Contributing to the MariaDB Knowledge Base

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Like MariaDB, the Knowledge Base is developed by a community of contributors like you. Want to get involved? Create an account or log in with your existing OpenID account, then share your expertise on any article in the Knowledge Base.

Can't find what you're looking for? Click Ask a question here on any category page. Contributors and MariaDB experts answer questions on the Knowledge Base and create articles for common questions. View the open questions and help us help other users.

BTW: The Knowledge Base is not an appropriate place to ask about purchasing support for MariaDB. Instead, please use the MariaDB contact page.

Keep in touch with other Knowledge Base contributors. Join us on IRC on the #maria channel on Freenode, and join the Maria Docs group and mailing list on Launchpad. Don't forget to introduce yourself.

See Contributing to the MariaDB Project for information on contributing to MariaDB itself.

Improving existing articles

If you spot an error, or a way to improve or enhance an existing article, just click on the "Edit" button.

When you are finished editing the article, please add a revision comment. This will help our editors as they review edits.

Contributing original articles

Creating an article for the Knowledge Base is similar to asking questions. First, navigate to the category where you feel the article should be. Once there, double check that an article doesn't already exist which would work. It is usually better to improve an existing article (if possible) than to create a new one.

If you determine that a new article is needed, click on the "Create Article" button. If you are logged in and you don't see that button, you are probably viewing an article, not a category. In which case, you need to use the breadcrumbs near the top of the page to navigate up to the parent category.

Add your content, as well as an excerpt. You can preview the content before creating it to make sure the links and formatting are all correct.

When editing an article or creating a new one you can select whether to subscribe to it. When you are subscribed to an article you will receive an email every time the page is updated. To unsubscribe from a page, click on the Edit button, uncheck the subscribe box and click Save.

Formatting content

Articles, questions, and comments are formatted in the Creole markup language. The Editing Help page has information on the various supported tags and macros. If you are familiar with mediawiki or other wikis, you should have no trouble getting up to speed with Creole.

Translating Knowledge Base articles

See the Translation HOWTO for information on translating Knowledge Base articles.

How to view your (and others') edit history

You can view your recent edit history by clicking on your username (it's displayed at the top right of every page, next to the search box).

The link will be of the form https://mariadb.com/kb/user/id/your-username and if you know the username of another user you can put their username in the address bar to view their edit history.

Contribution statistics for all users are located here: https://mariadb.com/kb/stats/users/

Style notes

  • New articles should first be created in English. This does not mean that we believe the content should only be available in English. We would like the content to be available in as many languages as possible. However, so that we can verify the accuracy of a new article, it first needs to be written in English.
  • Use US English
  • The text should not be overly complex, and should be understandable by second-language English speakers.
  • Wikilink to other articles generously.
  • Be bold. As long as the content is accurate, don't be afraid of poor English or not understanding all the markup conventions - someone else will usually come along to correct these.
  • Page titles should be capitalized (e.g. Server System Variables, not Server system variables). An exception are words such as to, the and and.
  • Only the first letter of headings inside pages should be capitalized (e.g. Style notes, not Style Notes)
  • All articles should have an excerpt, ideally one that slightly expands on the article title. The excerpt is what appears beneath the article title when when listed in a category.
  • See Editing Help for help with formatting.
  • Code samples should be embedded in the appropriate macro, such as the code macro or the sql macro.

Tasks

The MariaDB issue tracker can be used to report and track tasks and mistakes in the Knowledge Base. If you find something that needs improvement, just edit the page. If you're unsure, discuss your idea on the maria-docs mailing list.

When you complete a task. Remove it from the list. The history of this page will let us know you did the task and the history of the page you edited will let us know what you did, so no other notification is necessary. Of course, if you're wondering about something, don't hesitate to ask on the maria-docs mailing list.

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