Help:Beginners guide
BSD wiki aims to be the place for all building sustainable design projects.
Like the original Wikipedia ANYONE can add or edit. If you’re working on a project or have special knowledge of one please contribute here to help us build up the best sustainable knowledge base online.
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To start with
You don’t have to register to contribute to the BSD project Wiki although we recommend you do as you can keep track of specific pages on the wiki, keep a record of all the changes you’ve made and have a profile to interact with other BSD wikiers.
There are also some pages that are protected from editing by non-registered users.
Create a project
Before creating a project, first check that somebody else hasn’t added it first. Do a few searches for the name of the project or one of the main words for the project (such as ‘Olympic’ if you’re looking for the London Olympic stadium project).
If your project isn’t there type your project into the search box as you’d like it to appear in the Wiki. Names should be the exact project name (you can always set up redirects of common nicknames to the main article later, see Wikipedia help on redirects). Don't forget that names are case sensitive.
On this search result page click on the ‘create this page’ link to start your project page. Put in as much or as little information as you can.
Preview your page using the ‘show preview’ page at the end.
Once you’re happy with your page, click on the 'Save page' button. Your project page is now live.
Project creating tips
All wikis use some basic syntax to make things look a bit tidier, such as making things bold, italic, headings etc. Some of these (bold, italic, underline) can be achieved by clicking on the buttons at the top of the edit page much like in Microsoft Word. A full list of all the available options can also be found on the BSDWiki:Cheatsheet.
Infobox
We’ve created an infobox for all projects that allows each project to have a quick summary of the main points. You can copy and paste the project infobox template and then fill in the fields – don’t worry if some are left blank, somebody else (or you) can fill in at a later date. To see the infobox in action view the London Olympic Stadium project page.
Categories
To make sure that your project is highlighted on the main page for all to see make sure it is added to the appropriate category. All you need to do is add the relevant category to the end of your page. Learn more about what categories exist and how to create them on our help page.
Images
All pages look better with images. If you have an image for a project which is not copyright protected (ie. You took the picture or it’s in the public domain) then add it by clicking the upload file button on the left hand navigation.
Once uploaded, copy and paste the image name into your project page as described on the upload page.
Collaboration
The BSDwiki like all wikis is built through collaboration. No one person owns any page, although there may be experts about one project or other.
Anybody can add more information about a project, or maybe correct some information you added.
If there is any debate about project information then the best place for this is on the ‘talk’ page of a project. Finish every post you make with four tildes (~~~~), this will add your 'signature' - your username and date of your post.
BSDwiki aims to be factual rather than promotional so ideally all content should be verified by an external source if there is any debate. You can reference your content using the referencing tag (more information on referencing can be found on the cheatsheet).
More help
BSDwiki uses Wiki software so if you do have any specific questions, queries or help, beyond what's contained in this beginner's guide start with the original Wikipedia’s help pages.
