Wiki Life: Are you New to TechNet Wiki and looking for how to start your Contributions

Dear All,

It's Wednesday and you all know today's blog post will be related TechNet Wiki life .

In today’s blog, I would like to give several tips for new members who are starting to contribute to TechNet Wiki, and to bring a short guide to other members, who are considering contributing in the future.

Firstly, we would like to welcome all our new members who have recently started contributing to TechNet Wiki. I say "We" instead of "I" as we more of a family than community. New and long-term contributors have equal rights in helping shape the direction of the community. TechNet Wiki is very friendly community to all the members. If you are new to TechNet wiki and not sure about how to start contributing, don't hesitate to ask for any kind of help or support from any of our TechNet Wiki members.

If you are new to any community, and want to share your articles, then you should clearly know what is happening in the community. Plus, what are the rules and how you should follow the rules as existing members are doing. Like any contribution platform, TechNet Wiki has some rules. Don't think the rules are hard. Its general rules like all communities.  Once you share your first article you will come to know everything, since the others will help you with feedback that will guide you.

Below I discuss the Do's and Don'ts in the TechNet Wiki. Many new members will ask how and from where to get support for posting an article in TechNet Wiki. As mentioned, TechNet Wiki is a friendly community and you'll find all the existing members are always happy to help and support you to publish your articles in TechNet Wiki. The surprise thing is you can get 24/7 help and support related to your questions, on TechNet Wiki. A great thing is that our members are from different places and in different time zones. If you ask for any kind of help or question, you will get immediate answers from many of our existing members. Some great social places from where you can get support from are:

The TechNet Wiki Facebook Group is the best option to get quick help and support. If you are a new member and looking forward to contribute your first article, then I recommend you to first join our TechNet Wiki Facebook Group, then can ask all your questions and tips from our existing members. I strongly recommend this, as TechNet Wiki has lots of happening, which new members are not aware about. For example, I have seen many new members, as they start contributing. They do not add their article entry to the "world famous"  TechNet Wiki monthly Guru awards.  Even when I started my first publication on TechNet Wiki, I was not aware about the Guru awards. For the first two months, I didn't add my article entry for guru awards. I can say as I have missed 2 Gold/Silver or Bronze awards from TechNet Wiki.

Before we start this I would like to share my few blog post ,which will give you all more clear Idea about TechNet Wiki.

I recommend you to first read this Wiki Life: How to contribute Article in TechNet Wiki  blog post as this has more detailed explanation about how to contribute your article in TechNet Wiki. This blog post has complete guidelines for all the new members who have just started and looking forward to starting their first contribution on TechNet Wiki.

Members "CAN DO"s in TechNet Wiki

  1. Can publish any kind of Microsoft Technology related articles.(Tip's -> Wiki Life: Tips for Picking A Microsoft Technology and Topic for your article)
  2. In TechNet Wiki all your articles are shared articles. Once you publish an article in TechNet Wiki, any TechNet Wiki member can edit to improve your article. Always use  "We,Our's" instead of "I,Me" in your articles (third person instead of first person).
  3. Always write a Quality of article with good Format (Tip's -> Wiki Life: keep 2 things in mind before Publish Articles)
  4. Always add Table of Contents  (Tip's -> Wiki life: The Importance of TOC )
  5. Always share your own content and strictly avoid issues related to Pirated and Plagiarized.(See this -> Wiki: Policies that Govern the Wiki
  6. Strictly upload all the Images to your TechNet Wiki article and use only the uploaded images in your article!
  7. Always upload Source Code to TechNet Gallery or MSDN and use that link in your TechNet article for download.
  8. Always add your article entry to TechNet Wiki monthly Guru awards and win a Guru medal as Gold/Silver or Bronze in your article Category. You can add multiple article in multiple category and won multiple awards, Note that as you need to add your article entry to each month Guru competition so always remember to add your article entry for the present month competition, Here is the link where you can find each month Guru Competition and add your article for present month TechNet Guru Contributions.
  9. If you won the medal then you can always add your Medal counts to TechNet Wiki from TechNet Guru: The Most Frequent Award Winners
  10. Share your published article on Social media and always share to our TechNet Wiki Facebook Group, for getting feedback from other members.  (Tip's -> Wiki life: The Importance of Social Media)

