Wiki User Lesson Five

I. Review previous lessons

A. Please answer the following questions. Feel free to go into the Wiki to find the answers.

1) What is the purpose of a talk page?

2) Why should you set up your user page?

3) What is the purpose of the sandbox?

4) How many sandboxes can you create?

5) What are two things you would find on your personal tools tab?

6) What are two things you can do on your “my preferences” page?

7) Where can you store links to pages you use frequently or are working on?

8) Where would you go to ask to be notified when a change has been made to a page you are watching?

9) What is the sidebar on the right hand said of the page called?

10) Where would you find the list of categories under Wiki Tools?

B. Please look at the last page to find answers to these questions. Be sure to review any topics you did not know.

II. Making changes or corrections to Wiki pages.

A. Wiki pages are added and maintained by volunteers and missionaries. When you see a misspelled work, a typing error, or wrong information, you can easily make the corrections. First you need to learn just a few things to help you understand how to edit wiki pages.

1) External links – There are links to pages outside of the Wiki. When you see a link followed by a double arrow, it indicates the link is to a site outside of the Wiki. For example it might be an official State website.

                                

2) If there is not a double arrow, the link will take you to a site within the wiki. For example, it might be a list of tips for searching online indexes, which has been added by a Wiki contributor.

B. On the top right of each page there is a place where you can indicate you want to do an edit.

1) When you click on that link, it will put the entire page into edit mode.    

         

2) Usually the best way to do a simple edit is to put just the section you are working on in edit mode. You will see this symbol in the top right hand corner of each section on the page.                             

When you hover over the link, you will see the word “edit” appear. When you click on the link, it will put just that section in edit mode. 

a) Notice that the word Census has been misspelled or typed incorrectly on this page.

b) Click on the icon in the upper right hand corner of the section that this table is on.

c) That will put just that section into edit mode.

d) Correct the spelling

e) Then go to the bottom of the page to where you see “summary” 

f) Type in that you corrected a spelling error. Click that this was a minor  and click to save the page.  

3) If you make a mistake and want to put things back the way they were, click on the History tab at the top of the page.                              

4) The most recent edit will be at the top. 

5) You will see the following:   

6) Cur = current, prev = previous

7) If you click on prev it will show you what change was made

8) If you are not happy with the change you made there are two options available on the history tab: rollback and undo. (see example in number 5 above. Undo will just remove the last edit you made. Rollback will remove all of your edits and revert back to the way it was before you started editing. 

III. More significant changes

Sometimes you may want to make more significant changes to the Wiki. To do so, you will want to know a little bit about wikitext. This is a coding system to format the pages on the wiki.

A) Let’s say you find this page on the Wisconsin State page and want to add a paragraph to the Wisconsin page about Italian immigrants.

B. Click on the icon at the top right to edit this section. 

C. This information will appear in a box, so you will know that you are in edit mode. You will see the following tools at the top of the box. 

                        

D. To view the formatting code, click on wikitext – located in the upper left of the box.

E. This will allow you to see the wikitext that has been used to create the page you are looking at.

F. All of these little marks are codes that help format the text.

           

G. You can find a cheatsheet for these code in the wiki. On the search bar, type in wikitext cheatsheet. You may want to print this off and keep it handy as you edit in the wiki.

IV. Missionary Lessons

To learn more about how to edit and add content to the Wiki, please see the missionary training lessons. In the search bar, type in missionary training lessons.

A. There are twelve lessons, divided into four weeks. You can do these at your own pace as you need them.

B. There are also other pages to Review and videos to assist you included in this list of lessons. Enjoy!

C. If you have questions or need help, just post it on you talk page and someone will get back with you.

V.  Wikitext Lessons

A. You can learn more about Wikitext - in the Wiki.

1) In the search bar, type in Wikitext. You will see three lessons listed here.

2) You will also see HTML and Wikitext lessons. HTML is a higher level coding program. You will find seven lessons in the Wiki.

3) If you want lessons with an instructor on using Wikitext or HTML, contact us and we can let you know when the classes are. They are held via webex and are usually small groups of three or four people.

V. Lesson Five Quiz Answer Sheet

1) Talk pages are a way for you to communicate with the people who work on the wiki.

2) Once you create your talk page, you will receive a welcome message and some links to lessons and other information. You can also post questions or ask for help from this page.

3) This is a place for you to practice creating wiki pages. It will look just like a Wiki page, but it will not be published. It is also a place where you can store links that you use frequently.

4) As many as you need – unlimited

5) Your user page, your talk page, welcome message, links to lessons and other information. You can ask questions and received answers

6) View your user profile, make changes. Set up or change your e-mail options.

7) On your Sandbox

8) Wiki Tools, notification of changes.

9) The navigation bar

10) Under getting started, wiki tools, categories.