Draft:USAFAPedia How to contribute
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This is the contributor's guide for USAFAPedia. It explains how to add to existing articles, create your own graduate page, start a new article, and find the templates you'll want. New here? Read this once and you're set.
Welcome
USAFAPedia is a wiki for capturing the institutional history, traditions, and personal stories of the United States Air Force Academy — the things that don't quite fit on usafa.edu, the AOG site, or Wikipedia. The official sources cover the institutional surface; this wiki is for the texture, the stories, and the arcane history that lives in graduates' memories.
If you're a grad, your participation is the entire point. Add to existing articles. Create your own page. Tell the stories nobody else has captured.
How to start: get an account
You need a (free) account to edit. To create one, click Create account at the top right of any page. We don't currently restrict accounts to graduates only, but we ask in good faith that you identify yourself accurately when contributing.
Once you have an account and are logged in, you can edit any article, create new articles, and upload photos.
Three things you can do
1. Add to an existing article
Most articles on USAFAPedia have a section called Stories from cadets, Stories from this era, Memories, or similar. These sections exist specifically for firsthand accounts.
To add a story:
- Find the article that fits — your squadron, your class year, your club, the tradition you remember
- Click Edit at the top
- Scroll to the appropriate section
- Add your story below the existing text. End with your name and class year, like: — John Smith, Class of 1985, CS-21
- Click Save
Don't worry about wiki formatting at first. Plain text works. Bullet points are fine. Half-finished thoughts are fine — someone else will help format later.
2. Create your own graduate page
Every grad is welcome to have their own page. To create one:
- Click Special:CreatePage (or just visit a URL like http://usafapedia.coslabs.com/wiki/John Smith — replace "John Smith" with your name)
- MediaWiki will say the page doesn't exist and offer to let you create it
- Copy the template below into the new page
- Fill in the blanks — leave fields blank if you don't want to share them
- Save
Graduate page template
Copy this into your new page and fill in what applies. Remove fields you don't want to share. Add or remove sections as appropriate to your story.
{{Graduate
| full_name=
| class_year=
| squadrons=
| clubs_and_teams=
| major=
| hometown=
| commission_branch=
| career_summary=
| current_status=
}}
== Early life ==
Where you grew up, family, what brought you to USAFA.
== USAFA years ==
Your time as a cadet. Squadron experiences, classes, training, friends,
the things you remember most.
== Career ==
Post-USAFA. Active duty, civilian career, family.
== Stories ==
Specific stories you want to tell — funny ones, hard ones, the ones
you'd tell at a reunion.
== See also ==
* [[Class of YOUR_CLASS_YEAR]]
* [[Cadet Squadron NUMBER]]
* (clubs you were in)
[[Category:Graduates]]
[[Category:Class of YOUR_CLASS_YEAR]]
Don't worry about getting it perfect. Once it's saved, you can edit it any time. Other grads can also add to it (with comments and links), and you can edit anything they add. The page is "yours" but the wiki is collective.
3. Start a new article
If you remember something that doesn't have a page yet — a tradition, an event, a club, a person, a piece of equipment — you can start the article.
Look for red links on existing articles. A red link is a wikilink to a page that doesn't exist yet. Clicking it offers to let you create the page. The wiki has thousands of red links waiting to be filled in.
To start a new article:
- Either click a red link or visit http://usafapedia.coslabs.com/wiki/Title_Of_Your_Article
- MediaWiki offers to create the page
- Write what you remember
- Add a short opening paragraph, then any sections that apply
- Sign with your name and class year if it's a story-based article
- Add categories at the bottom (like
[[Category:USAFA traditions]]) - Save
A short article is better than no article. Other grads will add to it.
Templates you'll want to know
For your own bio page. Renders a clean infobox at the top. See above.
For class articles (like Class of 1979). Stores the class motto, yell, exemplar, and key dates in a structured way.
For squadron articles (like Cadet Squadron 21). Stores squadron number, current name, mascot, and history.
For club and team articles.
If you're writing something you remember but don't have a source for, add {{cn}} after the sentence. It marks the statement as needing a citation. Future contributors with sources can add them. Don't omit memories just because you can't cite them — mark them as memories and move on.
Wiki conventions
Signing your contributions
When you add a story or memory, sign it. Two ways:
- Type your name and class year in plain text: — John Smith, Class of 1985, CS-21
- Use four tildes:
~~~~— MediaWiki will replace this with your username and timestamp
Both work. Plain-text class-year signing is preferred for stories because it makes the page readable to non-wiki-natives.
Wikilinks
Wrap any name or topic that might deserve its own article in [[double brackets]]. The link will be blue if the page exists, red if it doesn't. Red links are good — they invite creation.
If you mention a fellow graduate by name in a story, wikilink them: [[Jane Doe]]. If Jane Doe ever creates her own page, your wikilink connects to it automatically.
Categories
At the bottom of any article, add categories like [[Category:USAFA traditions]] or [[Category:Class of 1985]]. Categories help others find related articles.
What belongs on this wiki, and what doesn't
Welcome:
- Personal stories from your time as a cadet
- Squadron and class history as you remember it
- Traditions, cheers, slang from your era
- Photos you took or own
- Profiles of grads (yours, classmates', friends')
- Names and details that aren't classified
- Honest accounts of difficult moments — scandals, accidents, controversies — handled with care
Not welcome:
- Classified or sensitive operational information
- Personal attacks or grudges aimed at specific living people
- Salacious unverified rumors about specific living people
- Active commercial promotion
- Content unrelated to USAFA
Use judgment:
- Stories about classmates by name — generally fine if respectful, but be sensitive about embarrassing details
- Stories involving disciplinary action of identifiable cadets — better to write about the policy/era than to name names unless you have permission
- Stories about real events that haven't been publicly discussed — use your judgment about whether documenting helps or harms
When in doubt, write the story but use less identifying detail. The story matters more than the names.
If you make a mistake
You can't really break anything. Every edit is reversible. The wiki keeps full history of every page. If you accidentally save a page in a weird state, just edit again and fix it. If you delete something you shouldn't have, click History on the page and restore the previous version.
If something serious goes wrong, contact an administrator (currently Template:Tl — or send a message to the email listed on USAFAPedia:Contact).
Help and questions
- Read other people's pages to see how they did things
- Most pages have a Talk tab — use it to ask questions specific to that page
- For general questions, post on USAFAPedia:Help desk
Welcome to the wiki. Add what you remember.
