What should I do first?

A: Read this Entire Page (at least the first section)
A: (Click on any links, use your Back Button (on your browser or mouse) to return to this Beginners guide page)
A: Build your own user page to learn how to edit and contribute.

4 things you must know.

• Wiki is not like email. - You may write things, but in a wiki your words don't belong to you, or even stay where you put them.
• Wiki is not like a discussion board. - It is not about everyone speaking in turn. Be like a DJ and remix words that others have created. Yes you can. Yes you can. . . . . Yes. You. Can!
• Wiki is not like a blog - Your point of view matters, but mostly as grist for the mill. Spend the majority of time reshaping the ideas of others - then you are on the way to being a wiki gardener.
• You can't mess it up - no matter how badly you mess up a page, somebody else can revert it in 15 seconds. So relax.

7 other things that are nice to know.

• As they say in wikipedia: be bold.
• Link more. You have not linked enough. Link to every concept. Link to every name. Every open link is an invitation for others to add knowledge.
• In a wiki people are generally referred to as "editors", rather than writers or users. See collaborative editing
• When people freely edit each others words a powerful consensus can be created - which represents the common view of everyone - this is the desired outcome for most pages.
• When people work together to write content they usually write using the third person neutral point of view.
• Everyone can edit using a simple WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.
• You create new pages by linking to them. If this page did not exist, it must be created - get it?

Ok if you didn't - To create new page just select some text click the link (chain) icon: a new empty page is created with the selected text as the title. * After you save, the new page names are indicated with a dotted underscore under the word, (an open link) once a user clicks on the open link, it is created as a new page in the site.

• A history is kept for all pages, in a way that you can see the full history of the writing. Any editor can rollback pages to the previous version if the new content is not acceptable. This is called a revert but it is used only rarely.

see also: Wiki 101, or Help or user page. Feel free to ask questions! Make suggestions! Enjoy Wikinomics!

Express your ideas so the community can welcome them, shape them and enhance them.