Chat Editing Tutorial

Podaci   Welcome to our first Chat about Editing. Most of my comments were pre-written, to save time in the chat. I’m the facilitator and I do not want to monopolize the conversation. We’re hoping to remove a little of the mystery about editing. Less experienced editors can be introduced to more experienced editors. I think all of us would be happy to provide one-on-one help in a wall conversation or in chat. I am using a PC with a mouse. “Click” could mean “tap” or “touch” or “select”. I am using Chrome browser. If you’re addressing a question or reply to a specific member please start your comment with that member’s name, or a short form of it.

Podaci   Now you need to have another browser window opened to the wiki. In the Explore menu, click Random Page. In this session you will be opening the editing window. Please don’t actually make any edit. In the upper right area of the white part of the page you should see a blue Edit button and a smaller button with down arrow. First click the bigger button. This is a basic editor. We don’t want you to be using this one. It’s easy to do, maybe some of you have done this before, but it does not give you access to some additional tools that make this easier. It also doesn’t let you make a comment about the reason for your edit. So please don’t use the big Edit button. Click Cancel in the upper right corner of the editor window to close it.

Podaci Now look at the items under the blue button with the down arrow. The first item, Classic Editor, is what you will be using when you edit. Click that. You should see a window that looks a lot like the basic editor. But now there are two tabs, Source and Visual. As you gain experience you will learn which is better for a particular task, and you can switch back and forth as you work. Also you should see a pane at the right with more tools. We will leave this editing window for now. To close this one use your browser back arrow.

Podaci I think for anyone on a computer who hasn't changed their preferences in the profile you should see tabs for both Source and Visual

Podaci Yes you really need a computer. I tried to edit a link with my phone. I told Tootles I would rather go to the dentist

Katolvr The pencil will take you into Visual unless you have different preferences set

Podaci  But there is a difference between that "Visual" and what you see if you use the drop-down

Podaci So when I click Classic Editor (under the arrow) I see tabs for both Visual and Source. Does anyone else see that?

Podaci Good. we'll continue from there.  I always work back and forth between the two "views" (Source and Visual)

Podac There is a right pane with Edit summary, Preview, Add features and media...

Podaci Preview has Mobile and Desktop buttons. Always a good idea to Preview before you "Publish"

Podaci So this part of the lesson was a quick look at the editing window. I want to move on to the next part, which is about reviewing history.

Podaci First back out of the Editor, if you haven't already. On my browser I need to click the back arrow  The second item under the down arrow is History. This is where we encourage all editors to start. Click History. You will see a list of all revisions starting with the most recent and going back to Page creation. Each revision also has a date/time stamp and the name of the editor. It may have a brief summary of what was done.

Podac It's all the history. Every big and little thing that was ever done to the page

Podac Negative sign means some content was removed.

Podaci Back to my prepared stuff  On the first row, click the prev link. The right side shows what they did compared to the last time that section was edited. You will need to look at history for quite a few pages to understand what it is showing you. The name of the editor at the top of the left side probably did not make the edits you see on the left side. Now you can scroll back through time to see all the history of the page. On left side, look for the Older edit link. Click that. Continue as far back as you want. Click Back to page under Changes:name of page.

Podaci That is what I wanted to cover today. Now there is "homework"  The first “homework” assignment for the newer and prospective editors is to review History for a lot of pages. Random pages, and specific pages that interest you.

Podaci When I first started some of the best advice was to just do this and READ what you see on the Changes pages

Podaci Some highlights are kind of orange and some are blue. Orange are deletions and blue are additions

Podaci The bottom section of the changes window shows what the page looked like at the time of the edit on the right side

Podaci Another reason to always look at History (the list, after clicking History under the arrow) is to see how long ago someone else worked on it

Podaci If you want to work on a page that no one has worked on for weeks or months you are unlikely to have an edit conflict (meaning it is unlikely taht someone else is working on it right now)

Podaci  I think it works pretty well to have a one-on-one Chat session with someone more experienced when you are ready to make your first few edits