AGHSReunions:Welcome

From AGHSReunions

Hello! This site is designed for anyone who has ever attended or worked at Arroyo Grande High School in Arroyo Grande, California. The most of the rest of the AGHS Reunions Portal is geared toward distributing information about upcoming reunions and sharing about past ones. This wiki is a little different.

Please be aware that this is a relatively new wiki, which was launched on July 1, 2007. There are still many "redlinks", which are hyperlinks to as-yet unwritten information. Redlinks are opportunities for you to become involved. If a topic interests you, and you know enough to start an article about it, feel free to follow the redlink, then dive in and start writing! In fact, anytime you see something that you think you could improve upon, go ahead and do it! That is what the whole wiki process is about... everyone working together to expand, edit, review, and refine the information stored here. Unlike a library, this information is dynamic. It can be updated and expanded at any time. This can be both good or bad, but usually it works out for the best.

Goals and aspirations

The goal for this wiki is to become a very complete archive of a wide variety of factual information about AGHS. We would love to see a biographical article about every student who ever attended the school, every faculty member who taught there, and every staff member who worked there. We want details about school athletic teams, clubs, traditions, and events.

The wiki is based loosely upon the style used at Wikipedia, except we are not nearly so picky about requiring that everything be properly sourced. That's because we know that most of the information we get is going to be coming from the collective memory of this site's visitors. There simply is no other source of information about AGHS, its students, and its workers that is more complete or accurate than this one. The Lucia Mar Unified School District's own website for AGHS is very skimpy on useful information. Other sites that existed in the past, have been abandoned or are no longer available. The people who were alive when the school was founded are mostly or entirely gone now. The cultural history of the school is in jeopardy of being lost forever unless we capture it here.

The other main goal of this Wiki, and the Portal overall, is for everyone to gain enjoyment from their experiences here. Actions that run counter to that goal are unwelcome, and if it develops into a recurring problem, the problem makers may be banned or otherwise restricted from causing more problems.

Content

It is expected that all contributions to this site be as accurate and factual as possible. Editors should refrain from making editorial comments, criticisms, or other edits expressing a strong point of view (see Neutral point of view). The editing process here is made through consensus. Anything you add to the site may, and probably will be at some point, edited by other editors. That is part of the wiki process. Along the way, you might disagree with something, and you are free to change it. However, continued editing and reediting of articles is not helpful, and the talk pages should be used to achieve a consensus decision by all the interested article editors. If you find it difficult to accept that your work will be edited and reedited mercilessly by other people, then it is probably best that you do not submit content here.

This Wiki may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive. Anyone 13 and older may register for an account on the AGHS Reunions Wiki, and any registered member can edit an article. Changes are displayed instantaneously without any checking to ensure appropriateness, so we cannot guarantee that articles or images are tasteful to all users or adhere to specific social or religious norms or requirements. While obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site) is usually removed as soon as it is discovered, or content that is judged to violate our AGHS Reunions Wiki:Biographies of living persons policy can be removed, some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links if they are relevant to the content (such as an article about an alumnus whose profession involves pornography) and do not violate any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view), nor the law of the U.S. state of California, where our servers are hosted.

Features

On the left of every page is a "Navigation box", a "Search box", and a "Toolbox". Across the very top of every page are links related to user accounts. At the top of the content area are several buttons or tabs which are actions that you can perform on the current article or page.

Navigation box

Main Page

Takes you immediately to the main page of this Wiki. You can also click on the AGHS Reunions' eagle head logo to accomplish the same task.

Community portal

Links to other areas within the larger AGHS Reunions Portal.

Current events

Find background information on any current events.

Recent changes

A list of recent changes made to the contents of this Wiki. Active editors and people monitoring for vandalism will find this page helpful.

Random page

Takes you to a random page in the site.

Help

A good place to start when you don't know how to do something. Since there are few editors, the number of help topics are quite low, but Wikipedia's Help is extensive, and most things work the same there as they do here.

Donations

This site is 100% free to use, but if you are feeling generous, you can always give a thank you gift.

Search

Go

Entering the full title of an article or page and selecting the "Go" button will take you directly to that page. If the page is not found, you will be given the option to create a new page with that name, search using methods, and also a short list of articles that are close matches to what you typed. Use this type of search when you know for what exactly you are looking.

Search

Enter a keyword or short phrase and then select the "Search" button. This is helpful when you do not know the exact tile of the article or page. You also usually receive more search results using "Search" than you do with "Go".

Toolbox

What links here

See every page (if any) that links to the current page.

Upload file

Upload photos, other images, and multimedia files to the Wiki. Be sure to read our copyright policies carefully to avoid copyright violations.

Special pages

Pages that offer a variety of useful features, especially for editors and administrators.

Other links

The toolbox is dynamic, and other links may appear depending on what page or article you are viewing. Don't be afraid of them; you can't harm anything by following toolbox links.

User options

User link

If you are a registered user and logged in, you will see a link with your username at the top of the page; otherwise, you will see a link with your IP address. Clicking the user link will take you to your "user page" (in the case of an IP address, the page is shared by anyone who has used that address in the past or will use it in the future).

User Talk link

The "Talk page" is a message board in which people can leave you messages, and you can leave messages on other people's Talk pages. Please bear in mind that talk pages are very public, are indexed by search engines, and should never be used for any matter, other than related to this Wiki, that you would not want to see printed on the front page of a newspaper.

Log in / Create account

If you do not have an account, or if you have not logged in to an existing account, this link will take you to the page where you can create or login.

My preferences

Registered users can customize several settings. Some settings make the Wiki much easier to use. This is also the place where you can update your e-mail address and change your password.

My watchlist

Pages that interest you can be easily added to your "watchlist" so you can track future changes. Most editors watch pages they have edited. You may also wish to track the pages of friends and favorite articles.

My contributions

Every edit, no matter how insignificant, is tracked by the WikiMedia software. This link will show you all the edits you have made since creating your account.

Log out

If you are using a shared PC (like in a library or other public place), or if you want to let someone else use your browser to edit, just log out, and then let the next person login. That way any actions the other person takes will not appear to come from your account. Even if the other person does not have an account, it is still a good idea to log out and let them browse as an unregistered user to avoid any problems.

Content options

Content tab

The first tab or button that appears near the top of a page directly above the article we refer to as the "content tab". It is labeled "Main page", "Article", "Category", "Project page", or something else depending on which namespace the page is in. Selecting the content tab will return you to the main content after you have selected any of the other tabs. Selecting it when the content tab is already showing will just refresh the page.

Talk tab

Every article, category, or content page has an associated "Talk page" (labeled "discussion"). Talk pages are message boards used by editors to discuss the content of the article or content. For example, before undertaking a major redesign to a popular page, editors should discuss and plan the changes and reach consensus before the redesign is started. Questions can be asked, notices can be posted, and articles can be tagged with helpful or classification templates. Talk pages always start out "empty", so feel free to leave a message even if the page is empty. Please bear in mind that talk pages are very public, are indexed by search engines, and should never be used for any matter, other than related to this Wiki, that you would not want to see printed on the front page of a newspaper. Article and content Talk pages should remain focused specifically to the related page. If you have something off-topic, discuss it on someone's personal Talk page instead.

+

The "add" tab only appears on Talk pages. It is the preferred way to add a new section to a Talk page. It is essentially the same as the Edit tab, except that it prompts you for a section name and automatically places the new section at the bottom of the Talk page.

Edit tab

Selecting the edit tab will take you to a text editor where you can actually edit the text of the page itself (either the content page or the talk page, whichever was last displayed before you selected the edit tab). Be sure to preview the edits you make before you save the page! This one little step will save a lot of grief and frustration by avoiding unnecessary edits. Avoiding those helps reduce the strain on our server and reduces the bandwidth consumption caused by unnecessary editing.

History tab

Every edit, no matter how insignificant, is tracked by the WikiMedia software. This link will show you the complete edit history of the page itself (either the content page or the talk page, whichever was last displayed before you selected the history tab). If vandalism is detected, registered users can use this feature to "rollback" the page to an earlier version that does not contain vandalism. Care must be taken to avoid wiping out any legitimate edits that might have been made subsequent to the vandalism. Edit histories can also be useful when checking for copyright violations and other problems. Sometimes, it is just interesting to see how an article has morphed since it was created.

Watch/Unwatch tab

Selecting this tab will add the current page (either the content page or the talk page, whichever was last displayed before you selected the tab) to your watchlist, or remove it from the watchlist if it's already added.

Other tabs

The tab bar is dynamic, and other tabs may appear depending on what page or article you are viewing. Don't be afraid of them; you can't harm anything by viewing different tabs. You can always return to the main content by selecting the Content tab.

Next steps

Now that you have come to the end of our welcome, you might want to find out more about about the Wiki, get a little more help, or return to the Main Page for other ideas of where to explore.

The most important things to remember are, 1) have fun, 2) don't be afraid to contribute by editing anything you think you could improve (even if it's just fixing one little typo), and 3) be kind to one another.