Contributing FAQ

This page of frequently asked questions is devoted to answering those questions commonly asked by contributors to Diyinfo.

[edit] Getting started

[edit] Why would I want to contribute?

See why should I contribute to a wiki.

[edit] Do I have to register to edit pages?

No. Anyone can edit without any kind of registration (except disruptive users who have been banned.)

[edit] What is the point of getting a user ID?

There are many reasons: see Why create an account?

[edit] Is there a minimum age requirement?

No. Anyone of any age may edit articles or register. Diyinfo does not even require users to disclose their age when registering!

Note that users who identify themselves as minors (generally children under 16 years of age) are encouraged, and where appropriate will be required, to protect their identities via safe practices where the posting of personal information is concerned.

[edit] Do I have to use my real name?

Real names are not required; some Diyinfo users use real names, some don't.

[edit] Terminology

On talk pages and in the edit summaries of a page history, you will often see editors using terminology and abbreviations which are unique to Diyinfo. The terms most likely to be unfamiliar to a new user are;

rv or revert, usually in an edit summary, indicates that the page has been reverted to a previous version, often because of vandalism.

NPOV means working towards a Neutral point of view, whilst its opposite, POV, is used to suggest that an edit was biased.

To Wikify means to add internal links and other formatting to an article which was mostly plain text.

dab means a small touch, and can also be short for disambiguation, or improving a link so that it goes straight to the relevant article.

For a more comprehensive list see Glossary.

[edit] What's the difference between a page and an article?

The term "page" encompasses all the material on Diyinfo, including all topics pages, talk pages, documentation, and special pages such as Recent Changes, Help pages and so on. "Article" is a narrower term referring to a page containing the factual information relating to a DIY project (the how to) entry. Thus, all articles are pages, but not all pages are articles.

[edit] What is an orphan?

An orphan is an article that no other article links to. These can still be found by searching Diyinfo, but it is preferable to find another article where a link can be added. You can find a list of orphan articles here.

[edit] What is a stub?

A stub on Diyinfo is a very short article, usually of one paragraph or less. Many excellent articles started out as short stubs. Likewise, our hope is that existing stubs will be expanded into proper articles.

[edit] What is a minor edit? When should I use it?

When editing a page, a logged-in user has the option to flag an edit as "minor." Use of this flag is largely a matter of personal taste. A general rule of thumb is that an edit that corrects spelling or formatting, performs minor rearrangements of text, or tweaks only a few words, should generally be flagged as a "minor edit". A major edit, in contrast, generally performs a change that close watchers of the page are likely to want to review. Of course, if an edit performs a major semantic revision, but is limited to only a few words (for instance changing "freedom fighter" to "terrorist" or vice versa, then the edit should not be flagged as minor.

This feature is important because users can choose to hide minor edits in their view of the Recent Changes page, to keep the volume of edits down to a manageable level.

Only logged-in users are allowed to mark an edit as minor. The reason is that anonymous vandalism edits, if allowed to be marked as minor, could remain hidden, and therefore unnoticed, for longer than desired. This limitation adds another reason to create an account and log in.

[edit] General

[edit] Where do I find more information?

You can start by reading the main help page Help:Contents.

[edit] What is "Recent Changes"?

Recent Changes lists all the edits that have been made over a given time period. See Special:Recent Changes for info.

[edit] What is the maximum length of an article?

The maxium ideal length of an article would be 32kb.

When should an article be split into smaller pieces?

On the edit page a warning notification will appear at the top of the page notifying you that the page is to long. It will look something like this - WARNING: This page is 60 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections.

[edit] I've found vandalism/damaged a page by mistake!?

See Help:Reverting.

[edit] How do I spell check a page?

A spell checker has been requested for Diyinfo, but has not been implemented yet, except as a third-party extension. The Firefox 2.0 web browser automatically spell checks forms such as Diyinfo editing forms. When editing a larger article, it may be more convenient to paste the text into your favorite text editor or word processor first, edit and spell check there, and then paste back into your browser to preview. You can also use an online spell checker such as Spellonline.

