Mental Health Law Online:About
Basics
To edit or add pages you must be logged in. Click on log in/create account at the top of the screen. The only required information is a username and password so the process takes a matter of seconds.
Most pages can be edited - to edit a page click on "edit this page" at the top of the screen, make your changes, then click "save page". You can practise by editing this page: Test page.
How to contribute
There are several ways of helping the site develop which fall short of adding or editing pages.
1. Email
Feel free to email jonathan at wikimentalhealth.co.uk if you need any help. Also please email if you have any ideas for the site, or resources such as case transcripts which aren't on Bailii yet.
2. Suggestion box
If you have a general suggestion which is not specific to an individual page, please leave it on the Suggestion box page.
3. Discussion pages
Each "article" page has an associated "discussion" page (see the links at the top left). If you have comments or questions about an article then click on "discussion" and edit that page. E.g. see the Legislation page and its Talk:Legislation page. On the discussion page, you can add your username and the date by typing ~~~~.
4. Get stuck in
If you want to do more than just edit paragraphs - for example to add links or formatting - the following notes will be useful.
To make a link to an internet site:
- just type the address including the initial 'http://', e.g. type http://www.bailii.org to display http://www.bailii.org.
- or enter the address in square brackets followed by a description, e.g. [http://www.mhrt.org.uk Tribunal website] to display Tribunal website
To make a link to a page on this site:
- Use double square brackets around its name: type [[MHA 1983]] into the page to display MHA 1983.
- To link to a MHA 1983 section, use a page name like [[s10]] to display s10
- For Tribunal rules, use [[Tribunal rule 10]] (English rules), [[Welsh Tribunal rule 10]] or [[Upper Tribunal rule 10]] as appropriate - e.g. Tribunal rule 10.
To add a new page, either:
- use the text boxes on the three main pages (Mental health case law, Legislation, General information) or
- make a link to the page you intend to create (see above) and click "save" - the link will be red. Click on it to write the page.
To categorise a page, type - at the bottom of the page - [[Category:Miscellaneous]] to add a case to Category:Miscellaneous.
Surround text with two ' marks to make it italic: type ''word'' to display word.
Sourround text with three ' marks to make it bold: type '''word''' to display word.
- Begin a line with a colon to indent it.
Surround a line with two = marks to make a main heading: e.g. ==How to contribute==
Surround a line with three = marks to make a sub-heading: e.g. ===4. Get stuck in===
See Wikipedia's "cheatsheat" on editing pages for further details.
Conventions on this site
Legislation with a highlighted background cannot be edited. This is to promote confidence in its reliability.
Red links are to pages which don't exist yet. Help the site by creating them.
The software won't allow the following characters in page titles: & ? [ ] (So case citations need round brackets.)
Change the layout
If you prefer the classic Wikipedia layout then log in and select the following options: "My preferences" (top of the screen), "Skin", "MonoBook", then click "Save".
It is also possible to increase or decrease the size of the text. On Internet Explorer 7, change the font size by clicking "Page" then "Text size", or "zoom in" by clicking the "100%" at the bottom right of the window. On Firefox 3, change the font size or zoom in by clicking "View" then "Zoom".