User:Dirk Franke/IGB-6

6. Start Communication on-wiki
	Wiki Markup vs Visual Editor So now there is a tricky bit: Wikipedia currently has two edit modes: a visual editor, which has a similar look and feel like any standard word processing software and a source code editor, which is using a Wiki markup. For most pages, such as article and user pages, you may chose between the two editors and use the one that you prefer. This course strongly recommends using the visual editor for your first article edits. Actually, you have just used it, when you created your user page. On talk pages, however, there is only the souce code editor available. That means, for communication with other wikipedians, you will use Wiki markup, which is a simple source code language for Wikipedia. If you are on any talk page, you can start a new conversation by clicking "New Section". If there is an ongoing conversation to which you want to reply, you go to the headline of that section and press "Edit". This will open the source code editor. Most important for editing talk pages are the commands for bold and italic, as well as inserting links. The edit toolbar at the top of the page can do some formatting for you: simply highlight the word you want to format and click on the respective button in the toolbar. The software will add the markup code to your text. If you want to add the commands to your text without using the tool bar, these are the most common commands: Make text '''bold''' or ''italic'' by placing it between ' apostrophes. [[Links]] within Wikipedia are added using [[]] square brackets. Communication on talk pages is complete with a wiki-style "signature", using the signature button in the edit toolbar . The written signature command will look like this: --~~~~. The wikipedia software will produce a link to you userpage and a timestamp, once you publish the changes. The cheatsheet lists more useful commands, if you want to try more. Communicating on-wiki using talkpages With your user account registered and user page created, you are now able to get in touch with other Wikipedians and to write and receive messages. This is extremely helpful for coordinating work on articles or in case of any questions. From now on, we will use this way of communication also for this course. That means, you will get feedback "onwiki" and will ask your questions there. There are several ways to communicate: Write on a talk page of on any article talk page. Sign your message with your signature. That way, others will be able to react to your statement and to get back to you directly. Others may leave messages on your user talk page and you can leave messages on their user talk pages. If you want to communicate out of the public sphere, there is an email functionality provided. You enter your text into a form and it will be sent via email to the other user. That user will see your email adress, and may reply to that adress directly. Screencast how to edit a talk page. Click to see a screencast where I show you how to edit a talk page. Please leave a message on my talk page: user talk:Dirk Franke, so I can see whether the editing works for you. Don't forget your signature! I will in turn post a message on your userpage. Also, I am creating a Home page for the course, where I will add links to the user pages of all participants as well as to the articles which you have chosen to work on. First milestone complete! Now you have learned about the five pillars of Wikipedia and you have found some articles which you would like to improve. You have registered your own account and created a user page. Finally, you started communication on talk pages. Congratulations! If things did not quite work yet: don't worry, we will sort it all out in our upcoming video call.
Click to continue with lesson #7