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Improve the Knowledge Base , knowledge based article

<!--need to replace this so Michael doesn't get inundated with emails [[Video:http://youtu.be/y4B5UDW_D9s]]--> Thanks for helping with our Knowledge Base. For millions of people around the world, these articles are the face of Mozilla when they have a problem or question about one of our products. Improving the Knowledge Base is the way to get the biggest bang for our collective effort. A single article can quickly help tens of thousands of people each week. = Create an account and say hello = As a nonprofit, open-source project, we rely on our community of volunteers to write and maintain the majority of the articles. You don't need special permission to work on them — this is a wiki that anyone can edit. '''[/users/registercontributor All you need is an account]'''. Once you've got one, the next thing you should do is say hello: *[/forums/contributors/708942 Introduce yourself]. We'd love to hear from you. *You can also talk to us in the [irc://irc.mozilla.org/sumo #sumo IRC channel] (chat room). This is where Firefox Help contributors help each other. I'm "jsavage" in there. If you don't have an IRC program, you can connect with [https://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.mozilla.org&channel=%23sumo this web app]. ==Get started writing!== Is there a topic we haven't covered? Here's the essential information that will help you create your first article: *'''[[Anatomy of a Knowledge Base article]]''' – it's an article that explains the basics of how articles are built. *'''[[Create a new Knowledge Base article]]''' – steps for creating a new article along with some sample wiki markup to get you started. *'''[[Markup cheat sheet]]''' – the most commonly used wiki markup in our articles. <!-- {note}'''Tip:''' A great place to get started is with one of these '''[/en-US/questions?tagged=needsdoc support forum solutions that need to be documented]'''.{/note} --> =Help us improve existing articles = The most common thing we do in the glamorous world of Knowledge Base maintenance is to try to improve the articles we already have. '''If you see something that can be better, show the article editing tools and then click Discussion and let us know what needs to be fixed or click Edit Article and make the change yourself.''' :[[Image:Editing tools]] {note}'''Tip:''' A great place to get started is with one of these '''[/contributors/need-changes articles that need to be updated]'''.{/note} =Complete list of article writing documentation= If you're really interested in editing and writing documentation, here are a few resources that should help explain how we do things: *'''[[Documentation statusboard]]''' - Keep up with all of the current documentation projects. *'''[[How the Knowledge Base works]] '''— is an overview of the mechanics of our Knowledge Base (e.g. prioritization and scheduling). *'''[[How to write Knowledge Base articles]]''' — is a guide to writing techniques and styles that we use to make articles more engaging and effective. *'''[[Keywords Field - Authoring KB Articles]]''' — explains when adding keywords to an article is appropriate. *'''[[Adding screenshots]]''' — is a step-by-step guide to creating screenshots and including them in articles. *'''[[Markup chart]]''' — is our wiki markup reference. It gives examples and shows the markup that produces them. *'''[[How to use For|How to use <nowiki>{</nowiki>for}]]''' — this is the special wiki markup that lets us show instructions ''for'' Windows, Mac, or different Firefox versions. *'''[[How to use Templates]]''' — templates are reusable pieces of content. You can include a complicated set of step-by-step instructions in multiple articles by using a template. [[T:ShareArticle|link=http://mzl.la/1cMe5FR]]