Editing an existing article

Any page of a wiki can be edited. The strengths of a wiki are that its content can be:

• Current: pages are kept up to date as information and understanding develops,
• Collaborative: pages do not have to be based solely on one person’s knowledge and experience. Multiple authors can collaborate to enrich the content.

There are also a downside. Although no-one “owns” a wiki, authors will have invested a lot of time in writing an article and usually have a feeling of pride in their work. This can translate into a feeling of ownership. To have one’s work edited may provoke an emotional reaction. At worst this can end in an editing war where a page is repeatedly edited back and forth. This is not helpful.

Authors who wish to edit an existing page should be mindful of this and approach the task sensitively. Ideally, first make contact with the page author, discuss your ideas, and agree on what should be done. If it is impossible to contact the author, contact the technical team via the Contacts page of the Guild website. The team do not moderate or approve wiki content. Their role is an advisory one and they will be able to suggest ways to integrate your ideas into the wiki.

Edit a page only if you can improve it. Improvements might be to:

• Provide new information to the reader,
• Set the page in context by providing additional links to other wiki pages or external web sites or references to works in print,
• Clarify the page content by restructuring, rewording, providing additional drawings or photographs, etc.

An alternative viewpoint unsupported by evidence is unlikely to be reason enough to edit a page.

Your edit should complement the existing content. If there is an apparent conflict between the existing and proposed content, to avoid confusing the reader you should:

• Make this explicit,
• Explain the reasons for the apparent conflict (e.g. new materials available, industrial technologies scaled down to hobbyist, etc),
• Provide readers with guidance on how to make a choice between the different options (different skill levels, time or cost constraints, etc).

Does your proposal merit an article of its own? If it is more than a small change, consider whether to develop a page specifically for it. Cross-references between the existing and new pages should then be added to allow readers to study all aspects of the topic.