Wiki contribution guidelines

Collaborative Process
Creating articles in the wiki is a collaborative process. After you have written your piece others may:


 * Edit
 * Alter
 * Adapt
 * Add

So don't worry about making your article perfect the first time through. Don't hesitate to add content you think is useful and don't hesitate to make edits where you think you can help. There's always somebody to fix anything that breaks.

Posting Guidelines
Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind when using the Mer wiki:
 * Search first: Before creating a new page or making significant contributions to a page, please do a quick search to make sure that you aren't duplicating existing content on the wiki or other areas of Mer.
 * Contribute: The wiki is a resource for anyone to use. Just keep the content relevant, that is anything related to Mer as long as it meets our other guidelines should be appropriate.
 * Make improvements: If you find a typo or inaccurate information, just fix it.
 * Keep it legal: respect licenses and copyright. Only post content you own or provide attribution for content under a license that permits reuse. As always, our entire Terms of Service also apply to the wiki.
 * Be nice: Keep the language clean (no swearing) and show respect for other contributors.
 * Respect links: Please provide redirects when you move content. Many people use the wiki and may have created bookmarks or linked to your content.
 * Additional information: Our Community guidelines and Community communication documents have additional information about participating in the Mer community.

The Wiki is Public
Everything in the wiki is public.

Every edit and every new page created goes into the recent changes feed, which means that people will see your edits even if you haven't yet linked to a page.

Once it's out there, it's public.
 * Technically, administrators can delete things, but the wiki content may be mirrored, has feeds and is in the Google cache, so deleting something doesn't make it go away.
 * When you delete content from a page, the original content will still remain in the history for that page.

Style

 * Keep your writing informative and not too casual, not too formal.
 * Avoid gratuitously using technical language. Explain or define terms which might reasonably be unknown to a reader.
 * If you need to use acronyms, explain them with the first use.
 * Page names should be short and to the point.
 * The page name is a label, not a sentence.
 * Use spaces. NoCamelCase (that is, use "Root access" instead of "RootAccess").
 * Use sentence capitalization for page titles. Only proper nouns should be capitalized after the first word (for example, Contributing to Mer is OK, Contributing To The Wiki is not)
 * When using sub-pages, please ensure that you are really grouping several related pages under a common root. Deep hierarchies make for long names. As a general rule, use no more than two levels for subpages.
 * This article on URL design explains some of the principles behind good URL names - and every wiki page name is also a URL
 * In general, in wiki.merproject.org we follow the conventions and formatting of Wikipedia.

For more information, see the Wikipedia Style Guide.

Where to start
Before creating a new page, you should first make sure that a page on your topic does not already exist:


 * 1) In the search box in the upper right corner, enter your topic.
 * 2) If the exact topic exists, the page will open.
 * 3) If there are related pages, you will get a search results page. Check if your topic is in the results.
 * 4) If your topic does not exist, choose create this page.

How to edit a page
If you'd like to change a page.


 * 1) Make sure that you are logged in using your Mer project account
 * 2) Click the Edit link in the right column.
 * 3) Enter your changes in the box.
 * 4) In the Summary box, enter a short explanation of what you did.
 * 5) Click Show preview if you want to check your changes.
 * 6) Click Save page.

Deleting pages:
 * Pages can only be deleted by wiki admins.
 * Before you request a deletion, think about whether a redirect would be more appropriate.
 * Place pages that you would like deleted in the "Die die die" category by adding this line to the page to be deleted:  
 * You can also specify the reason by adding   -line (where "reason" is your reason) instead.
 * Please keep in mind that any page added to this category will be permanently deleted.
 * Admins will check this category periodically and delete the pages, so don't worry if your page isn't deleted immediately.

Creating a subpage
Many sections in the Mer wiki are organized by subtopic, like Quality/Compliance for example. There has been some confusion about how to create subpages, so here are the instructions:
 * Make sure you are logged in (and see instructions above for searching before you create a new page)
 * In the search box, type Quality/My new page name
 * Click "Go"

Please note that to avoid creating orphan pages (that is, wiki pages that no other wiki page links to) it is recommended that you create a page by linking to it first, and then clicking on the link to the non-existent page. For example Quality/My new page name. Please also note that creating sub-pages more than 2 deep is advised against, since it makes link names longer, and does not help with the maintenance of the wiki. See the section for the very brief style guide to the wiki.

Formatting
wiki.merproject.org uses MediaWiki formatting (the same as used on Wikipedia, for example). For simple formatting, use the buttons above the edit box. For more information see:


 * Cheatsheet
 * General MediaWiki user help
 * MediaWiki manual
 * Embedding Video

Editing conventions on talk pages
Having discussions on a free-form wiki page will seem strange at first. It helps if everyone follows some simple editing conventions:


 * Always sign your name after your comments. Use the four tildes “ ” wiki syntax (or the signature button button_sig.png in the toolbar above the editing textbox). For more information see Help:Signatures.
 * Start a new discussion with a  at the bottom of the page (or use the “” tab)
 * Indent replies with colons at the beginning of the line.

For more information see: Help:Signatures and Help:Talk pages.

Gaining Sysop Access
Please read this page if you would like to request Wiki sysop access to perform administrative tasks in the wiki.

Credit
Based on Maemo wiki contribution guidelines. See also the Maemo wiki principles in the Maemowiki action group page.