WikiKnitting Blog

Over the next week or so I will be doing a series on how to edit wiki pages. I hope that this will give you the tools and courage to jump in and edit or add your first wiki article. If you’re not sure where to start or think the wiki syntax looks intimidating, then this series is for you. I will be covering the following topics.

1. WikiKnitting overview
2. Editing Basics - Formatting
3. Adding Images
4. How to use Tables
5. Custom Editing Features of WikiKnitting
6. The Benefits of Templates

WikiKnitting is powered by Mediawiki. This is the same open source software used by Wikipedia. If you have contributed content to Wikipedia then the editing process is identical. Much of what I will cover in this series can be used on any site that uses Mediawiki software.

I will begin with an overview of the layout of WikiKnitting as it relates to editing. At the top of each page in the wiki there are a series of tabs that allow the user to do different things.

The first is the Article tab, which is the main article. To modify this page click the Edit tab (see the third tab) while you are on the Article Page.

The second is the Discussion tab. This is also called the Talk page. This is where discussions should take place or a question about an article should be posted. To modify this page click the Edit tab while you are on the Discussion Page.

The third tab is the Edit tab – Select this tab when you want to edit an Article of Discussion Page. The rest of the series will be devoted to what you can do here.

The fourth tab is the History Tab – Mediawiki keeps a record of every version of an article. This tab shows the revision history of an article. This is also where you can rollback an article to a previous version. However, you must have a registered account to do this.

While almost all articles on wikiknitting.com are open for editing, some articles are protected. Protected articles can only be edited by users with higher level permissions. Protected articles have a View Source tab instead of an Edit tab. Usually an article is protected if it is on the front page of the site or is a main navigation page. An article may also be temporarily locked for editing if it becomes the target of spam or malicious editing.

While you can contribute to the wiki and edit pages without becoming a registered user, there are perks to being a registered user.

1. Take credit for your contributions.
2. The ability to add new pages. Pages cannot be created by anonymous users
3. The ability to watch pages. This means that you can easily check to see if pages that you care about have recently had changes made to them.
4. The ability rollback content to previous versions.

To create an account click the log in/create account link in the upper right hand corner on any wiki page.

Now that you have an account, let’s get on to editing you’re first page. Stay tuned for Part 2: WikiKnitting Editing Basics.