MEpedia:How to contribute

Contribute to MEpedia today! Anyone can create pages, write content, add links/citations, fact-check, or even just fix typos. Everyone has something to offer, even if you have never edited a wiki (like Wikipedia) before. Get involved and help the patient community identify all of the best and most important resources for our disease and its research, treatment and history.

To get started, please read our Editorial Guidelines and find more about how to edit MEpedia below. If you use Facebook, please make sure to join our contributor community, the MEpedia Facebook Group. You can also follow MEpedia on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to us on Reddit.

Have any questions after reading the below? Ask for help at our MEpedia editor help desk or email [mailto:mepedia@meaction.net mepedia@meaction.net]. (Since volunteer availability can vary greatly, please do not be offended if it takes a week or so to receive a response.)

Welcome to the MEpedia community!

Create an account
Before you start editing, you should create an account or log in. Please note: if you are not logged in when you make an edit or contribution to a page, your IP address will be visible in the page history of each entry you edit. (Note that the email function is currently not working, so don't worry if you don't receive an email confirmation of your new account.)

Add pages to your watchlist
After you've created your account, start browsing through MEpedia to find articles you're interested in. When you find an article you're interested in, just click the star icon at the top of the page to add it to your "watchlist". One way to browse the pages in MEpedia is by reviewing the Contents page. If you find the Contents page to be too long and hard to read, you can browse the pages in the Condensed Contents page.

To view changes that people have made to the pages on your watchlist, just click on "Watchlist" on the top right of the screen. If you want to see a list of all the pages on your watchlist, click on the small link called "View and Edit Watchlist" at the top of the Watchlist page.

When someone makes a new change to a page on your watchlist, it will show up in bold in the list of changes on your Watchlist page. To see what has changed, just click on the word “diff” or the word “changes” on that line.

Review the Rules and Guidelines
Before you begin editing pages, please review the following helpful rules and guidelines:
 * Editorial Guidelines
 * Science Guidelines
 * MEpedia:Manual of Style

How do I create a new page?
Simply type in the title of your new page and hit "create page." You'll want to search the existing database of pages to make sure that your page or a similar page does not already exist. It is best to use a template for a new page, instead of trying to write a page from scratch. Templates are described further below. You can also browse our list of "wanted" pages – pages that are linked to from existing pages, but don't yet exist. These appear as red links in the encyclopedia.

Note that pages relating to the MEpedia project itself are placed in a separate "namespace" from the other pages. To do this, simply use a "MEpedia" prefix, such as in MEpedia:Administrators.

Also note that every page has a separate "Discussion" page to discuss potential changes. These pages are in the "Talk" namespace. For example, the page for Virus has a discussion page named Talk:Virus. For more on how to use discussion pages, see MEpedia:Discussion.

How do I edit existing pages?
There are two types of editor on this wiki, the Visual editor, which operates more like your word processing or email program, and the Source editor, which uses a special kind of wiki code, called "wikitext". Most users will prefer to use the Visual editor, but for more advance applications or if the Visual editor is "down" (as happens from time to time), the resources below will help you learn how to navigate both.

Look for the "edit" (Visual editor) or "edit source" (Source editor) links at the top of the page, (to edit the whole page) and also the "edit" link next to each section heading (to edit just that section).

After you've made your changes, scroll down to the "Show Preview" section, add a comment, preview your changes, then save them.

If you're unsure of an edit on a particular MEpedia entry, you can discuss the issue with other contributors on the entry's discussion page. To learn how to do this, see MEpedia:Discussion.

Tip: Only edit one section of a page at a time, and then save your changes. This way, it is less likely that your changes will be lost if someone else happens to be editing the same page at the same time. To do this, scroll down to the section you want to edit, and then click "Edit" next to the section's title. It's always better to edit pages this way, instead of using the "Edit" link at the top of the page. Remember to save your changes often.

Using the visual editor
To learn how to use the visual editor, please see Wikipedia's visual editor user guide.

Note that the Visual Editor includes a facility to automatically insert full citations, by just specifying the link or doi to the source, see Visual Editor Auto-filled Web Citations.

