Help:Editing

The lead editors of Sprocket School are Rlyon and Rfhall — reach them at info@sprocketschool.org if you have any questions.

If you would like to join the editing team, write with your desired username after reading the information below.

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Before requesting an editor account

• Request a real or otherwise recognizable login name (if you are comfortable doing so) so your colleagues will know who you are.
• View the current user list here.
• Read the rest of this page to get a sense of our editorial goals.

Editorial guidelines

Use neutral language

Avoid absolutes, like "this is the worst piece of equipment", or any other language that veers into the territory of personal opinion. If you believe a practice to be incorrect and a piece of equipment to be inferior to another, try and lay out the facts without using subjective language. Remember this is intended to be both a source of information but also a record of exhibition history.

Think about the audience

Sprocket School is for anyone who might want to project film safely. As you write, remember think of a variety of potential users: a projectionist at an art house theater or cinematheque running mainly 35mm and 70mm prints, a librarian or professor with access to a 16mm film collection, an archivist preparing for their first Home Movie Day by reading up on Super 8 projectors.

Tips for new editors

• Like Wikipedia, Sprocket School was made using software called MediaWiki. MediaWiki has extensive guides on editing and formatting on their website.
• You can see recent contributions to Sprocket School on the Recent changes page.
• Look at an article's editing history by clicking the "history" tab at the top of any page.
• Each page has a "discussion" tab at the top. This is a good place to ask questions and make suggestions about a given topic.
• You can "sign" your contributions to the discussion page (or any other page) by typing "- ~ ~ ~ ~" - without the spaces! - or by just hitting the little button that looks like a signature at the top of the editing box. It looks like this: -- Rfhall (talk) 00:44, 3 August 2013 (PDT)
• You can upload images here. Follow the instructions on that page to use the image in any of the articles.

Starting a new page

• A list of pages that need to be written: http://www.sprocketschool.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WantedPages
• Instructions for starting a new page from scratch: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page

Editing an existing page

• Click the "edit" link at the top of an article to edit it.
• A list of pages that exist already (which you may wish to edit): http://www.sprocketschool.org/w/index.php?title=Special:AllPages
• Mediawiki's guide to basic wiki editing: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing