Help:How to Create an Article

All registered users of FamilySearch Wiki are invited to contribute articles. There are three types of contributions you can participate in:

1. Edit an Existing Article

2. Author a Requested Article

3. Author a New Article

Use these instructions to create a new article. You must be a registered user and logged in to author an article. The term "page" in the Wiki means the same as the term "article".

Creating an article
Authoring an article requires text and formatting. Write directly in the Wiki or paste an article from another electronic source. Note: Before authoring a new article, search to see if one is already in the Wiki. Formatting may be lost when pasting an article from another source.

Follow these steps to create an article

 * Register. Before you can contribute or edit an article you must must register with FamilySearch Wiki. Registering helps the WIKI know who you are and tract the articles you contribute or edit.  During registration you will be asked to provide a usernam and password.  To register click here.
 * Sign in.  Before contributing or editing an article sign in. You can Search for the article you want to author. Be sure the terms you use in your search are the exact terms you want in the title of your article. For example, you search for New York Newspapers to add a new article titled New York Newspapers. The wiki will show the search results in the main part of the page. If the article does not exist, the wiki will return a notice that the article does not exist, and the title of the searched article (New York Newspapers, for example) will appear in red above the search results. Click on the red word to begin creating the new page.
 * Add text in the body. Using the formatting box in the main editor toolbox, titles and headings may be added.
 * Add formatting, if desired:


 * 1) Create an internal link An internal link is designed to link to a page within the Wiki.
 * 2) Create an external link An external link is designed to link to a Web site.
 * 3) Add anchors. An anchor is designed to take to you a different section of the current page.
 * 4) Add one or more categories to the article. See How to categorize an article.
 * 5) Add other page elements as desired.


 * Click "Show Preview" to see if the screen contains all of the desired elements. The page will need to be saved before the changes take effect.
 * Click Save at any point in the process to save the changes made to the article. If you want to change an article after it is saved, click Edit.

Tips

 * The guidelines for naming a new article will help you determine the best possible article name.
 * How to Create a page linked from an existing page
 * How to Create a page not linked from an existing page
 * Read instructions on how to copy and paste in the Wiki.
 * Copyrighted material should not be posted without permission.

FAQs

 * Why does my login session go away when I edit?

You need to save your edited content every few minutes to keep your edit session alive. However, if you've logged in, navigated to your User page and immediately lose the edit links on the left, most likely you're looking at a version of the page that the Web browser has cached on your machine. Just click the "refresh" icon in your browser while holding down your shift key and chances are, you'll see the edit links appear.


 * Why aren't the changes I made showing up?

There are a couple possibilities. Perhaps you only "previewed" your changes and did not actually save them. Another reason could be that your page was cached by your browser, so you are seeing an old version. If you want to be sure that you're seeing the most recent version of a wiki page, go to "preferences", select "miscellaneous", select "disable page caching" and hit "Save preferences".


 * Can you set the session timeout longer? I lost my edits.

The session timeout is set for the PHP server, not for MediaWiki specifically. Session timeout is intended to help prevent other people from walking up to your computer and editing things with your Username when you've stepped away. As near as I can tell, PHP session lengths are 24 minutes by default. Therefore, it's a good idea to save your edits, say, every 10 minutes.