Help On Editing

Our minds read easily what they read most. Linguists call this “comprehensive ease”. It comes through linguistic contructs we commonly hear and read. Language developed through this common use. We're wired for it, but at the fore and along the edge, language differs. To codify English and these common uses arises style. Many organizations large and small across the world, such as the Modern Language Association, University of Chicago Press, the Associated Press, Canadian Press, and individual newspapers, publish style guides and manuals. Though Wikipedia sometimes errs and adopts bad conventions, like capitalizing every entry and link, failing to distinguish between common and proper nouns, here we can use their Manual of Style.

Once logged in, you have the power to edit (almost) any page on RocWiki. Such awesome power comes with a degree of responsibility, however. Please review our editing guidelines to learn what the community generally considers responsible editing.

Editing a page is as simple as clicking on the "Edit" tab at the top of the screen. There are, however, many possible options for markup (i.e. making the page look pretty.) For your convenience, we have made a formatting toolbar, which works very much like a toolbar in a word processor. By highlighting text and clicking one of the buttons, such as Bold, the text will be surrounded by the appropriate markup to make it appear bold.

In general, just looking at how existing pages do things (by clicking on Edit and looking at the "raw" content) should let you figure out the markup—which is simple! (Always make sure you "Preview" before you "Save Changes", otherwise you might end up editing a page several times)

The following pages describe the elements (wiki markup) you can use to get special formatting effects:

• Help On Formatting - general text formatting rules
  

• Help On Linking - external hyperlinks and inline images
  

• Help On Headlines - section headings
  

• Help On Rules - horizontal rules
  

• Help On Lists - lists and indented sections
  

• Help On Tables - tables
  

• Help On Images Here and Here -Uploading and formatting images.
  

• Help with Maps - adding a map to your page
  

• Tags Cheat-Sheet - just a list of tags and what they do
  

• Macro List - useful shortcuts and tools

To experiment with wiki markup, go to the Wiki Sand Box and then click on the Edit tab on the top of the page. Use your browser's "open a new window with this link" feature on the word "Wiki Sand Box", so you can keep the help pages open side-by-side to the editing window.

Have a question? Ask it in FAQ. See also Wiki Guide.