Help:Guide for contributors
 | This page is a how-to guide detailing a practice or process on the wiki. |
Welcome, wiki editors!
This page is for novice wiki editors who are looking for a place to start. Regardless of skill level, anyone can make contributions to the wiki with just a few clicks and some typing. Please don’t be intimidated, as you’ve got the support of a team of experienced collaborators and proofreaders.
The number one rule of wiki editing, is to be bold. Dive in and make changes. Other people can correct mistakes later, so have confidence, and give it a try! There can be all kinds of editing conventions, rules, and philosophy governing the editing of wiki pages, but the be bold rule overrides these!
Remember – you can't break finiki; all edits can be reversed, fixed or improved later. finiki is allowed to be imperfect. So go ahead, edit an article and help improve finiki.
Becoming a contributor
In most cases, editors come from the Financial Wisdom Forum (FWF) membership. FWF members can send a private message (PM) to request an account be created for them.
We welcome interested members of the public to contribute. The recommended method is to join FWF and contribute to the community and then use the PM method above.
As a last resort, please send an email to info
finiki.org
, with the Subject: finiki account request and we'll consider creating an account for you.
Getting started
It's very easy to edit the contents of a wiki. It only takes a few clicks.
- Click the "Edit" button at the top of the page. This will bring you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the current page.
- Make changes to the text. When you have finished editing, you should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. To see how the page looks with your edits, press the "Show preview" button. To see the differences between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page, press the "Show changes" button.
- If you're satisfied with what you see, be bold and press the "Save page" button. Your changes will immediately be visible to all finiki users.
Simple as that!
Consult Help:Basic Wiki Syntax or the User's Guide for detailed information on using the wiki software. Basic help can be found in Help:Editing. Until you are comfortable with the markup language, use the sandbox to test your edits. Please be advised that not all MediaWiki features are enabled in finiki. Try things out on the sandbox before committing them to a reference page.
Editing rules, editing conventions, and formatting
The number one rule of wiki editing, is to be bold. Dive in and make changes. Other people can correct mistakes later, so have confidence, and give it a try! There can be all kinds of editing conventions, rules, and philosophy governing the editing of wiki pages, but the be bold rule overrides these!
In general try to write clearly and concisely and make sure you are always aiming to do something which improves the wiki contents. An edit might be to contribute whole paragraphs or pages full of information, or it could be as simple as fixing a typo or spelling mistake. Please remember to never use the pronoun "I".
Editing toolbar
The editing toolbar will look familiar to most users. The Vector skin is the default choice for finiki editors.
For help on its use and functionality, see Help:Edit toolbar.
Style guidelines
A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization or field. The implementation of a style guide provides uniformity in style and formatting of a document. The Wikipedia Manual of Style (MOS) is a style guide for Wikipedia articles that encourages editors to follow consistent usage and formatting. Use this guide for reference.
The following sections are extracts of key elements that should be followed on finiki.
Article titles
- Use "sentence case", not "title case"; that is, the initial letter of a title is capitalized (except in rare cases, such as eBay). Otherwise, capital letters are used only where they would be used in a normal sentence (Funding of UNESCO projects, not Funding of UNESCO Projects).
Article titles should not be acronyms, they should be fully expanded. To handle the case where users may search using the acronym, create a redirect, an alternative title to the article. Redirects help to organize a wiki by making articles findable under different names. See Wikipedia:Redirect for guidelines and a more detailed explanation.
- Note: The Search box is case-insensitive, so a search for "Mutual Fund" and "mutual fund" will both find the article Mutual fund.
Redirect
A redirect is a page created so that navigation to a given title will take the reader directly to a different page. A redirect is created using the syntax:
#REDIRECT [[target]]
where Target is the name of the target page. Example:
- #REDIRECT [[Guaranteed Investment Certificate]] (redirects to the Guaranteed Investment Certificate article)
Section organization
An article should begin with an introductory lead (or lede) section, which does not contain section headings (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section). The remainder is divided into sections, each with a section heading (see below) that can be nested in a hierarchy. If there are at least four section headings in the article, a navigable table of contents is generated automatically and displayed between the lead and the first heading.
