Help:How to edit a page
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Editing pages on Ballotpedia is simple. If you haven't already, take a minute to walk through the Ballotpedia Tutorial. For specific quick tips on creating links and formatting text, see the Quick guide to editing.
Correcting text
Fixing errors is how many people make the jump from reading a wiki to editing one. You want to fix that typo, don't you? To do so, click the edit tab at the top of the page, find the error, fix it, and press the "save page" button on the bottom of the page. Easy!
Adding content
Say you're reading an article and you think the author left something out. Decide where your addition makes the most sense in the article, click Contribute, and add your text.
Some editors prefer to write their additions in their computer's text editor and then copy it into the wiki. Also, it's good manners to fill in the "summary" bar at the bottom of the page before saving your edits, so future editors will know what you changed and why you changed it.
Sometimes you'll disagree about what should be included in an article. That's natural, so discussion about resolving disagreements should occur in the '"Discussion"' tab at the top of the page, rather than by taking turns deleting someone else's contributions or having them delete your own.
Creating new content
Once you're comfortable editing pages and changing other people's content, why not add some of your own? There are two ways to about create new pages and they both involve using red links. A red link is a link that doesn't exist... yet. It's a piece of text placed in the double brackets [[ ]] which make it an internal link. These links encourage (or remind) the community to follow up on that subject. To use them:
- Follow a red link on a topic that interests you
- Example: You see on the List of ballot measures by topic that a topic is a red link. You happen to know about the topic, so you decide to start the page by clicking on that link.
- Find a page that would lead naturally to the topic you want to post about, and edit it to create a red link
