✍ Contribute to the Knowledge Base

[Community-admin (Tech Community team)]

1. Adding new articles to the Knowledge Base

1. Make sure you are logged in to the Tech Community
2. Go to the Knowledge base home page
3. Click on +New article button (you need to be a Senior member in order to be able to contribute to the Knowledge base)
4. Enter the content of the article or tutorial and hit Create Topic once you are ready.

Please let us know if you face some issues or need assistance.
For basic instructions on using the Knowledge base, please refer to the sections below:

1.1 Title

Make sure the title is a meaningful one. We recommend you include the full name of the product or feature you are writing about.

1.2 Co-authoring

The person who created and first published the article will be shown as its author. Other users that have the required permissions can update and improve it and can be seen in the article edit history. If you’d like to show more than one author please list them at the beginning of the articles as done here:

1.3 Format

Your article can be formatted using simple HTML, BBCode, or Markdown:

This is <b>bold</b>.  
This is [b]bold[/b].  
This is **bold**. 

Check out:

How to create new posts or articles and format them correctly

Create a new Forum topic or an article Simply locate the “+New Article/Topic” button on the right-hand side to start a forum discussion or ask a question click: [image] Tapping on it will pull up a text box that collapsed or re-sized up/down. You’ll also notice, there’s a preview on the right of what you type in. Using the preview is a good way to know if your formatting will show upright, or your .gif will load. As you can see, there is a template/predefined set of questions. Please answ…

For more formatting tips, try this 10-minute tutorial.

1.4 Drafts

Drafts will automatically be saved as you write. If you minimize the editor or navigate to a different topic or article, the editor might disappear. To open a draft, return to the topic you were replying to or click the highlighted bar at the bottom of your browser, and the editor will reappear with your draft.

This basic draft functionality has a constraint - while you have a draft in your editor, you will not be able to participate in other discussions or create more than one draft. That’s why we created the Shared drafts where you can create as many drafts as you’d like and even collaborate with other users or have them reviewed before publishing:

Shared Drafts: Collaborate on posts before publishing

Shared drafts is a feature that appears to users of Senior member or higher. A shared draft is meant for topics where two or more members want to work on drafts together before publishing them. Creating a Shared Draft When creating a topic, click the + on the top left of the composer, and choose Shared Draft: [image] Once selected, you can specify where you want the topic to be published when it’s ready. [image] When you are finished, click Create Shared Draft and your shared draft will …

1.5 Attachments

You can upload additional documents, images, code samples, etc.

1.6 Tags

The ‘Tags’ field is mandatory and will answer the question ‘Where does this content fit in?’.
If tags are missing you will not be able to save and publish your article. You can add as many tags as you wish. For your convenience use the checkbox list under Select Tags.
Here are some of the benefits of adding the right tags:

• Your article will appear on the relevant product landing pages
• The content will appear under the right product category

2. Knowledge base Page content

A good article consists of:

2.1 Introduction

The intro is a short summary of your article or tutorial. The introduction provides context and gives a brief overview of what the article includes. Few recommendations:

• Keep it brief - Introductions don’t have to be long.
• Present the reason for the post’s existence
• Include details on an applicable version - this will help to identify the relevance of the resource at a first glance

2.2 Different content sections

When structuring your page make sure you use different heading styles so that the content can be digested easier.

2.3 Good structure of your articles

For a better reader experience, here are some recommendations:

1. Font matters
   1. Title: Make it easy to comprehend, preferably use full product or feature names (e.g. use webMethods Integration Server instead of IS or Cumulocity instead of C8Y)
   2. Introduction: Include brief sentences on what is the purpose of the article and to whom it may be useful
2. Content Recommendations
   1. Headers: Use H2’s to emphasize the major points of your article, use H3 to list references
   2. Tags: At the bottom of the article you can set tags that will help to make the article easier to find and access. For your convenience, you can select the tags from the checkbox list under the editor
   3. Don’t create one huge article but instead split it into an easy to follow series of tutorials. Make sure they are interlinked at the right places so that a user will jump to the next section.

2.4 Oneboxes (Link Previews) and embedded videos

To generate a summary for a link, paste it on a line by itself. A summary should appear.
The Tech Community also allows you to include videos in your post or article. When you want to embed a video, you just need to paste the link to it.

3. Help develop the knowledge base further

3.1 Preview of my article/post

Once you start writing your article in the editor a preview of your article or post will appear on the right-hand side.

3.2 Actions and Reactions

There are action buttons at the bottom of each post:

• To let someone know that you enjoyed and appreciated their post, use the like button. Share the love!
• Grab a copy-pasteable (permalink) link to any reply or topic via the link button.
• Use the … button to reveal more actions. Flag to privately let the author, or the site staff, know about a problem. Bookmark to find this post later on.