XSI-Wiki:Contributing articles
Please help us to make this site a valuable resource for professionals by contributing content with a focus on real-world production needs. Why contribute? Because contributing an article of value earns the respect of your peers and provides a valuable public service.
| Table of contents |
I'd like to contribute but what should I do?
There are many ways! Below are just some of our best ideas, which include many things you can do with minimal effort.
Improve existing articles
Making improvements to articles that already exist is probably the easiest thing for new editors to do.
- Check the list of articles to be cleaned up
- Check the list of articles to be peer reviewed
- Refer to guidelines on article writing style and MediaWiki markup (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents) in general
- Ask questions about articles on their talk pages. This can also contribute to making articles better, by highlighting missing content or weak passages.
Create new articles
Creating a new article is a very useful thing to do, especially if there are lots of articles linking to empty pages.
Softimage Wiki 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 point to pages that don't yet exist. Presumably, whoever created the link thought that an article on the topic should exist. It's possible this was a bad idea, and the link should be removed. It's also possible they made a spelling error or didn't know the correct name for a page on the same (or a more general topic) that does exist. 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.
For technical help getting started, see starting a new page.
Tip: Don't be surprised if other people edit "your" pages to adapt them to our policies or guidelines. It's OK to learn as you go along.
Maintenance tasks
There are many things that need doing that don't necessarily involve creating new article content. See cleanup for a list of janitorial tasks that we always need help with.
Publicize XSI-Wiki
We are open to all creative ideas.
Help other users
You can help XSI Wiki grow by helping other people share what they know.
- You can help people find answers in existing XSI Wiki articles.
- If you know the answer to a question not answered by XSI Wiki, you can assist the questioner and at the same time, add that information to XSI Wiki for the benefit of future readers.
- If you don't know the answer to an interesting question, you can research it in non-XSI Wiki sources, and then improve XSI Wiki for the benefit of the questioner and future readers.
Where do I start?
- Start with a list of things that need doing, see the list of requested articles
- Start with what you know
- Start on a random page: visit a Special:Randompage and jump in!
- Feed your appetite for knowledge: pick a subject about which you know relatively little, but have always been curious, then share what you have learned and the production obstacles you overcame.
Thank you!
Your contributions are what make XSI Wiki possible.
