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On Tech, you can participate in both a forum and wiki to ask questions, contribute your knowledge, and keep updated with new content. Forums differ from wikis in several major ways:
Forum
The forum allows you to post questions and respond to other members. You typically post to the forum when you have a question to ask, when you're unsure about something, or when you want to raise a discussion about an issue.
New forum threads remain indefinitely on the site until new threads push them out of visibility. After that, users primarily find forum information through keyword searches or by drilling into forum categories.
When you click a thread, the earliest posts are shown at the top by default, with the latest post at the end of the thread. You can reverse this order through your forum settings (go to Forum > Forum Actions > General Settings). On this same Settings page, you can also choose how many posts show per page.
As you read the threads, make sure you look at the timestamp of each post as you evaluate its information. Forum threads aren't meant to be edited after posting, so sometimes posts become dated and inaccurate as time passes. You can also assess the credibility of post authors by looking at their number of forum posts and the date they joined the forum.
To see new posts in the forum, click the What's New button. If you're logged in, What's New shows all the latest posts since your last visit. After you view a post, it disappears from the list of What's New posts. If you're not logged in, What's New only shows the posts added in the last 24 hours; the posts also remain visible even after you click them.
To learn more about the Forum, see the Forums FAQ page.
Wiki
The wiki contains reference and how-to information for a variety of Church technologies. In contrast to the forum, which consists of questions and answers, the wiki is intended to capture answers and how-to information. Ideally, when a solution or nugget of information is posted to the forum, that information should be transferred to the wiki. Each wiki page is an article rather than an open-ended discussion or conversation.
Although the wiki and forum are skinned to look similar, they are actually separate platforms (vBulletin and Mediawiki). Searches on the forum do not automatically include wiki results, and searches on the wiki do not show forum results. If you're searching for information, you need to search both sites. You also need to log in to each site separately.
Although wikis are designed more for reference information and less for conversation, each wiki page also has a Discussion page. If you have a question or issue about content on the wiki, you can raise your concern on the Discussion page for that wiki article. You can also make direct edits to the wiki articles. Editing the wiki is expected, and you shouldn't feel reservations about changing "someone else's content." On the wiki, the content belongs to everyone. Through successive edits from multiple people, the content becomes more refined and accurate.
To stay updated with edits to wiki pages, you can "watch" a wiki page. Log in to the site, navigate to a wiki page, and then click the Watch button. When someone makes an edit to the page, you'll receive an e-mail. You can then review the edits by comparing revision histories. If you think the edit takes a step backwards rather than forwards, you can undo the revision. The History tab for each page shows you these options. To ensure you receive updates for pages you're watching, check your settings under My Preferences and make sure your e-mail address and notification options are up to date. You can also view new additions to the wiki by clicking Recent Changes link in the wiki footer.
For more information about working with the wiki, see the Wiki Guidelines.
Community Moderation
Both the forum and wiki are community-moderated sites. The majority of the forum discussions and wiki articles are created and driven by community members, not Church employees. Church employees may participate in some forum threads and add wiki articles as needed, but by and large these sites are community moderated, with community volunteers playing key roles in responding to discussions and adding new articles.
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