Help / About the Wiki

Energy Club wiki and discussion forum

In an effort to make the Energy Club more interactive, we have converted our web site into a wiki and added a discussion forum. In case you are not familiar with the concept of a wiki, Wikipedia describes it as "a page or collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content." We want the Energy Club web site to be a gathering place and a hub for sharing ideas, rather than a traditional one-way channel of communication. Now that we have a wiki, members can share their knowledge by creating new content and editing existing pages. Members can also express their interests and opinions in the discussion forum, comment on past Energy Club events, or propose ideas for new events! The list goes on, and the possibilities for interaction and collaboration are endless.

It's easy to create and edit pages on the wiki — you don't need to be a web guru or a programmer in order to contribute! Moreover, we have provided some step-by-step tutorials to help get you started. See, for example, our "Things YOU Can Do" page.

Before you can join this wiki (and thereby join the Energy Club), you will need to create a Wikidot account. Just click the "create account" link in the top-right corner of this page to get started. Setting your username to be your actual first-name and surname is preferred.

Important: In the membership application form, please indicate your area of study and whether you are an undergraduate or graduate student. If you are not currently a student at the University of Alberta, please tell us your current occupation and anything else that you wish to share about yourself. Also, you may provide your email address if you wish to be added to our mailing list. All information will remain private, and is only used by the Energy Club to track basic statistics about the composition of our membership. Thank you for your cooperation!

You need to have a Wikidot.com account and be signed to apply for membership.

if you already have a Wikidot.com account

or

it is worth it and is free

The basics

Once you have created a Wikidot account and have joined the Energy Club site, you will be able to create and edit pages. In order to do this, you must first be logged in (if you are already logged in, your user name will be visible in the top-right corner of the page; otherwise, you should click the login link in the top-right corner).

While you are logged in, additional options will appear on certain pages. At this point in time only select categories of pages, such as events and resources, can be modified. If you are permitted to edit a page, an array of buttons will appear near the bottom:

buttons.gif

These buttons perform the following functions:

  • Edit: Clicking this button opens up an editor that allows you to change the content of the page. If you are new to Wikidot, you may want to check out the short video tutorials (in particular, "How to edit pages" and "Editing text") and then familiarize yourself with the syntax.
  • Tags: Allows you to add one or more tags to the current page. These will appear on the page tags list and possibly elsewhere on the site. Please see the "How-to" section of the resources page for some tips about tagging.
  • Discuss: Some pages have a build-in discussion forum thread. For example, each event page contains a forum thread where members can talk about the event. Clicking the "discuss" button at the bottom of any event page will take you to the thread for that particular event.
  • History: Brings up the history edits/changes that were made to the page.
  • Files: Lists the files (if any) that are attached to the page.
  • Print: Allows you to print the page.
  • Site tools: Lists pages that are lacking direct links within the site. Chances are, you won't need to use this feature.
  • Options: Clicking this button reveals another row of buttons (!) that offer options such as delete page, rename page, etc. Most of these options are disabled, so you typically won't use this button.

How to suggest books, movies, web sites, etc.

So far, we have learned how to edit pages, but not how to create new ones. Currently, members of the site have the ability to create resource pages, which allow you to recommend books, movies, etc. to your fellow energy enthusiasts. (More categories of user-created content will be added as we continue to develop the new Energy Club site). A short tutorial on how to create a new resource page can be found here. Go ahead, give it a try!

Other things you can do

Please see the "Things YOU Can Do" page.

Have a question?

It is recommended that you post your question(s) in the "Wiki help" thread of the discussion forum. However, you are welcome to contact me ( Ken Dwyer ) if you have a question that is not suitable for the forum. Just click on my name, then choose "write private message" — I'll respond as soon as I can. While logged in, you can check your inbox by clicking "my account" in the top-right corner, then "private messages".

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.