Help:Contents-old: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 86: | Line 86: | ||
<p>Unlike other wiki's, the IEEE GHN allows for the discussions to be displayed as common threads. As a result, organized discussions can evolve around many specific issues. Everyone is also free to respond to anyone's comments. To start a discussion thread or participate in an existing one, just click on the "Discussion" tab. </p> | <p>Unlike other wiki's, the IEEE GHN allows for the discussions to be displayed as common threads. As a result, organized discussions can evolve around many specific issues. Everyone is also free to respond to anyone's comments. To start a discussion thread or participate in an existing one, just click on the "Discussion" tab. </p> | ||
== Notes & Tips == | == Notes & Tips == | ||
Revision as of 13:29, 16 April 2012
For First Time Contributors
Interested in contributing to the GHN? The First-Time Contributor article contains step by step instructions for everything from login to completion of your first article. Please click the above link, and then return to this page for more detailed information.
Browsing and Searching
Browse with the Timeline
The timeline is a good starting point for browsing the GHN. The timeline chronologically displays important events in the history of electrical engineering. Each event on the timeline is linked to an article on the same subject.
Browse with the Innovation Map
Another good place to begin browsing the GHN is the innovation map. The map displays significant locations in the history of electrical engineering. All of the approved Milestones are displayed on the innovation map.
Using the navigation panel in the top left of the screen, you can zoom in and out on the map. Clicking on the directional arrows will navigate the central point of the map in that direction. The map can also be moved by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the mouse in the desired direction. Some locations, such as sparsely populated areas or oceans, cannot be zoomed in fully.
The locations of the milestones are indicated by an orange popup which will display more information when clicked upon. Clicking on the title of the milestone in the resulting white popup box, in this case the link "Milestones: Thomas Alva Edison Historic Site at Menlo Park, 1876", will navigate to the article for that particular milestone.
Browse with Topics
It is a good idea to browse by topic when you only have a general idea of what you are looking for.
When you are in the "Topics" tab, you have the option of browsing by tagged topics. The highest level topics appear in the tan side bar to the left of your screen. Clicking on them will display associated articles. Currently, not every topic contains articles.
You can also browse by the lower-level tags. Use the drop down menus that appear after you click on a topic to view more specific categories of articles.
Browse with "What links here"
You may also find articles of interest by seeing which articles link to the one you are reading. To see this information, choose the "What links here" link while looking at any page. The list of articles which are linked to the specified page is displayed chronologically, the oldest at the top and the most recently linked at the bottom. What links here is found on the left sidebar under "Tools."
Search
If you already have a specific idea of what you want to read, you may want to begin browsing with a search.
When you search for a phrase, the search engine looks for the appearance of ANY of the search terms not ALL of them. Search for exact phrases using "quotes around the phrase."
Page Title Matches and Page Text Matches
When you do a search, the search engine will search for your search terms both in the titles of articles and in the text. If it finds that the search terms are found in both article titles and article text, articles with the terms in the title will be displayed above articles where the search terms appear in the content.
Advanced Search with Namespaces
The "Advanced Search" option, found in the top right corner of the page, gives you the option of specifying which namespaces to include in your search.
A namespace is a section of the GHN that contains a certain type of content. For instance,the "First-Hand" namespace contains the personal recollections of engineers. The namespaces in the GHN are "Main," "Media," "Images," "First-Hand," "Milestones," and "Map." You can tell which namespace content is in from its title, which consists of the namespace followed by a colon and the name of the content. If you do not see a namespace in the title of a page, that means that it is part of the "Main" namespace.
Usernames and Logging On
While readers can visit the IEEE site as a guest, IEEE members who want to more actively participate in the GHN should log in using their web account username and password. The login is found in a tan box on the right side of the home page. Additionally, you can reach the login page by clicking on the word "LOGIN" in the header graphic that appears on every page.
Non IEEE members need their accounts approved before they can log in and edit articles. Request a non-member account by emailing ieeeghn@ieee.org
Contributing
Contributors are expected to follow the copyright policies of this site. For further information on our policies, please see the Intellectual Property Issues section of the GHN Policies.
Only registered users can create a new page, so be sure that you are logged in before beginning to submit a new article.
If you are interested in contributing, please see the section on Contributing an Article.
Editing
Why Edit
Quite a few people get started editing because they are reading an article and they notice an omission, a factual error, or a typo. If you find yourself in this situation and know how to make edits and changes, go ahead and do so. If your change is more than minor, please include references, because all unreferenced material is subject to being removed.
However, there may also be times when it would be better to create a new topic article than edit an existing article. You might consider creating a new topic article if you have significant amounts of material to add to an existing article or if you feel a tangent in the article deserves further exploration.
How to Edit
After logging in, the first step in editing any page is clicking on the edit tab. The edit tab is in a blue box with white text, right above the article. A new page will load and "Edit" will now be highlighted in white. The edit page consists of an edit window with the existing text, categorization drop-down menus, an edit summary text box, and 3 buttons labeled "Save page," "Show preview," and "Show changes." The features of the WYSIWYG editor are described above. As you enter changes, save your page using the "Save page" button often!
Summary Text Box
If you edit a pre-existing article it is courteous to leave a summary of the changes that you make in this box. Put a check mark in the "This is a minor edit" box, if you are only making a small change, such as correcting a typo.
Renaming Pages
Because the articles in the GHN use many internal links, pages cannot be renamed in the same way that you rename files on your computer. Instead of renaming a page, use the "Move" tab. Moving an article allows you to give the article a new title and at the same time ensures that all links pointing to the old article still function.
Discussion threads
Every article in the IEEE GHN allows for discussion threads. The purpose of the discussion threads is to provide a space where all members of IEEE can share their comments on the article. The comments can range from simple editorial suggestions to substantive suggestions regarding an article's content.
Unlike other wiki's, the IEEE GHN allows for the discussions to be displayed as common threads. As a result, organized discussions can evolve around many specific issues. Everyone is also free to respond to anyone's comments. To start a discussion thread or participate in an existing one, just click on the "Discussion" tab.
Notes & Tips
- When writing an article, before adding an image, click "Save Page." You will need to leave the edit screen before up loading an image, so your changes will be lost if you neglect to do this.
- To link to non-image media (PDFs, DOCs, etc.) add the media the same way you add an image, but go into the wiki text and change "Image" to "Media" otherwise the wiki will try to display a thumbnail of an image that does not exist.
- When you paste in Mozilla Firefox a new window will open for you to paste into. Just paste into the new window and click "OK." Your text will appear where the cursor was.
- Increase visibility by holding down control and simultaneously pressing the + sign. Hold down control and hit the number 0 to return to regular size.
Account settings
Account settings can be viewed from the home tab in the upper right hand corner. These settings allow you to modify the pages that control your communication with other users, your preferences, your watchlist, monitoring your contribution articles, and will allow you to log out of the Global History Network.
