Contribute to this Wiki

Should I contribute?

Yes, absolutely! If you are comfortable with adding content to the wiki, then go for it!

How should I get started?

The first thing you should do is Create an Account.

Once you've created an account, you should use the search bar or visit the list of Community Bicycle Organizations to see if your Bike Collective or Bicycle Organization has been included in this wiki, and if so, whether it's information is correct and up-to-date.

If you want to help out and need some direction, a good place to start would be to look at the most wanted pages. Start creating these pages if you know anything about the subject, or if you feel that the content should be linked elsewhere (such as Wikipedia or Sheldon Brown) you can edit the original article to remove it from the list.

How do I see if my Bike Collective or Bicycle Organization is included in this wiki?

You can use the Search Page to search for the name of your group, or see if it is on the list of Community Bicycle Organizations. Search is also available as a search box on the left-hand side of every page.

Can I edit any page?

Yes! Anybody can edit (nearly) any page. To start editing any page, just click on 'edit' tab at the top.

How do I create a new page?

You start new pages by looking for them from the Search Page. When the word or phrase you've searched for is not found, you can begin editing the non-existant page by following the red link in the search results. This works for any red link!

If you want to link to a word that is not necessarily bike related, but deserves a definition. Try to see if it's on wikipedia first. You can link to it using the external link.

What information should be on the page for my Bike Collective or Bicycle Organization?

Generally, this is up to you! Although to make this wiki as useful as possible, pages should generally include your geographical location or address, a link to your website, an email address or phone number, and a mission statement or description about what you do.

To make this easy for you and uniform for every individual bicycle organization page, the Bike Collective Wiki has a template that's easy to use. When creating a new page, in the "Select boilerplate" section, simply select "Load" for the "Community Bicycle Organization template".

The page will then pre-load a template which you can fill out with the relevant information. For more details, see the full documentation for the template.

More general Wiki editing tips are also available here.

What information should NOT be on the page for my Bike Collective or Bicycle Organization?

Again, anything goes, but it's best to avoid including details that will likely be out of date soon. Things like hours of operation, board members, and costs to the user should be easy to find on your website, including them here will only cause you to have to update the page more often. However, including that your shop is generally open 50 hours a week or the names of founders or long term executives would be fine.

When should I use those square brackets?

Using square brackets around a term will create a link to a page about that topic. If the page doesn't exist yet, you or anyone else can create it at any time.

The best time to use these on your collective's page is when you mention a service. For example:

We have been providing an [[Earn-a-bike program]] since Nov. 2008.

No need to go into too much detail here, the user can find out more by clicking on the link. If your program is different than most however, please add your information to the linked page so that a user can see all of the possibilities without having to search through all collective pages.

How do I upload files or photos?

1. Create an Account
2. Go to the Upload File page.
3. Click on the Browse... button
4. Browse and double click your file (ex: Filename.jpg) or hightlight it and click the Open button.
5. Click the Upload file button. You don't need to include a summary or choose a license if you're unsure.
6. Now that it is uploaded you can use [[Image:Filename.jpg]] in your wiki pages to display it.

I have some content, but I'm not sure about all this formatting code.

That's ok! Go ahead and add whatever text you would like. An administrator will see that you've created a new page and fix any issues it may have.

I've added some content, but something doesn't look right!

That's ok! If you're not too worried about it, just leave it for an administrator to straighten up. If you'd like to DIY, though, you can contact one of the administrators for additional tips (see below).

I've read this guide, but I'm still not comfortable adding content to this wiki!

If this still doesn't quite make sense, don't worry! Feel free to send anything you have in an email or as an attachment and someone here will happily contribute it for you.

I'd like to speak to an administrator, please!

To communicate with an administrator on the wiki, go to the List of Administrators and click on one to go to their profile page. To send them a message, click on the 'discussion' tab to go to their talk page, and from there click the '+' sign next to the 'edit' tab to add a new discussion topic. (Jonathan, Dustin, Quill , and Godwin are generally available.)

Is there a good book I can read to learn more about MediaWiki?

There is an excellent regularly updated online book called Working with MediaWiki that provides good insight about MediaWiki for a wide range of users. A hardcopy of this book can be purchased both at Amazon and Barnes & Nobel.

Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2018 at Amazon

A gentle masterclass that will help readers make MediaWiki sing.

While this book has been available for at least five years and I have 'worked with MediaWiki' for longer than that, for some reason, despite a lot of googling about MediaWiki matters over the years, I only came across it in December 2017. What a discovery!