Other Activities you CAN DO in TechNet Wiki

  1. If you find any Spam or Pirated/Plagiarized article, don't hesitate to mark a complaint on that article, even the member is contributing for long or recently started. (Tip's - Wiki Life: How to Report Spam and Pirated/Plagiarized Content)
  2. Feel free to edit any members articles that you feel as need grammatical improvement, have formatting issues, or that improves the quality of article, or to add content to improve the article.
  3. If you have suggestions for TechNet Wiki, then feel free to share on TechNet Wiki Forum
  4. If you have any issues or questions related to TechNet Wiki feel free to post in TechNet Wiki Facebook Group and surely you will get response from any of our members to help you.

One Important kind request to all our TechNet Wiki family members, If you are new and not aware about our others members and who's who in TechNet Wiki, it’s good to always add your kind and soft words to solve your any kind of issues in TechNet Wiki. If you share your post in our  TechNet Wiki Facebook Group or TechNet Wiki Forum always respect other members and ask your questions or issues with kind and soft words. Here in TechNet Wiki all the members will be always happy to help others, and you can get all your issues solved with all other members support. As I told you in TechNet Wiki all the members have equal rights whether he/she is new or long-time contributor and here we respect each other. All our motive is to share good quality of Microsoft Technology related articles for readers, and have fun.

Members should Do Not in TechNet Wiki

  1. Strictly avoid Spam/Pirated and Plagiarized article. This can lead you to ban your account from TechNet Wiki and the MSDN in general. (read More -> Wiki: Governance and Guidelines Portal)
  2. Don't add your personal blog or any kind of external links to your TechNet Wiki articles.
  3. Don't use external images in your article (external means not in the TechNet Wiki system), and always upload your article's Images to TechNet Wiki.
  4. Don't share source code from external link's, always use  TechNet Gallery or MSDN  for uploading source code and use the link for download in your article.
  5. Don't ever edit other members article for points!

I have seen few members as they just keep on editing all members articles without meaning and they do just for points and to be placed in top contribution list. Frankly speaking those members cannot survive in the long run. If they do it for points, other members can easily identify them and their reputation in community might go down. Your edit with other members article should be genuine and it should be done only for grammatical improvement, format issues, improving the quality of an article or to add content to improve the article. Always keep in mind as the original author who publish article in our TechNet Wiki as he/she might be spend hours and sleepless night to write a good quality of articles and if someone edit his/her article without meaning then how painful they feel on that. We should respect others contributions and always do edit as if it was required. If you want to gain points and be placed in top list then do it by posting article and reach the top level that will always leads you in right direction.

Note that here few members are exception and we call them as TechNet Wiki Council members, and don't compare them with our normal members. Our TechNet Wiki Council members do edit other member's articles, only for the need. Also its their responsibility to edit others articles, to improve it or to delete pirated content and don't ever compare them to our normal members. As a member we should always respect our Council members, and they are all our heart of TechNet Wiki family. Always accept any kind of feedback from our TechNet Wiki Council members and fix your articles appropriately.

Hope this blog post is helpful for new members and all are welcome to contribute at TechNet Wiki, your small Quality of contribution can help lots of members around the world. If you are new to TechNet Wiki and have questions feel free to ask in comment section. If you are new and like to contribute for TechNet Wiki then start from today.

Today I have selected the banner from Kia Zhi Tang. The reason for selecting the Banner Image is as, we can see TechNet Wiki is always support and encourage Women Ninjas to contribute. If you are new and curious  to know about what is Ninja's ,Here in TechNet wiki we call all the members as TechNet Wiki Ninja's If you contribute any article in TechNet Wiki then you are also a TechNet Wiki Ninja and for all our Ninja's, we also have award category as TechNet Wiki Ninja belt, you can get the details  from this link Wiki life: How to achieve Wiki Ninja Belt Award . From this year TechNet Wiki is expecting as more women Ninjas will also be join our TechNet Wiki family and TechNet Wiki always treat both Men, Women Ninjas as equal.

Hope you all like this blog post.To know more in detail, check all this links.

See you all soon in another blog post.


Thank you all.

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Yours,
Syed Shanu
MSDN Profile | MVP Profile | Facebook | Twitter |
TechNet Wiki the community where we all join hands to share Microsoft-related information.