Palmpedia - Palm Grower's Guide:Ways to help Palmpedia

There are as many ways to help Palmpedia as there are species of palms. This article is for those who like the idea of Palmpedia, but are having a hard time getting started with contributing.

• Proofread. This is one of the easiest ways to get started with helping with Palmpedia,. While you're reading an article, watch for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or other writing gaffes. If you see one, edit the page and correct it. Palmpedia is now that much better -- thanks to you! You can use the automatic spellchecker to find articles that have common spelling errors in them. We have a list of common misspellings; you can add to that list, and the words will automatically be searched.
• Reformat articles. Palmpedia has a manual of style for giving a consistent look-and-feel to our content and making it easier for visitors to find and use information. Just as with proofreading, you can do a lot of good just by reformatting or restructuring articles to match the Manual. Articles that need reformatting are typically stub articles, which usually lack standard headings and outlines. The dead end pages, which list articles without any links on them, are also worth a look.
• Don't limit yourself to things you already know. You don't have to have firsthand knowledge of a species or topic to contribute to a palm page! Find a palm page that needs work and do some research -- on the Web, or with other reference media -- to get started on working on that palm page.
• Make outlines. Don't be daunted by the task of writing all of the palm page about Cocos nucifera -- just get it started with a outline. People are much more likely to change or add to articles than to start them from scratch. We have a handy templates for a palm page, which you can use. If you only know a teensy bit about a palm, go ahead and add it in. We currently have a huge backlog of stub articles that shouldn't really be there. It is easy to create an outline for most articles and move them to the next level. You can help there.
• Follow red links. While you're reading articles, if you see a link for an article that's Not There Yet, follow the link and add in some information. We're nowhere near close to covering all the info we need to have -- when you start a new page, we're that much closer.
• Help new contributors. New users contributing to Palmpedia can have a lot of questions and problems. Your experience with Palmpedia can make their learning curve a lot easier. Watch for questions in the travellers' pub or on talk pages and respond helpfully. If you see the same question over and over, add it to the FAQ. You can even add to the Help index for more complicated questions or issues. If there are help topics already in place that people seem not to see or understand, maybe you can help get that information out by reorganizing the help area.