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Short version of how to "request account" (register) and then contribute

1. Click "Request Account". Fill in your "RealName" (no spaces), email, political party-state (ie. R-IA), write at least 50 words about yourself. Optional: upload your resume. Click to verify your email.

2. Go to your email folder on your phone or computer and click on the first link which this website sent you.

3. It will take you back here where you can submit your request for approval by a SAVETHEWORLD administrator. Click "create your account".

4. When a genuine human finds your request, and see you are a genuine human, he will approve your request and email you a temporary password. Click on the link, log in with the temporary password, change it to the password you want to keep, and your account is activated. One more step before you edit: go to "preferences" on the left, and confirm your email account AGAIN.

Your request for an account will NOT be rejected for disagreement about politics or religion. You CAN be rejected for not being a human. Or for imitating spam robots by peddling health, wealth, or lust.

If something doesn't work, please contact me, Dave Leach, at Biblewizard at) gmail.com or DaveLeach (at Saltshaker.US. Needed: volunteer computer wizard.

RESOURCES

Rules are designed to facilitate productive dialog and limit hostility. Talk Tips are suggestions how to make your contributions persuasive. Forum#How to use the software shows a few cool things you can do with a little bit of code. Template has words and codes you can copy and paste. Forum#Ways you can contribute shows ways you can contribute: from the simplest - entering a comment on the "discussion" page, to adding corrections, more evidence, argument, etc to main pages, to starting new articles.

Detailed version of how to "Request Account" and then contribute

Here you will learn how to create your account, and how to make the simplest type of contribution - on the "discussion" page of any article. (See "Resources" above for links to more advanced ways to contribute.)

1. From "Main Page" at http://savetheworld.saltshaker.us/wiki/Main_Page, click on "REQUEST ACCOUNT" on top right of the screen.

2. At "RealName(WithoutSpaces)" type your real first and last name without spaces. Example: JoeShucks. Optional: You can add a middle name or nickname. Example: JoeCornShucks. Capitalization of the first letter of each name is helpful, but optional. This RealName will appear after your contributions where you edit an article or write a new article.

If your life or the lives of your relatives would be at risk from posting your ideas with your real name, 
you may enter another name followed by the number sign #. But read the warning, and understand the reasons 
for real names explained at FAQ#Exception: When Anonymous Posts Are Allowed 

3. Enter your email address. This website software will email you a "confirmation code/link". Your email will not be posted publicly, but the SAVETHEWORLD administrator will have it, and will be able to email you with any questions about your application. After your account is approved, you can change your email address, if you have another.

4. At "Your Political Party & State" (or country) enter the single letter abbreviation of the political party on your voter registration card, and the two-letter abbreviation of your state or country. Example: "I-IA" for "Independent from Iowa". Or "N-SD" for Non-U.S. citizen from Sudan". If you are an adult U.S. citizen who has not registered to vote, register to vote! Optional: add a word or phrase summarizing your worldview. This will be public when you sign your contributions with 4 tildes (~~~~) - the squiggle in the upper left of your keyboard.

5. at "Personal biography (plain text only)" write at least 50 words about yourself. An error message will come up if you write fewer than 50. This bio serves two purposes: the SAVETHEWORLD administrator reviewing it will read it for assurance that it is written by and about a real, genuine human being, not by a web robot trying to sell wealth, health, or lust. Also, it will be the content of your personal page, at least until you change it later. If you include a link, it won't "work" since this section is "plain text only".

LINKS: You may include links to where you work, or a business you own. This is a sensitive area: most organizations and churches, even before the internet, wouldn't/don't let their membership directories include "advertizing". And online, the surest sign of spam is a link. But on the other hand, if it can be done without letting in garbage, it enhances relationships when partners know more about each other's activities and interests, and are able to help each other financially. BUT if your business is health, wealth, or lust, links to it will weigh against recognizing your account request as being from a real human. Lust, because nothing more quickly destroys our capacity for accomplishing great things. Wealth, because most wealth schemes are fraudulent and at best risky, and beyond our capacity to scrutinize. Health, because many popular articles about health are by people not qualified to understand what they are writing, and because we do not yet have a medically qualified administrator willing to add perspective to whatever claims are submitted. Maybe someday.

(6) Under "Other Information", you may give further evidence that you are a human which will NOT be automatically added to your personal page. You can upload a resume (usually one or two pages) or a "Curriculum Vitae", which might be as long as 12 pages. You can list any of your websites, including any pages you have on social media or Youtube.

Click "Create your account" (If you later change something, remember to click "save" at the bottom.)

(7) Check out the "Terms of Service". It is very short. It is a summary of what you can't do on this website, with links to what you CAN do, and to more detail. Click that you have read them, and then answer the math question. No fair using a calculator.

