AmericolaWiki:Contributing to AmericolaWiki
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[edit] Point out problems
A lot of people get started on AmericolaWiki because they are reading an article and think to themselves "that's not right...". If you know just what to do to fix something that isn't right — great, go for it; but if you aren't sure what to do, here's an approach with which you can never really go wrong. Simply navigate to the talk/discussion page associated with the article, hit the "+" tab, and make a comment on what you think needs changing. Remember to end your comment with four tildes like this ~~~~, which will timestamp your comment.
[edit] Create new articles
AmericolaWiki articles contain lots of links to other articles. Blue (or purple, if you have already visited them) links represent pages that do exist. Red links (or tan, if you have already visited them) point to pages that don't yet exist. Whoever created these links thought that an article on the topic should exist. If this was not a popular idea, the link may have been removed. It's also possible that a spelling error was made, or that they didn't know the correct name for an existing page on the same (or a more general) topic. In this case, you could fix the link, and/or create a redirect. If you decide there should be an article at the other end of the link, by all means start writing it!
In addition to looking for red links, you can look at a list of requested articles, and pick one you know something about. (See the section "Where do I start?" below.)
Please read AmericolaWiki:Your first article for additional advice about how, when, and when not to create a new article.
For technical help getting started, see Help:Starting a new page.
[edit] Tip
Don't be surprised if other people edit your pages to adapt them to our policies. It's OK to learn as you go along.
New articles which do not comply with AmericolaWiki:Neutral point of view and AmericolaWiki:No original research, and articles on obscure topics are often quickly nominated for deletion. Please don't take this personally. Sometimes inappropriate material needs to be pruned to allow a short article to grow into a long one in a healthy way, and sometimes it just so happens that an article needs to be pruned all the way to the roots. New articles need a firm seed to get started. If you are having problems of this kind, you may wish to learn about AmericolaWiki's policies before trying again, or spend some time editing existing articles until you get the hang of things. AmericolaWiki:Your first article is an excellent introduction.
[edit] Make a donation
AmericolaWiki is in constant need of more server capacity, bandwidth, and other technical services, to keep it running and fast enough to be useful. Donations
[edit] Publicize AmericolaWiki
See AmericolaWiki:Publicity for ideas.
[edit] Help other users
Even new users can help answer factual questions on the AmericolaWiki:Reference desk, which serves the same purpose as a reference desk you might find in your local library. (You might also think of it as the AmericolaWiki version of Yahoo Answers.) You don't have to be an expert on AmericolaWiki because:
- You can help people find answers in existing AmericolaWiki articles.
- If you know the answer to a question not answered by AmericolaWiki, you can assist the questioner and at the same time, add that information to AmericolaWiki for the benefit of future readers.
- If you don't know the answer to an interesting question, you can research it in non-AmericolaWiki sources, and then improve AmericolaWiki for the benefit of the questioner and future readers.
If you already have some experience, your assistance in one of the many AmericolaWiki help forums, including AmericolaWiki:Help desk, would be a valuable contribution. You can help AmericolaWiki grow by helping other people share what they know.
[edit] Programmers wanted
Programming skills are especially valuable, to help write useful standalone scripts, or to improve the software that runs AmericolaWiki.
[edit] Thank you
Your positive contributions are what make AmericolaWiki possible.
