FAQ

For Visitors and Readers

Visitors do not need to register to use the wiki, only if you wish to edit or create your own entries.

Links within an article are normally shown as blue (and will change to underline when you mouse over)- these point to other wiki pages/articles. Anything with the small arrow () are links to websites external to the wiki.

Each page has a Discussion Tab (top-left) for free-form discussions about that particular page. There is also a real-time chatroom (found in menu at left) and the ability to leave a particular person a message by going to their personal account page and click "Talk" (upper menu) and write something to them. This is NOT private. You must have an account to use these functions.

Signing Up for an Account

To sign up for an account go to JeffCoWiki account, verify your email after signing up.

There are two user levels. Standard User Level and Contributor.

If you would just like to be able to have an account, join and post in discussions and use the chatroom and contact others through the wiki you are all set after doing the above.

If you would like edit and create wiki pages you must be manually upgraded to a Contributor Level by the organizers. Contact the organizers and explain that you would like to be a contributor to the wiki.

Editing and Creating Wiki Pages

There are two editors available - the standard Mediawiki editor and a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor, the latter of which is probably more familiar to most people.

To use the standard editor click "Edit Source" along the top of the wiki page and to use the WYSIWYG editor click the "Edit" along the top of the wiki page.

You can add photos to pages by using the more than 1500 pictures from the photo album, or you can upload your own. You can also add some other kinds of documents and reference them - like PDF's.

When using filenames for your uploads make sure they are at least somewhat descriptive. Things like "1.jpg" is not appropriate.

Please note that all entries should be linked to and from somewhere else, entries that are not linked to or from somewhere else are orphan pages

Please remember that if you want to add a new wiki entry to search first for the same or similar items before creating a new one, be mindful of capitals - most page titles have the first letter capitalized.

When creating a new page click "Create Source" and enter your info. If you would like to use the WYSIWYG editor you must create some content using the "Create Source" tae first, then you can switch or save and switch to the WYSIWYG editor.

To create your own make photo galleries within a wiki page see this help - Rendering a gallery of images

You can try a Sandbox for testing and learning how to enter and edit pages, See the Sandbox link in the top menu.

Do not cut and paste info directly from newspapers, magazines, websites, etc unless it is in the public domain or you have permission to use it. Same for photos and graphics - searching Google and finding a photo you want to use is PROHIBITED! You must have permissions from the owner of the photo or it must be in the public domain.

See Copyright Guidelines and Mission Statement.

When creating a new page check to make sure there is not a variation of it before creating it. Be aware that capitals are important for titles of a wiki page, for example this page 'FAQ' would be a different page than the page 'faq'. Please be aware of this and keep things consistent as needed. It's generally a good idea to capitalize the first letter of each word in a wiki page name - for consistency as well as cosmetically.

General non-specific Media wiki software help

More info to come.