Graves Disease and Hyperthyroidism Wiki>This page includes some frequently asked questions and answers. It is written for people who are new to the site. For a nice introduction to the wiki see the Wiki Guide. For detailed help pages see Help:Contents.
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[edit] What is a wiki?
A wiki is a website than anyone can edit. People can easily create new pages and add formatting and links to other pages. Each change that a person makes is saved. This allows others to follow a page's history, see recent edits, and even receive notification when pages they are interested in are modified (see Help:Watching pages). The content of this wiki (like other wikis) is contributed by volunteers like you, so feel free to read the Wiki Guide and jump right in!
There are many types of wikis. MedShelf.org uses the open source MediaWiki software. This is the same software used by Wikipedia, although the MedShelf.org development team has customized the software to better meet the needs of the communities it serves.
[edit] What is MedShelf.org?
MedShelf.org is part of a research project conducted by students and faculty at the University of Michigan. The goal of the project is to help online medical support groups effectively use a wiki to create useful resources. Each participating online support group has their own wiki at MedShelf.org. For example, this is the Graves Disease wiki. The content is provided by members of the communities and is not reviewed by medical professionals (see Disclaimer). See About for more details.
If you represent an online medical support group that would like to participate in the study, please contact Derek Hansen at shakmatt at umich dot edu.
[edit] How do I ...
[edit] find a page I'm looking for?
There are several ways to find pages of interest. You can browse a list of All pages or the Main Page. Alternatively, you can search for a page by using the search box at the top of every page (see Help:Searching for details).
[edit] create a new page?
First, type the proposed name into the search bar at the top of the page and click on the "Go" button. Check the results to make sure that the page you want doesn't already exist by the same or another name. If it does not exist, then click on the "create this page" link at the top of the search results page. This will take you to the desired page name edit screen. Add your content and click "Save page". Make sure to let others know about the page once you have created it (e.g., by linking to it from other pages or posting about it to the community so others know you've created it).
For more information, please see Help:Starting a new page.
[edit] delete a page?
Only administrators can delete pages. See Help:Deleting pages for instructions.
[edit] Why ...
[edit] should I register and log in?
There are many reasons to register and log in. Here are a few of the more important ones:
- Your username will show up next to any edits you make in the Recent changes and page histories. This allows people to find others with similar interests and know if they should review others changes.
- You will have your own user page where you can write a bit about yourself.
- You will be able to keep track of changes to pages you are interested in by using a Help:Watching pages|watchlist]].
- If you choose to give an email address, you can get email updates when pages change and you can exchange email with other users (see here for details).
- You will be able to rename pages.
- You will be able to set your own preferences, to change things such as:
- The number of pages displayed in Recent changes
- Whether or not you see edit links next to each section of a page
Please see the Privacy policy for a detailed description of how your privacy will be protected and how the information you provide when logging in will be used.
[edit] are some words in red?
When people include links to a page that does not yet exist, it shows up in red (e.g., Empty Page Example). Often, page authors include links to pages they think might be good additions, but do not create these pages at the time. If others click on the red link, they will be taken to an edit form where they can create the new page. In other words, red links can be thought of as suggestions for pages that should be created. For a complete list of them see Special:Wantedpages.
[edit] don't I see an edit button?
Some wikis require you to register and log in before making edits. Additionally, some pages might be protected by the wiki administrators, meaning that only administrators can edit them.
[edit] What should I do if I...
[edit] represent an online support group that wants to use MedShelf.org?
Contact the medshelf development team at developers@medshelf.org. Please provide them with a brief description of your community and contact information.
[edit] have a question or concern about this being used for research?
If the Privacy policy and Project Description do not answer your questions, then feel free to contact the Principle Investigator for this project: Derek Hansen at shakmatt at umich dot edu. If you believe you have been treated unfairly, you may also contact the University of Michigan's Institutional Review Board who oversees the ethical treatment of research subjects. Their contact information is provided at the bottom of the Project Description site.
[edit] find a problem with the site or its content?
Because this website is a wiki, you should feel free to edit any content that you think is wrong or incomplete. If you want to suggest a major change (i.e., deletion of pages, new way of organizing content), you should add it to the content section of the Suggestion Box or contact a member of the Wiki Team.
If there is a problem with the software itself or you have a great idea for a new feature, you can add it to the Technology Suggestions section of the Suggestion Box or contact the MedShelf.org development team at developers at medshelf dot org.
[edit] need help figuring out how to do something?
The best place to start learning how to use the wiki software is the Wiki Guide. There are also several help pages that can be reviewed for more advanced information. If those sources don't answer your questions you can contact the Wiki Team.
[edit] messed up a page by accident?
Don't worry! All prior versions of the page are saved and accessible via the page history. You can revert a page to an earlier version by following the directions found here.
[edit] MediWiki Terminology
- Administrators - individuals who have special rights on the wiki (i.e., can do things like delete and protect pages). See Help:Administrators.
- Bot - a computer program that does something that a human would typically do. For example, administrators can hide a vandal's edits from the Recent changes page by using a bot (see here).
- Category - like a tag or keyword that can be added to various pages to help organize them. See Help:Category.
- Diff - a way of comparing two different versions of the same page. You can use the page history to pick which versions to compare. See Help:Diff
- History - the History tab takes you to the history page, where you can see every prior version of the page and compare them.
- Moving a page - the same as Renaming a page.
- Namespace - a section of the wiki (i.e., collection of wiki pages). Each page is part of only one namespace. For example, this page is in the "Help" namespace, which is why it begins with "Help:", followed by the page title "FAQ". See Help:namespace.
- Protecting a page - administrators can restrict who can edit a page. This is called protecting a page. When a page is protected, those that aren't allowed to edit the page (e.g., non-administrators) see a View Source tab instead of an Edit tab. See Help:Protecting pages.
- Redirect - when you try to get to a page and it automatically sends you to another page. When a page is renamed, the old page name automatically becomes a redirect to the new name. See Help:Redirect.
- Section edit - If turned on in your preferences, you will see an [edit] link on the right-hand side of each section header. Clicking on thislink will let you edit just the specified section of the page (rather than the entire page). This can be helpful when editing large pages.
- Sysop - another name for an administrator.
- Watch - When you "watch" a page, you add it to your "watchlist". You can easily view edits to your watchlist via the "My watchlist" link and receive email updates when a page in your watchlist is edited. See Help:Watching pages.
[edit] I've used Wikipedia. How is this site different?
MedShelf.org uses MediaWiki, the same wiki software that powers Wikipedia. However, we have customized the software to make it more user-friendly and better meet the needs of the communities that use it. Here are some of the changes that are of most importance:
- The "Talk pages" have been removed since most of the conversation about the wiki happens in the community email list or forum.
- Many of the links shown in the sidebar are not displayed in our version
- "Moving" a page is now called "Renaming" a page
- We have customized many of the internal system messages to be more readable and appropriate to our setting (e.g., the copyright notice at the bottom of the edit page).
If there are features that you would like installed or changed, please contact the MedShelf.org development team by sending an email to developers@medshelf.org or add them to the Suggestion Box.