Using the source code editor
The source code editor is a more advanced way of editing MEpedia. See our tricks and tips on how to get started with the source code editor.

Five minute tasks
Only have a five-minute spoon to give? Here is a list of small tasks you can help us with in roughly one to ten minutes of time.

Priority projects
Want to dive in deeper? Browse a list of larger projects and page revisions.

Roles
There are so many different roles contributors can play, at every level of cognitive ability or technical expertise. Every contributor can play one or more roles. All are important and help us grow and improve the project!

The Scientist: If you have a science background or a passion for science, we definitely need your expertise improving our medical and science pages and ensuring that all content is correct, accurate and cited. (Note: unlike Wikipedia, every fact presented on MEpedia does not need to be replicated or have appeared in a review article. However, the limitations of individual studies and the certainty of findings need to be properly contextualized and qualified. For more, see the Science Guidelines.)

The Translator: While many of the science pages will have highly technical information, useful to medical professionals and researchers, it's our goal that the opening section of every page (which usually comes before the table of contents) can provide a one- to two-paragraph summary that is as accessible to a general audience as possible. As a page matures and contains a lot of information, The Translator can write an opening paragraph if none exists or improve the opening paragraph(s) to make it even more accessible.

But you don't necessarily need to have a technical background to play any of these roles:

The Historian: Help us improve our content on the history of ME and CFS (and before it was either of these things, Icelandic Disease and atypical polio). Bring to life the outbreaks of the past by digging into the newspaper and journal records and creating pages for individual outbreaks.

The Biographer: We have dozens of pages with biographies of scientists, clinicians, historical figures and activists with ME. These can always be improved and there are many people still missing. (See our categories for famous people, researchers, clinicians, advocates.)

The Editor: As pages grow through the addition of new information, they can often become hard to navigate. Read our more developed pages and see whether they can be improved by breaking up very long sections into sub-sections, improving overall flow, organization and readability, or updating the opening paragraph to better reflect the way the page may have grown and changed.

The Link Collector: Sometimes you may not have the cognitive capacity or time to take an interesting article and writing it into an existing page. However, you can help simply by collecting links and pasting them on the "Discussion" page of a given article, with perhaps a sentence or two explaining its relevance, so that someone in the future can take that link and incorporate that into the page.

The Deep Sea Diver: You may not have an expertise in a particular area, but you decide to adopt a page you feel passionate about, and build it from the ground up, reading every reference you can find. It's a long, slow process but can be really gratifying to develop mastery over a specific topic!

The Photo Curator: Many of our pages could be improved simply through the addition of images and drawings. It's important to make sure you have permission to use the any photos you add, that they are in the public domain, or that they carry a Creative Commons license. See this category listing articles that need images or photos adding to them: Category:Articles that need an image or photo. Best practices for attribution via Creative Commons. See our examples:, , , , and.

The Bridge Builder: pick a dead end page and create internal links to related MEpedia content within the body of the page or by added pages to the "See also" section. Or, find an orphan page and link to it from existing pages.

The Expander: browse MEpedia's shortest pages and help us lengthen them.

The Proofreader: Fix small typos and grammatical errors as you go. Or visit the front page and hit "random" to be taken to a random article. Or see the list of recently updated pages. Read and correct mistakes.

The Citation Catcher: Many citations are simple links, without the proper article title, journal name, date or author information. Correcting citations are a great way to help us improve this project.

The Manual Writer: All of our support documentation could always be improved. Help us find ways to better explain the tools and guidelines behind MEpedia and help make them more accessible. To contribute in this way, consider starting a new thread in our Facebook group and making a suggestion.

The Community Organizer: Help us grow this project by growing the community around it. Invite friends to join our Facebook group. Act as a greeter, help folks feel welcome, answer questions as they arise.

The Outreacher: Help us build links between MEpedia and others. For example posting MEpedia articles to other M.E. community forums and asking for help improving them, sending links to MEpedia articles to scientists (e.g. the page about them) and asking them to update the page and confirm it is complete, asking researchers to read MEpedia pages related to their work and provide feedback on what needs adding, or asking M.E. blog writers to include MEpedia links in their articles so their readers can learn more.