(8) ERROR: if the error message says "Username is already in use...", that means someone with your same name has requested an account, or has already received one. In that case, please add a middle name or number between your first and last name. After your account is approved the administrator will check the other name and delete it if it is not really in use, and remove the number from your RealName.

(9) Go to your email program, and find the email from "Partner@savetheworld.saltshaker.us". Click on the long link. That will get you to a page which tells you "Your email address has been confirmed and will be listed as such in your account request." That will also generate an email to the SAVETHEWORLD administrator, who will review it and activate your account, hopefully in less than a day.

(10) When approval is emailed to you, it will give you a temporary password. Click on the first link, and That opens up a screen in your browser (the program with which you surf the internet) that will congratulate you. Print out that screen, mount it in an expensive frame, and hang it next to the picture of your mother. Then log in with the temporary password, then change it to the password you want to keep. Now your account is confirmed!

But there is one more thing you need to do before you may edit articles! Confirm your email account AGAIN! Go to the "preferences" tab on the left edge of the screen. Over half way down the page is a place to confirm your email address. If you don't do it right away, then the first time you try to edit an article the error message will tell you you need to confirm the email address and will take you to the preferences page.

Contributing

Easiest: add a comment to the discussion page. No code required!

Easy: add your comment in the article itself, right next to what you are addressing. You need to use a little bit of code to put it in the right place, and to separate your contribution from what you are improving.

Interesting: Improve an article with correction, clarification, evidence, or new information. Use headings to make clear what type of contribution yours is. Make a decision whether to make it show in the table of contents at the beginning of the article, and if so, where in the TOC. Use formatting to make it look great: bold, italics, colors, indenting, links, pictures, videos.

Fulfilling: Become a SAVETHEWORLD administrator!

EASIEST: Add a Comment on the "Discussion" Page

No code required!

The simplest, most familiar way to contribute is like posting a "comment" after an ordinary article or blog.

For each article, notice the tabs at the top that say, at the upper left, "Page...Discussion". Click the "Discussion" tab.

The page that takes you to will have the headline "Talk:" followed by the headline of the article. Click the "Edit" tab to the right of the title, or "Edit" in the list at the left edge of the screen.

Write your comment! At the end, please sign, with your name, political party and state, and leave a line at the end of your comment to separate it from the next one.

Optional Code:

Four "tildes" (~~~~), those funny squiggles at the upper left of your keyboard; will leave your SAVETHEWORLD "signature" when you finish editing, which will include your Real Name, the political party on your voter registration card, (or "N" if you are not a citizen), the two-letter abbreviation of your state (or country), and your phrase about yourself.

Four dashes (----) (not underlines) will stretch a horizontal line across the screen.

You may be the first one to comment! If there are already several comments, you may see a bunch of weird codes with the text. Don't fear them. They are your slaves. But if you don't believe in slavery you don't HAVE to use them.

EASY

Easy: add your comment in the article itself, right next to what you are addressing. You need to use a little bit of code to put it in the right place, and to separate your contribution from what you are improving.

Finding where to start: You get to the "Edit" screen by clicking the word "Edit" just right of each headline and each sub-headline. You can click "Edit" in the list on the left edge of the screen, but that takes you to the top of the page to edit the whole article. If you want to add much lower, you will want to click "edit" to the right of the first subheading above where you want to add.

Marking your territory. The best spot to add may be at the end of the paragraph that you want to address. After you decide where to contribute, mark it with 4 dashes, (----)which will put a horizontal line across the page after you finish editing. Go down a little bit and put another 4 dashes. Do your contributing between those two lines. Before the second line, type 4 tildes, (~~~~) which will add your signature (name, party, state, phrase about you) and time.

Headings. Begin with a word or phrase describing the nature of your contribution, such as "correction" if you are addressing an error so plain that you expect your correction will be widely accepted; "clarification" if you can explain the points made better; "addition" if you can make the point stronger with more information; "Evidence" if there are relevant facts you can document; argument" or "disagreement" if you have a different view which was not addressed but should be; Opinion if the value of your contribution is subjective.

Required Code:

Boldface, '''Bold,''' for your heading. If you don't want the labor of typing the three apostrophes on either side of what you want to be "bold", just highlight your heading and then click the "B" on the top left of your edit area.

Horizontal Line, (----) to mark the top and bottom of your territory. You can type four dashes, or just click the horizontal line on the right of the code toolbox on the top left of your edit area.

Your Signature, 4 tildes, (~~~~), explained above.

Links [http://example.com] in case you want to support your reasoning with a link to another website.

Internal Links [[Example]] in case you want to link to another page on this website.

Interesting

In addition to your "Easy" possibilities, you can make a decision whether to make your contribution show in the table of contents at the beginning of the article, and if so, where in the TOC.

If what you want to say is very long - too long to fit in the existing article without disrupting its focus, yet relevant and important - you can put your complete content in a separate article which you can create from scratch, and add only a summary and link to the article that you want to address.

