What's a wiki?

What's a wiki anyway? Click on the link to find out.

OK, now you know what a wiki is. But, if you're like me, you are not sure how to actually use one. So I'm adding a few "getting started" instructions right here at the outset. Please remind me not to delete these after I get past my own "newbie" stage, since the whole idea is to bring new newbies into the fold with minimal frustration.

The first thing you want to do is change this introduction (but not too much, please -- use the Sandbox for trying stuff out!) by clicking on the little "edit" tab at the top of the page. Then you will see the plain text that generates this formatted version, and can get the general idea of how it works. If you don't actually change anything (which is fine with me), but just go down to the bottom of the edit page and click on "Show preview", you can see the formatted version above the text that generates it. This may make MediaWiki syntax self-evident, but if you want an easy introduction, the Editing Help page is handy, and the more comprehensive WikiPedia User's Guide is always available if you want detailed expert advice.

For anyone accustomed to "plain text" HTML editing, it may be annoying to have to learn yet another typesetting language to use MediaWiki -- but SGML tags (<...>...</...>) are dangerous to the security of a system, especially when we go out of our way to open it up for everyone to play with. The MediaWiki formatting syntax offer a nice way around this "Catch-22" problem.

Next you should flex those mental muscles and try out a few of the new tricks you have learned. To make this safe and fun at the same time, we provide a testing page where "anything goes" (within reason):