The Supporter: Help MEpedia by helping, training and supporting its volunteer team. Help everyone learn how to edit pages, to do more advanced editing, and how to more effectively create content. Maybe you're a technologist who finds it easy to learn and teach others about wiki editing, or a technical writer who cannot commit to contribute much but can help others to write.

The News Reader: Help keep MEpedia fresh by updating its pages based on news you read. For example if you read a new article published by journalist David Tuller, make sure his page has been updated to include the latest article. Or if an announcement is made by the NIH or some other organization, update relevant pages to reflect the news.

See even more ways to contribute.

A note on ME v. CFS
We have separate pages for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, ME/CFS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as well as SEID. The convention is that the terminology used in an ME-pedia article should match the terminology used in the underlying source. Where there is a tension between the term used in the source and the definition (e.g., ME defined by the Oxford criteria or CFS defined by the Canadian Consensus Criteria), it may be useful for clarity to mention the definition used.

Article outlines
A list of copy-and-paste outlines for new articles depending category.

Make a suggestion
Almost everyone working on MEpedia is sick, including bed-bound patients. Although we welcome suggestions, please, please if you possibly can, create or edit the page yourself. It is very easy to add a new page or make an improvement – be bold! Together we are stronger as a community. If you REALLY can't edit the page, then you can go to the MEpedia suggestions page, click Edit, and add your suggestion to the list for someone else to consider implementing in future.

Implement a suggestion
If you want to contribute but aren't sure where to start, try looking at the MEpedia suggestions and consider implementing an improvement suggested by others.

Create a new article
To create a new article, simply search for the title of the article you wish to create. If a page does not already exist, you will see an option to create the page. Alternatively if you see a red link to the page, that means it does not yet exist. Just click the red link to create the page.

Once you have a blank editable article open, consider copying-and-pasting an outline into it for that type of article, so you have a set of headings to prompt writing. See MEpedia article outlines.

Remember that articles must use strong citations. For example, if you write, "ME/CFS can be successfully treated with XYZ", you MUST provide a reference to evidence, ideally a high quality (randomized, placebo-controlled) published study. If there is no evidence, the wording must reflect this, for example, "ME/CFS is sometimes treated using XYZ, but currently there is no good evidence for its use".

Expand a stub
Pages that have been created (blue links) but need to be expanded are marked as stubs - a full list of all stubs can be found here. We also have a list of priority pages for expansion.

Add an image
Images can be added using the visual editor.

Add a video
Videos can be put at the top of a page using the EmbedVideo code.  Autoplay should be turned off. Example:

Expand a topic
Pages with blue links (as opposed to red) exist already, and can be proof-read, improved and extended. Remember statements need to be supported by the best available evidence or source, for example a published quote by a person, or a paper in a scientific journal.

Check our references
You can make sure facts are properly cited and references are in correct format.

We aim to serve a general audience, a research audience, and a patient audience. All entries should be cited and make clear to distinguish what has and has not been established by peer-reviewed research findings. Articles should aim to provide both a general overview of a specific topic as well as discuss its implications or applications in ME and CFS.

Correct typos
You can also copy-edit existing articles for typos and edit for clarity.

Clean-up poor pages
Some pages are inconsistently formatted, too long, are presented badly, need partially rewriting, or suffer from other problems. Those pages are marked as needing clean-up, and are listed under all articles needing cleanup.

Mark pages as needing cleanup
If you see a problem with a page, it needs clean-up, and you are not able to resolve it, mark the page as needing cleaning by adding a marker like this including a description of the problem:

 

For more details see Cleanup.

Mark spam for deletion
If you see a page that's obviously spam or otherwise needs deleting, you can add it to this category: Articles for deletion.

Other Resources

 * Help:Editing
 * Configuration settings list
 * FAQ
 * MediaWiki release mailing list
 * Localise MediaWiki for your language
 * Power user/editor tips
 * Categories browser