Wiki: reading, suggesting edits and writing articles

The wiki is a shared library of guides to cross stitch and other needlework: fabric count, securing a thread, chart symbols, caring for a finished piece. Unlike a blog post, a wiki article has no single owner: different people add to it and correct it, and every member's edit is reviewed by the wiki editors before it is published. Anyone can read the wiki, even without signing in.

How the wiki is organised

Click «Wiki» in the site header (/en/wiki). You will see «Contents» – the list of sections: «Cross stitch», «Materials», «Glossary», «Community» and others. At the top are the buttons «Write an article» and «Recent changes».

A section is a page too: below its text, the «In this section» box lists its articles. At the foot of every article are «Previous» and «Next» links to the neighbouring articles in the section, and above the title is the trail of sections the article sits in.

Below the article text you can see who wrote its current version – a member's «@username» or «The wiki editors» – and the date «Updated …». Some articles are still placeholders waiting for their text, and you can write it.

An article's history

At the foot of an article, click «History». It lists every published version, newest first. Each shows «Version of …» (in your own time zone), «Written by …» and, if the author explained the edit, «Edit summary: …». The version the article shows now is marked «Shown now». If there is only one version, the page says «This article has only one version so far.»

Click a version to see what it changed compared with the one before: lines added and lines removed. The very first version says there is nothing to compare it with.

The history loses nothing: even if the editors return an article to an older version, every version stays in the list.

Recent changes and the feed

On the «Wiki» page, click «Recent changes» (/en/wiki/changes). It lists every version the wiki has published in this language, newest first: the article, the author, the summary and a «What changed» link. Edits published without anybody else reviewing them (the editors' own edits, for example) are marked «published without review», so that anyone can read them over.

To follow changes in a feed reader, click «Subscribe (Atom)» – the feed is at /en/wiki/changes.atom. Each language has its own feed.

Who can write

Suggesting edits and writing new articles is open to a member who is signed in, has confirmed their email address and has found their feet on the site a little. You need an account: how to create one is described in Account and settings. An account that moderators have restricted from writing cannot edit the wiki either. Without access, you get «This page is closed» instead of the form.

Suggesting an edit

1. Open the article and click «Suggest an edit» at its foot.
2. Above the form it says «Readers see the edit after it is reviewed.» The form has «Title», «The article» with its current text, and «What you changed, and why».
3. Correct the text. The markup is Markdown: ## at the start of a line makes a subheading, asterisks give italics and bold, and a link is written as [text](address). Links to other websites are allowed in the wiki. HTML tags are stripped.
4. Click «Preview» – a «How this will look» box appears above the field. The draft has not been sent anywhere, and nobody but you can see it. You can preview as many times as you like.
5. In «What you changed, and why», write one line for whoever reviews it.
6. Click «Send». You will see «Your edit has been sent for review. The article changes once it is approved.», and the page of your version opens, marked «Awaiting review». The article itself stays as it was.

If you have changed nothing, the site tells you the text is identical to the current one and there is nothing to send.

Limits:

• the length of an article and of its title is limited;
• the site limits how many of your edits can wait for review at once – in total and on any one article. When you reach the limit, the site asks you to wait for an answer on the ones already sent;
• the site also limits how often you can send edits.

Every member's edit and every new article is reviewed.

Writing a new article

1. On the «Wiki» page, click «Write an article».
2. In the «Section» list, choose where the article goes. The option for no section creates a new top-level section.
3. Fill in «Title», «The article» and «What you changed, and why», click «Preview» if you wish, then «Send».

The site makes the article's address from its title. If that address is already taken, the site says so – choose a different title. A new article appears in the contents only after it has been reviewed.

What happens in review

Edits are reviewed by the wiki editors. Only editors see the review queue; you see your own waiting edit on its page.

• Approved. The article starts showing your version, and it appears at the top of the history under your name. «Notifications» receives a message that your edit to the article has been approved and is now what the article says.
• Refused. «Notifications» receives a message with the reason. The refused version stays on its page, marked «Refused» – you can take the reason into account and suggest the edit again.

The editors' own edits are published at once and appear in «Recent changes» marked «published without review». The editors can also return an article to one of its earlier versions – nothing is deleted when they do.

Protected articles

An article is held at one of three levels of protection:

• open – any member may edit;
• open only to authors the wiki has published before;
• editorial team only.

If you may not edit an article, the «Suggest an edit» button is replaced by the line «This article is protected: …» with the level. The article and its history can be read at any level. A level applies to every language of the article at once. When the editors change the level, members who have recently edited the article get a notification.

Renaming and old addresses

Only the editors can rename an article. The address changes in all three languages at once, and the old address keeps working and leads to the new one – links you have left anywhere will not break.

The three languages of an article

The wiki exists in Russian, English and Ukrainian. One article in different languages is three separate pages with the same address and a different beginning: /ru/wiki/…, /en/wiki/…, /uk/wiki/…. The language switcher in the header opens the same article in another language.

Each language has its own text, its own history and its own edits. An edit to the Russian version does not change the English one: to correct the English text, switch the language and suggest an edit there. «Recent changes» also shows only its own language.

If an article has no version in your language, it is shown in the original language with the note «This page has not been translated yet and is shown in …». A new article appears only in the language it was written in: versions in other languages are not created by themselves, and the wiki has no automatic translation.