Section headings
Headings are produced by typing multiple equal signs. A primary section heading is written ==Title==, a subsection below it is written ===Title===, and so on (a maximum of five levels is possible). Spaces between the equal signs and the heading text are optional, and will not affect the way the heading is displayed. The heading must be typed on a separate line. Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window. (Only two or more consecutive blank lines will add more white space in the public appearance of the page.)
The provisions in Article titles (above) generally apply to section headings as well (for example, headings are in sentence case, not title case).
Creating a new article
- See also: Wikipedia:Writing better articles
From the search page
If you search for a page that doesn't exist (using the "Search finiki" box and click on the lens symbol) then you will be provided with a link to create the new page.
Using Wikilinks
For an existing page sentence, Where are the customers' yachts?, you may decide to that yachts should have its own page. You would enclose yachts with [[]] thus [[yachts]] and the sentence would look like Where are the customers' yachts? The red highlighting will disappear as soon as you click on yachts, add text to the new page, and save it.
Stubs
A new page often will be lacking the breadth of coverage expected from a wiki, but provides some useful information and is capable of expansion. In this case use put {{Stub}} at the beginning of the article. which should remain until the page is substantially complete.
Removing stub status
Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes a larger article, any editor may remove its stub template. No administrator action or formal permission is needed.
Many articles still marked as stubs have in fact been expanded beyond what is regarded as stub size. If an article is too large to be considered a stub but still needs expansion, the stub template may be removed and appropriate {{expand section}} templates may be added (no article should contain both a stub template and an expand template).
Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable.
Working in your User namespace
When a new page is first created and developed, it might look too preliminary, incomplete or uncertain to the "published", i.e. to be part of the wiki "Main" space, the portion of finiki that the public sees easily. Alternatively, maybe you are not even sure that this new article is a good idea. Instead of working offline, a good solution, which has been used extensively over the last 5+ years, is to create a "User" article. Only other wiki editors can easily find such articles, and they might help you with your new article.
In the "Search finiki" box, enter the following:
Your-user-name/Title-of-new-page
click on the lens symbol, and you will be provided with a link to create the new page. Use the {{Possible article}} template at the top of the new page if you welcome help from other editors.
When the page developement has advanced enough, your user page can be converted (promoted) to a Main space article.
Editing an Existing Page
Extensive help on editing a page can be found here.
A note regarding good practice: When you edit a page, enter a short comment about the change you have made. If you are inclined to forget, the software can remind you. Click on "my preferences", choose the Editing tab, and check the Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary option. Another Editing preference that you might find use is Warn me when I leave an edit page with unsaved changes (Vector skin only).
Citing sources
You should cite sources for the information you contribute. Citations help readers verify what you have written and find more information.
The purpose of citing sources is:
- To ensure that the content of articles can be checked by any reader or editor.
- To show that your edit is not original research and to reduce editorial disputes.
- To avoid claims of plagiarism and copying.
- To help users find additional information on the topic.
- To ensure that material about living persons complies with biography policy.
- To improve the credibility of finiki.
 | Getting the citation format correct may prove particularly troublesome for new editors. |
Inline citations
Inline citations are usually small, numbered footnotes like this.[1] They are generally added either directly following the fact that they support, or at the end of the sentence that they support, following any punctuation. When clicked, they take the reader to a citation in a reference section near the bottom of the article.
While editing a page that uses the most common footnote style, you will see inline citations displayed between <ref>...</ref> tags.
If you are creating a new page, or adding references to a page that didn't previously have any, remember to add a References section like the one below near the end of the article:
==References==
{{reflist}}
- ^ Wales, Jimmy (2024). What is an inline citation?. Wikipublisher. p. 6.
Other do's and don'ts
A raw url link should not be used: <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_fund#Breaking_the_buck</ref>. Instead the reference should include author [if known], reference title, publication, and date. The general form is in the order Author-Link-Title-Date, in the following format:
- <ref>Author, [http://www.xxx.yyy Title], date.</ref>
For example,
- <ref>Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_fund#Breaking_the_buck "Breaking the buck"], viewed February 16, 2009.</ref>.
gives:[1]
- ^ Wikipedia, "Breaking the buck", viewed February 16, 2009.
