Nice people with something important to say are often shy — especially until they know that they're among friends, and often until they've had time to learn the unspoken local rules of engagement. Hence, I suspect, many folks are hesitant to add their thoughts to the ZhurnalWiki community. That hurts us all. We need new ideas, new viewpoints, new metaphors.

So be brave, please! To help you, here's a crash quick-start course on how to join in the fun: a dozen suggested rules for the green of thumb. Please take what works for you and ignore what doesn't resonate.

• Don't worry! — you can't possibly break anything. Invisible elves are constantly at work behind the scenes, backing up files, correcting typos, smoothing over rough spots, and patching cracks.
• Start small! — if you read something that excites or irritates you, add a little comment via "Page Action: Append comment" (pull down the menu of choices, select "Append comment", then click the "Page Action:" button)
• Experiment! — try editing in the SandBox and see what happens when you do various things.
• Stay simple! — content is king; fancy formatting is feckless. People remember your ideas, not your fonts.
• Keep it clean! — imagine that your Sainted Mother is looking at what you've written, or your grandchild, or (scariest of all) that you've died and this is what you're going to be remembered by.
• Trust the source! — if you want to find out exactly how a particular page was crafted, click "Page Action: Edit this page" and look at the raw underlying document.
• Refresh! — many browsers recycle old versions of recently-visited pages. If you don't see the results you expect from your edits, do a reload.
• Make a link! — run a couple of capitalized words together and voila, you've got a hyperlink.
• Add a page! — an unfulfilled link has a lonely little "?" by it. Click on the "?" to get a form where you can put something into that achingly empty void. (A good first step: make a tiny comment, sign it by juxtaposing your first name and last name, then go to that personal page and type in a few words about yourself.)
• Search for more! — use the Wiki search tools to find other pages which connect up with what you're interested in; then link to or from them.
• Make mistakes! — especially GoodMistakes. That's how to learn.
• Ask for help! — send a note to MarkZimmermann (zhurnaly(at)gmail(dot)com or z(at)his(dot)com) and I'll do my best to get you unstuck ... or I'll reply "Hey, great idea!" and set some of the invisible elves to work on implementing it for you.

Before you know it, you'll be an elf too ...

• Make a suggestion. — add to the MakeSuggestion page any ideas to make this Wiki Work Well.

TopicJournalizing - TopicEditingIssues - 2001-10-13

(correlates: WikiWord, Comments on LyricalHook, Spam Patrol, ...)