This entire site is maintained by the people who use it: anyone can edit this website. That means that as soon as you create your (free) account, you can edit this web page or any other one on this entire site. There are many other people all doing the same thing, all generally friendly and eager to help. We would love for you to join us.
We hope you will enjoy being a part of the wiki community. Here are some helpful tips that we've found useful for new members.
Tips for Everyone
1. If something on a page is incorrect, please feel free to correct it. If you have doubts about what is correct, try leaving a comment to start a discussion about it.
2. Factual information should generally not be deleted. If you feel that the facts posted are selected to support a particular bias, try adding additional facts to support your own point of view.
3. The goal is not so much to present a 
Neutral Point of View, but rather to reflect that in our community there are differing opinions and viewpoints. There may sometimes even be entire pages that reflect a clear bias in one direction—but if so, then other editors should feel free to create additional pages that reflect a clear bias in the opposite direction. (Pages that reflect clear biases will most often be found in the Issues section.)
4. There is always room to expand the wiki into new realms. Do you have a hobby or interest that isn't discussed much (or at all) on the wiki? You can create a new section of the wiki about your hobby, or greatly expand an existing section. Try not to feel limited to the existing pages or links. For example, the Yuba College entry here is currently very minimal, but the 
Butte College entry on the Chico Wiki is much larger, filling many separate pages. There are many other instances in which the 
Sacramento, Chico, or Davis wikis contain pages that ours doesn't, and there's no reason why such pages couldn't be added to ours. And even if a particular topic isn't covered on any of those wikis, that's no reason not to add it to this one.
5. Feel free to add silly stuff—local urban legends, rumors of paranormal phenomena, pages about your pets, and so on. Sometimes the silly stuff is the most fun to read, and it can convey more of the personality of the neighborhood and the various people living in it.
6. It's always nice to introduce yourself by creating a page about yourself. It increases the sense of community and can also help establish your credibility. Using your real name—or a well-established pseudonym—can also help establish your credibility, because doing so shows that you're willing to stake your reputation in the larger world on the validity of your wiki edits. It also helps show that you're not a ![[wikipedia]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/inter.png){kind=small}
sockpuppet.
7. Want to post about a place in an another county? First, check whether there's another local wiki that's closer to the location you want to post about. For example, if you want to post about a place in Sacramento, Chico, or Davis, it would probably be more useful for you to expand an existing page on the local wiki for that city and then just link to it from the Places to Visit in Nearby Counties page on the Yuba-Sutter Wiki than for you to create a whole new page about it on the Yuba-Sutter Wiki. If you want to post about a place in Rio Linda, it would still make more sense to post it in the Sacramento Wiki than to post it here, because it's part of the Sacramento metropolitan area rather than the Yuba-Sutter area. But if you want to post about a place in Honcut, California, it might make more sense to post it here than on the Chico Wiki, since it's much closer to Marysville and Yuba City than to Chico. Or what if you want to post about a place in Colusa or Grass Valley? There are no local wikis for anyplace in Colusa or Nevada Counties, so it would probably make the most sense to post it on the Yuba-Sutter Wiki.
8. When you post a review of a local business, keep in mind that your review will reflect on you as much as on the business or other page you are reviewing. Also, bear in mind that business owners are people too, and sometimes people have "off days" that are not typical of them.
9. If you find yourself combatting a spammer or vandal, try exponential backoff editing.
10. We are all still learning how to make this the best possible wiki for the Yuba-Sutter area. Please join us in discussion.
Tips for Business Owners
1. It's generally best to use your real name or otherwise acknowledge which business you own. Don't use your business name as your username, because that could cause every edit you make to be misinterpreted as an official statement of your business. And using a pseudonym that obscures the fact that you own a specific business could lead to you being caught in an embarrassing act of sockpuppetry. (Remember, all editors' IP addresses are recorded.)
2. Please understand that the wiki page about your business belongs to the entire community, not just to you. So, generally, business pages are written in the third person rather than the first person ("they offer" instead of "we offer"). And although you're welcome to post information about the products or services your business provides—including special offers—you should avoid statements of opinion such as "This is the best business in town!" Customers may later leave comments declaring your business to be the best business in town, and that's fine—but statements like that don't belong in the main body of the entry about your business. 
WikiSpot is nonprofit and is not intended to host free advertising.
3. It's very likely that not every customer in town thinks your business is the best business in town. You may receive some negative reviews. Don't worry too much about this. Take a deep breath—customers sometimes forget that business owners have feelings, and write things that are much harsher than they would be willing to say in person. One thing that can be done is to include the following code right before the [[Comments]] macro: [[Include(AboutReviews)]]. Another macro that has been developed is the HIPAA Restrictions macro that is placed on any business listing for a medical professional that explains why HIPAA restricts how a doctor or medical professional can comment on who their patients are.
4. You can use the wiki to engage your customers in a productive dialog that will demonstrate your customer service to everyone who reads the page about your business. If you receive a negative review, try seeing it as an opportunity to smooth things over with your disgruntled customer and perhaps win back their loyalty—or even if you don't win back their loyalty, you can at least be publicly seen to have made all reasonable efforts at it.
5. The wiki is a great place to explain policies that customers may not be familiar with. For example, the restaurant guide, shopping guide, and tipping pages can be used to illustrate a few policies from an industry standpoint.
6. Both you and your customers have important things to say, so don't remove their comments. All edits remain in the page history, so simply removing them will appear to be an attempt to cover up problems. Instead, leave a friendly reply to explain or offer to resolve any problems. (Also, comments can be archived—moved to a BusinessName/Archive page—after a community discussion determines that they are too old to be very relevant anymore. Don't archive them yourself, but click on the "Talk" icon at the top of your business's page and note your concern that old comments may be given too much prominence compared to more recent reviews. The wiki isn't anti-business, but we are pro-consumer and need your input to help us achieve a good balance.
7. Sometimes people will post things about your business that just aren't true. In all likelihood, these same people were saying the same untrue things about your business on the streets before this wiki ever existed. You just never had a chance to hear them before. Instead of these stories being whispered behind your back, you now have an opportunity to address any rumors, bizarre anecdotes, or outright lies floating around the Yuba-Sutter area. Keep in mind that simply trying to delete the stories from the wiki won't remove them the casual sidewalk and workplace conversations that spread such rumors, and sometimes makes it look like they may be true and you are trying to "hide" things. While it can be frustrating to read incorrect information, patiently addressing your customer's comments or clarifying what happened in a misrepresented incident gives you an opportunity to respond to the things people are saying about your business on the streets of Yuba and Sutter Counties.
This page is adapted from the Welcome to the Wiki page on the Davis Wiki.
