Help:Contents


 * This is meant to give an overview to editing Wikis, and more specifically CouchWiki. Please do add comments, questions, useful links (internal or external), whatever comes up.

CS Wiki for Dummies is not just an introduction to the CouchSurfing Wiki. It's an introduction to wikis. All the skills you acquire contributing to this wiki will be useful on other wikis, like Wikipedia.

When reading a Wikipedia article, you probably never realized that the edit is there for you! Wikipedia has millions in articles in over 200 languages because people like you started clicking edit. And people like you want to do the right thing. So over 99% (wild guess) of edits are positive contributions.

As a start, we want you to click edit now and ask a question.

Why was this wiki set up?
The wiki was set up by Guaka TalkCS, with no clear reasons, but enough of them to get started. Some ideas were the CouchSurfing Guide, and a place to store and work on documents important for CouchSurfing, as an alternative to sending Word documents around from one person to another. And to have a very instant, adhoc way of doing things.

But Guaka TalkCS is also known to be a Wikimaniac, and for setting up (or adopting) many different wikis, even for no particular reason.

Why can't you just keep posting in the groups?
You can use the Groups! And you should use the Groups! For discussing almost anything in CS, the Groups are the right tool. You don't have to edit any wiki page, at all. And well, if you do want to edit, you don't have to be a geek. Which was shown at the New Zealand Collective the end of 2006, early 2007.

The groups will never be closed down. Though they will probably change over time. In fact, there are a lot of ideas to improve the Group system. There are some ideas about this. E.g. check Group names. And maybe we find a great way to integrate Wiki with Groups and vice versa.

I find the Wiki really confusing and unorganized
The design is being changed radically, and hopefully people will organize the content on the Wiki in different ways. One way to get a better of idea of what's on this wiki is to use categories, through which you can browse. Most pages belong to at least one category, and this is shown at the bottom of a page. Click on a category you're interested in, e.g. New Zealand, or CS Magazine to get an idea of the possibilities. You can use the search box in the left pane if you exactly know what you're looking for.

By the end of 2006 Guaka TalkCS was working on a much clearer design.

How exactly does this wiki help with the CouchSurfing Mission?

 * "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding."

The Wiki allows all CouchSurfers to work together on the creation of highly hyperlinked documents. For example, all CouchSurfers can help creating a CS Magazine and many other cool things that can help spreading the CS message. The way people cooperate on wikis is often a great example of tolerance and cultural understanding.


 * "As a community we strive to do our individual and collective parts to create world a better place, and we believe that the surfing of couches is a mean to accomplish this goal."

Wikis are all about cooperation. Since the focus is on the creation of documents there is often less room for Ego.


 * "CouchSurfing is not about the furniture, not just about finding free accommodations around the world; it's about making connections worldwide. We make the world a better place by opening our homes, our hearts, and our lives. We open our minds and welcome the knowledge that cultural exchange makes available. We create deep and meaningful connections that cross oceans, continents and cultures. CouchSurfing wants to change not only the way we travel, but how we relate to the world!"

The CouchSurfing Guide (e.g. the article about Syria) is an example of how people are able to connect in different ways.

I want to get started. What can I do?

 * Use the search box to find your locations or topics of interest. Find answers to your questions there.
 * If you find a place (how about your home town?) or something else that you have information about, share it here! Enjoy! Good luck! Thank you!
 * You can easily start a new article, also with little information, once you link it to other pages, other people will help improve it.

I have a Word document I want to put on this Wiki
You can upload documents to the wiki, but you can also check out this way to convert Word documents into the wiki format

I have an HTML page I want to put on this wiki
Check http://labs.seapine.com/htmltowiki.cgi

Help on this Wiki

 * Create a new page
 * You can contact guaka with any questions regarding the wiki - they don't have bureaucrat or even sysop rights and it's hard for them to help you with any technical problems, so you might as well directly go to the group.

Some useful info from Wikipedia

 * Etiquette
 * How to edit a page
 * Manual of Style
 * Wikipedia:Tutorial
 * Help:Contents

Next

 * Go play in the Sandbox!
 * Put some notes on your user page.
 * Edit anything you want to improve, and start writing new pages if you feel like it.