep the recent changes page from being cluttered with minor changes.

The standard convention is to mark edits consisting of spelling and grammatical corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text as a minor edit. In contrast, a major edit is one that is worth revisiting by someone who is keeping track of the article. This means that even if it is a change to a single word, it is still considered a major change.

Only users who are logged in can use this feature.

Null edits

A null edit does not cause any change in the content of the text box. The edit will not be recorded. This is useful for refreshing the cache of some items in the database.

Dummy edits

A dummy edit is a change that has no effect on the rendered page, such as changing the number of newlines. If you need to correct a previous edit summary or an accidental marking of a previous edit as a minor edit, you will need to make a dummy edit. A null edit would not save the desired changes.

Wiki markup

See also: Help:Formatting.

MechaBay uses wiki markup to format text. In the edit page, there are 11 buttons above the text box. These buttons insert wiki markup around any highlighted text. If no text is highlighted, default wiki markup will be inserted at where the cursor is. Do not be intimidated by the wiki markup. You can always open a window or tab with the list of wiki markup for reference while you are editing pages.

You can choose not to use any wiki markup in your edits. However, your contribution carries more value if it uses wiki markup in the correct manner as wiki markup improves the overall quality of the article.

Templates

See also: Help:Template.

Templates are wiki markup that are automatically incorporated into a page. This is useful for including certain commonly used text or markup as it eliminates the need to type the same wiki markup for every page that contains the template. Templates are added by placing the template's name in double braces like this: {{Template name}}.

Some templates take parameteres as well. These templates are added like this: {{Template name|parameter1|parameter2}}. The number of parameters depends on the design of the template.

Tips and tricks

External editor

It is advisable to use your favourite text editor to edit there before pasting it back into the text box in your browser. This can avoid losing your changes should your browser crash or if you accidentally surfed to another page.

A text editor might have other handy functions such as spell check, which can help to reduce unnecessary mistakes. You can also keep a backup copy on your computer.

Page protection

Some pages are protected by an administrator. In such cases, the "Edit" link at the top of the page is replaced by the "View source" link. Protected pages can only be edited by an administrator. Some pages may be semi-protected. This means that the protection only applies to unregistered users. Users who log in would be able to edit the semi-protected page.

Edit conflicts

When someone else makes an edit while you are making yours, an edit conflict occurs. Most conflicts can be automatically resolved by the sytem. However, in some cases, you need to resolve it yourself. You will be shown two text boxes, where the top one is the other person's edit and the bottom your edit. Merge your edits into the top edit box as that is the only one that will be saved.

Revert changes

See also: Help:Reverting.

You can revert changes to an older version of the article, undoing all changes made after that particular version. This is useful especially in cases of article vandalism.

Error messages

If you get an error message upon saving a page, you would not know whether the actual save or the confirmation has failed. You can go back in your browser and save again. If the save failed previously, the second save will go through. If the previous save succeeded, the second save will be regarded as a null edit and have no effect.