Introduction ¶ 

When you first create a new guide or click the "Edit" button at the top righthand corner of any guide, you'll be taken to the Guide Introduction.

Choose a Guide Type ¶ 

To get the process started, choose the guide type from the drop-down menu that best reflects what you're showing people how to do. Your options include repair, maintenance, installation, disassembly, teardown, and technique.

Category Name ¶ 

Use the Category Name field to classify the thing or idea that you're working on. In other words, categorize it. If you are showing hungry people how to make homemade lasagna, your category would likely be 'Pasta'. Maybe adding a hand brake to a Razor scooter is your forte, in which case 'Razor Scooter' is the category.

Summary ¶ 

Imagine that you are being forced to sum up your how-to in no more than a couple lines of text. That's what the summary field is for! What you type here will show up as a blurb in search results, so don't write a novel.

Example Summary: Constructing your own suit of chain mail armor from ordinary household objects.

Introduction ¶ 

Provide a basic outline of your guide in the introduction. Advice, anecdotes, and important safety protocols all belong here. The introduction may be as brief or as lengthy as you wish.

Flags ¶ 

Flags tell the user about the state of an article. A full discussion on the specifics of guide flags can be found on the About Flags Help Page. By default, the "In Progress" flag is added to any new guide. You may add or remove most flags by returning to the Introduction page at any point. Some flags, such as "User-Contributed," can only be removed by an administrator.

To ensure quality in all guides, any member can flag another member's guide for a number of issues. Some of these issues include incorrect grammar, off-topic material, offensive text, or low-quality images. Flags are intended to send the message that 'We can make this better,' rather than 'This guide sucks.'

Publish Guide ¶ 

When a guide is created, it is initially unpublished, which prevents it from showing up in search results and on the category page. If you have a public-facing site, that means that the public cannot yet see or edit your guide. At any point you may return to the introduction and switch the guide's visibility from "My team" to "Everyone." If you wish to show public users that you are still working to improve a published guide, and would appreciate that outside edits be kept to a minimum, you may keep the "In Progress" flag on any guide until you are done with it.

Edit Permissions ¶ 

Edit Permissions is an administrator–only feature that keeps track of edits made by site members. Set the permissions threshold from 0 to ∞ for any guide by adjusting the slider to the right of the text window. Edits made to a guide by a user with a reputation lower than the permission threshold will be sent to the patrol queue for approval.

• Learn More: Permissions Manager

Tags ¶ 

What's the point of making a step-by-step how-to guide if no one will see it? Tags enable your guide to show up in more search results. Simply add pertinent tags one-by-one, and then save them. Anyone may add, delete, or edit tags on a guide at any point.

Delete Guide ¶ 

Deleting a guide is an irreversible leap of faith that can only be made by a guide's creator or an administrator. It's for-ev-er. The "Delete guide" button is located at the bottom right of the page. Before clicking "Delete guide," consider repurposing the guide by simply filling in a new category or creating a different guide for the same category. Deleting a guide cannot be undone, even by reverting to a previous version in the guide history.

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