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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, even before the internet, and even churches, don't let their 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

Sign your name. At the end of whatever you contribute, type four tildes (~~~~).

Exception: 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.

Adding a Comment on the "Discussion" Page

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.

On the "Talk" page, Then click the "Edit" tab to the right of the title, or in the list at the left edge of the screen. A bunch of weird codes will appear with the text. Don't fear them. They are your slaves.

To respond to an existing comment

Put a line across the page (with four dashes) before and after your response. Sign your response. If your response is much more than 20 words, it will help if you begin with a short headline - a few words summarizing your point. Make it bold by putting three apostrophes on either side of it. (''')

To begin a new comment (on a new subject; that is, not a response to an existing comment)

Click the word "edit" to the right of the headline of the comment that you want your comment to follow. Notice how many equals signs are on either side of the headline. At the end of the edit screen that has opened for you, type the same number of equals signs (===), then your headline summarizing your key point, then, again, the same number of equals signs.

Type your comment, then sign it with four tildes (~~~~).

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

Separate your contribution from the existing article with a line across the page before and after your contribution. A line across the page is created by typing four dashes (----) (not underlines - ____).

If you have very much to say, you can begin with a headline summarizing your key point. To make it "bold", select it and click the "B" icon at the left of the icons at the top left of the "edit" screen.

Begin with a word that characterizes the type of contribution you are making, such as "Correction", "Clarification", "Addition", "Argument", followed by a separator like a dash or colon.

Sign your contribution with four tildes (~~~~).

If you think your contribution needs its own entry in the index that appears at the beginning of the article, then instead of separating your comment with a line across the page before and after your contribution, separate it by putting equals signs on either side of your heading. You will need to figure out how many equals signs are needed to make your contribution appear where you want it in the index.

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.