Note that use of the <ref>tags means the effects of the content between tags may not be evident when previewing changes, since that content will either be at the end of the article (if the separate "References" section has been added) or not visible (if the <references/> command has been forgotten). Editors should view the "References" section specifically to cross-check the format. Each link should be clicked on to ensure it is correct.
Excerpts from specific Financial Wisdom Forum topics and posts are allowed, but the citation must include the author's posting ID, a link to the post cited, and the date the post was made. If the excerpt is unmodified, it should be in block quotes. If it is modified, the citation should include an indication that there have been modifications. Use the template {{forum link}} to standardize the appearance.
Where the topic as a whole is cited as a general reference, citation should be of the form <ref>{{forum link|t=101652|title=Financial Planning}}, viewed Feb. 17, 2009</ref>.
If a citation is needed but not yet provided, you can use {{Citation needed}} or one of the other Article templates or Citation templates.
For consistency, references should be organized in a common format. Please list references as follows. Unused reference section headings may be omitted.
Explanatory footnotes (those that are not references) appear first.
- ==Notes==
- <references group="note" />
This is the first header for links and is used for internal wiki page links.
- ==See also==
Footnote references (citations) appear after the See also section and before the External links section.
- ==References==
- {{Reflist}}
A reasonable number of editor-recommended publications that would help interested readers learn more about the article subject.
- ==Further reading==
This section contains outside links to any websites would be of particular interest to a reader of an article but only if they were not used as sources for the article.
- ==External links==
Saving a page
Before you press the "Save page" button, you will notice a couple of input areas, an input box marked Summary: and a check box to indicate "This is a minor edit".
Summary
It is considered good practice to provide a summary for every edit, especially when reverting (undoing) the actions of other editors or deleting existing text; otherwise, people may question your motives for the edit.
Accurate summaries help other contributors decide whether it is worthwhile for them to review an edit, and to understand the change should they choose to review it.
Minor edit
A check to the minor edit box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous versions. Examples include typographical corrections, formatting and presentational changes, and rearrangements of text without modification of its content. A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. An edit of this kind is marked in its page's revision history with a lower case, bolded "m" character (m).
By contrast, a major edit is one that should be reviewed for its acceptability to all concerned editors. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor, even if the edit concerns a single word; for example, the addition or removal of "not", which can change the meaning of a sentence, is a major edit.
Because editors may choose to ignore minor edits when reviewing recent changes, the distinction between major and minor edits is significant. Logged-in users might even set their preferences to not display minor edits. If there is any chance that another editor might dispute a change, it is best not to mark the edit as minor.
Renaming articles
If you find an article that you believe is misnamed, please do not copy and paste the contents of the old article into a new article — among other things, it separates the previous contributions from their edit history (which we need to keep track of for copyright reasons). The preferred method is to move the page to the new name. If it is your first move, please read the warnings on the move page carefully, as there are a number of issues to consider before moving a page. For more information, see How to rename (move) a page.
Editing conventions on talk pages
- Always sign your name after your comments. Use the four tildes “~~~~” wiki syntax (or the signature button in the toolbar above the editing textbox).
- Start a new discussion with a ==level 2 heading== at the bottom of the page (or use the “+” tab)
- Indent replies with colons (:) at the beginning of the line.
Tools
Templates
Templates are Wiki tools that allow pre-formatted entries to be made. Templates are included in a page by inserting the name of the template between double curly brackets. The content of the template will then be inserted at that point. For example, {{Fact}} will display the "Fact" template, which warns that a citation is needed, as shown below:
A list of available templates is here. Before you create a new template, check to see if there is an existing template that would serve your needs. For assistance in creating templates, see Creating, editing and using templates.
External Tools
- Excel2Wiki: Copy and Paste Excel-to-Wiki Converter Use this link to convert pasted Excel tables to wiki-format tables
HTML Tools
wikitext allows a number of HTML elements that are useful in writing an article.
Editing guidelines
finiki's editing guidelines are loosely based on Wikipedia's editorial policy and core content policies. Note that there are no guidelines on what subjects to include or exclude. We hope that common sense prevails.
Copyrights
See also
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