You can also make minor corrections to someone else's work.

You can use formatting to make it look great: bold, italics, colors, indenting, links, pictures, videos.

TOC. Go ahead and make your case! If you have very much to say, you might want to have it show up in the Table of Contents (TOC) at the top of the article. To do that, see how many equals signs are on each side of the subheading above where you are editing, and put one more than that on each side of your heading. If you do that, you don't need the horizontal line at the beginning of your contribution. Then just below the bottom line, quote the previous subheading followed with "- Continued".

Starting a New Article. Suppose you have started to make your point and realize you don't want to stop for several pages! Time for a separate article! Simply use the instructions to this point to make a summary of your point in the article you started addressing, and then make a link to your new article. Here's how you make the actual link: type the title you want of the new article, put two [[brackets]] on each side of it (or highlight it and click the Ab in the code toolbox at the upper left of your edit area) and "Save" your editing. After your editing box is closed and your edits saved, your article title will be activated. It will be red, indicating no article exists there yet. Click on it, and the website will take you to a new page where you can start writing your new article, which will already have a link to it from the article you began addressing. How cool is that?

Another way to start a new article is to type the title in the "search" box on the upper left of every page. Click "search" and the website will take you to the same empty page where you can start writing your article - but without a link to it from anywhere. You will have to add links later yourself.

Minor edits of others' material. If yours is a "minor edit" that doesn't add new information or change any meaning, such as correcting a typo, or grammar, or simplifying an awkward train of thought, you needn't sign your name to it. If you think your correction will be obviously better to anybody, just make the change. (A record of when you did it will be available to anyone who cares.) If there is any doubt whether the author might prefer his writing the way it is, another way to handle it is to put your clearer reading in [brackets].

Formatting.

The code tools in the code toolbox at the upper left of every edit screen are, from left to right: Bold, Italics, Internal link, External link, Embedded file (for example, a photo, which you must first load to Wikimedia Commons), Media:Example.ogg

Adding information, correction, argument, or opinion to the main page

You can improve an article with correction, clarification, evidence, argument, opinion, or new information. Use headings to make clear what type of contribution yours is.

Review. Before you click "save", you might want to click "Review", which will show you what it will look like with the codes applied and not showing. Then "save". As you save the software will ask you to state in a few words the nature of your edit.

More formatting tips

1. Separate paragraphs by pressing "enter" twice. This will NOT cause your comment to post as it does in many other places.

2. When you are finished, scroll down and click "preview" at the lower middle tab. This will show you what your contribution will look like. This lets you double check if you have entered the code correctly and if you said what you meant.

3. The four dashes (----) turns into a horizontal line across the page, separating your comment from what came previously.

4. The four tildes (~~~~) turns into your name, party, state, date, and time.

5. The equals signs on either side of your headline turns into a bold headline with a horizontal line under it. It also appears magically in a "comments" box once there are three headlines.

6. When everything looks right, click the "save" tab to the left of the "preview" tab.

WHY are contributor's names REQUIRED here, which is FORBIDDEN at Wikipedia?!!

One goal of this wiki is the opposite of Wikipedia's goal.

There, the identities of contributors must never be part of the article. Here, they must always be part of the article!

Their goal is a pretense of objectivity in reporting what newsmakers and "mainstream" sources claim, untainted by the personal bias of contributors. Which by deliberate policy shuts out new ideas, solutions not already on the mainstream table, and reasoning between contributors who disagree. Which is precisely our goal here.

So how can we contribute in a way that leaves a clear record of who said what, without making articles so cluttered they are unreadable?

We may have to try a few things.

OPTIONAL: Correcting a comment after you post it: the problem, and the opportunity

5. Another thing you can do here that you can't do with ordinary comments software, is change a comment after you have posted it. This creates the possibility of a small problem and a tremendous opportunity.

The small problem is that if you do it after someone else has already responded to what you are now changing, it could cause the response to not make sense. To eliminate that problem, please add, after or with your change, something like "(My comment used to say....)" In other words, just provide enough explanation so that the response to what you had said before can make sense.

The tremendous opportunity over traditional "comments" opportunities is that should one person in a comment stream persuade another, the one persuaded can more easily erase from his record all but a trace of what he now renounces. Consensus requires a lot of this, and the survival of civilization depends on more consensus.

Mind your own business

6. You will notice that when you are on the "edit" page, you have the power to edit other people's work. That doesn't mean you have the authority, any more than the power to grab candy off the store shelf without paying for it doesn't give you the authority to do it without unwelcome consequences.

On the discussion page you are authorized to make only three kinds of changes to the contributions of others: (1) fix obvious typos, (2) where grammar is very hard to understand (perhaps because the author's main language is not English) and you are sure what the author meant, you can insert corrected grammar [in brackets] after the poor grammar, and (3) if someone hits you with a "personal attack", you can grey it out. See Rules for how and when to do it.