In order to edit this Wiki, you need to contact
IanYoung to get an editing password. Once you have received an editing password, say
abcd1234, you need to register yourself with the Wiki software so that it will recognise that you are an editor. To do that, follow these steps:
- Visit the Preferences link at the top of this page. You may wish to open it in a new window so that you can continue to read these instructions.
- Write down the number labelled "Your User ID number". This will be your permanent identity within the system.
- Invent a UserName for the next field and enter it. It helps a lot if your user name is a WikiWord?, which is to say is made out of several words smashed together with internal capitalisation. So,
TheHoodedClaw would be a good WikiName?, hooded_claw would be a bad one.
- Invent a personal password and place it in the "Set Password" field. As well as preventing other people from logging in as you, this will also allow you to log in with the same identity from multiple computers if you want to do that.
- Place the editing password sent to you by IanYoung in the field called "Administrator Password".
- Noodle with the other preferences if you are feeling brave.
- Click on the "Save" button.
After going through the above procedure, visit any page in the Wiki and you should find that the majority will now supply a link close to the bottom that reads "Edit text of this page".
After you have registered and the system recognises you as an editor, you could at least in theory edit practically anything on the Wiki. At least initially, it would probably be better if you didn't do that:
- If this is your first Wiki, and even perhaps if it isn't, please visit the documentation for this Wiki at UseMod:UseModWiki to get a feel for how these things work, and the specific composition rules used by this Wiki engine.
- Try out any random things you want to try in the ScratchPad page. IanYoung periodically cleans this page out, so feel free to just add stuff at the top of this to play with the system. While you are in the initial learning stage, particularly if you haven't used a Wiki before, you may find the UseMod:TextFormattingRules instructions useful to have at hand.
- You'll find after you modify the ScratchPad page that it changes to being authored by you, for example by TheHoodedClaw?. If you chose that as a WikiWord? initially, you can click on your own WikiName? to edit the page of that name, which you can regard as your own private ScratchPad. In addition, one of the features of the UseMod:UseModWiki you may find useful is that you can create UseMod:SubPages underneath your page, so you can create a little sub-web all of your own while you work on some complicated issue.
- Once you have worked on some information you want to move into a more public domain, you have two choices:
- If you are feeling squeamish, just add your information to the end of the UnsortedSnippets page, preceded by a horizontal rule (---- on a line by itself) and signed with your WikiName?, for example by adding
''--WikiName'' at the end.
- If you feel you have intuited how this Wiki is organised, put the information wherever you think it belongs.
- Once you have got to the stage of being really confident, feel free to start creating new pages and addressing the various places where words in the Wiki have "?" after them LikeThis?. The "?" is an indication that a WikiWord? does not have a definition, so clicking on it will take you to a page that will allow you to create one on the fly.
Please don't be offended if IanYoung re-edits your information or moves it about. Actually, please don't be offended if anyone does that: it is in the nature of Wikis that other people will build on your work, and in some cases that means reorganising it or moving it around to somewhere new. It is probably a bit rude to do this until you are confident that you understand how things "ought" to be organised, and it is definitely a bit rude to reorganize someone's personal page. It is quite the done thing to add a note to someone's personal page as a way of sending them a message.