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- See also Help:Editing, m:Help:Editing
Misplaced Pages is a WikiWiki, which means that anyone can easily edit any unprotected article and have those changes posted immediately to that page.
Editing a Wiki page is very easy. Simply click on the "Edit this page" tab at the top (or the edit link on the right or bottom) of a Wiki page. This will bring you to a page with a text box containing the editable text of that page. If you just want to experiment, please do so in our sandbox, not here. You could open the sandbox in a separate window or tab to be able to see both this text and your tests in the sandbox. You can write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend, and when you've finished, press preview to see how your changes will look. If you're happy with what you see, then press "Save".
You can also click on the "Discussion" tab to see the corresponding talk page, which contains comments about the page from other Misplaced Pages users. Click on the "+" tab to add a new section, or edit the page in the same way as an article page.
Tips on editing Misplaced Pages articles
Always use a neutral point of view, as Misplaced Pages is not a place to promote points of view.
Cite your sources so others can check and extend your work. Most Misplaced Pages articles currently lack good references, and this contributes to Misplaced Pages's single greatest criticism that it is not a reliable source. Please help by researching online and print resources to find references for the article you are working on, then cite them in proper form, and consider inline citation for contentious facts. There is no consensus on the best way to do that, but anything is better than nothing. You can either use inline citation in academic form such as (Example, 2004, pp 22-23) or as a superscript to a footnote that you place at the end of an article.
After making a new page, it's a good idea to:
- With your page displayed, use What links here to check the articles that already link to it, and make sure that they are all expecting the same meaning that you have supplied;
- Use the Search button to search of Misplaced Pages for your topic title (and possibly variants), to find articles that mention it, and make links from them if appropriate
Minor edits
See also Misplaced Pages:Minor edit
When editing a page, a logged-in user can mark that edit as being "minor". Minor edits generally mean spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text. It is possible to hide minor edits when viewing Misplaced Pages:Recent Changes. Marking a significant change as a minor edit is considered bad behavior, and even more so if it involves the deletion of some text. If one has accidentally marked an edit as minor, the person should edit the source once more, mark it major (or, rather, ensure that the check-box for "This is a minor edit" is not checked), and, in the summary, state that the previous change was a major one.
More information on editing wiki pages
You may also want to learn about:
- The Wiki markup
- How to start a page
- Informal tips on contributing to Misplaced Pages
- Editing tasks in general at the Misplaced Pages:Editing FAQ
- Why not to rename pages boldly, at Misplaced Pages:How to rename (move) a page
- Preferred layout of your article, at Guide to Layout (see also Misplaced Pages:Boilerplate text)
- Style conventions in the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style
- An article with annotations pointing out common Misplaced Pages style and layout issues, at Misplaced Pages:Annotated article
- General policies in Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines
- Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions for how to name articles themselves
- If you are making an article about something that belongs to a group of objects (a city, an astronomical object, a chinese character...) check if there is a WikiProject on the group and try to follow its directions explicitly.
- Finally, for a list of articles about editing Misplaced Pages consult Misplaced Pages:Style and How-to Directory.
Templates
The MediaWiki software used by Misplaced Pages has support for templatea. This means standardized text chunks (such as boilerplate text) can be inserted into articles. For example, typing {{stub}} will appear as "This article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it." when the page is saved. See Misplaced Pages:Template messages for the complete list. Other commonly used ones are: {{disambig}} for disambiguation pages, {{spoiler}} for spoiler warnings and {{sectstub}} like an article stub but for a section. There are many subject-specific stubs e.g.: {{Geo-stub}}, {{Hist-stub}} and {{Linux-stub}}. For a complete list of stubs see Misplaced Pages:Template messages/Stubs.