[edit] Why are some links red? What are the "?" links?

They both indicate that a page with that name has not yet been started. Which one you see depends on your Preferences. If you have "Highlight links to empty topics" checked, you'll see red links. Otherwise, you get the little blue question marks.

Either way, you can click on that link and start a page with that name. But be careful: there may already be articles on similar topics, or an article on the same topic under a different name. It's pretty important to hunt around for similar topics first.

If you just registered, your username is probably shown as linking to a page that doesn't exist. Don't worry! This just means you haven't filled out your user page yet. Click on the link and tell the world all about yourself! See User pages for more information.

[edit] OK, what about the pale blue links?

Those are external links; i.e. those that link to pages outside Diyinfo. They look like this.

[edit] What if 2 users edit a page at the same time?

This is called an "edit conflict", and only happens when two users try to edit the same part of a page. You'll get a conflict screen that displays both versions in separate windows, along with a summary highlighting the differences (typically showing the edits of both users, except those which both have made exactly the same), and instructions on how you should proceed. It's virtually impossible to lose any data.

[edit] What if my computer crashes mid-edit?

Or if the server does not respond ?

In case of a crash you'll lose your edit. To some extent, you can guard against this by editing in a text editor, for major work (but note that with regard to a system crash this does not help, unless you save frequently to disk).

When you get a time-out when you try to save, you might or might not lose your edit depending on your web browser. Some browsers (e.g. Opera and Mozilla Firefox) will recover the text you have tried to save if you use the back-button. In other browsers you will lose your edit. You can protect against this by copying the text (at least to the clipboard of your system). If you did not do this, you can at least recover the latest reviewed version by using the back-button and refreshing the page.

[edit] How do I learn about changes to certain topics?

Without having to go there from time to time

If you are a logged-in user, on every page you will see a link that says "Watch this article". If you click on it, the article will be added to your personal watchlist. Your watchlist will show you the latest changes on your watched articles.

[edit] What file formats should I use for pictures?

For images, use JPEG for photographs, and PNG can also be used. Use GIF for inline animations.

[edit] Why was the article I created deleted?

The reasons that may lead to the quick deletion of an article are:

1. A very short page with little or no definition or context (eg "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great.").
2. No meaningful content or history (eg "sdhgdf").
3. A test page (eg "Can I really create a page here?").
4. Pure vandalism. Note that if you're not being malicious, then your article probably didn't fall under this category.
5. Reposted content that was deleted according to Diyinfo's deletion policy.
6. A page created and edited solely by a banned user, after they were banned.
7. An article which has already been moved via the transwiki system.
8. An article about a real person, group of people, band or club that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject.
9. An article that is a blatant copyright infringement and contains no non-infringing revisions in its history.

[edit] Why was the edit I made removed?

There are a variety of reasons. The first thing you should do is look at the history page for the article you edited. This will tell you who changed it, when they changed it, and hopefully a short reason why they changed it. If it says something like see talk, then you should look at the talk page for the article. Also, you should look at your own talk page to see if you have a message there. If you don't find a reason that is satisfactory, politely ask in the article's talk page about your proposed change, and maybe you will get suggestions about changes that you can make so that your change will go in, or you may get reasons why your change should not happen.

[edit] Links: external

[edit] Is it OK to link to other sites?

External links are certainly allowed. Properly used, they increase the usability of Diyinfo. Keep in mind, however, that Diyinfo is not a web directory; external links should support the content of the article, not replace it. An article should be more than a container for external links, and the content should not require the reader to leave the site to understand the subject.

Please do not place advertising links in Diyinfo. Commercial sites are obvious, but this prohibition usually includes links to fansites and discussion forums as well unless the site is a notable one in the field. As a general rule of thumb: if you wish to place the link in Diyinfo in order to drive traffic to a site, it probably doesn't belong here.

The current convention is to place external links in a separate "External links" section at the bottom of the article. Sites used as references for the article should be listed under a "References" section, or sometimes placed within the article as a footnote. See Help:How to edit a page for different ways to create external links.