We hope you'll join in recounting San Francisco history by contributing your unique stories to Found San Francisco. We invite you to create your own account and begin adding new writings, diaries from your grandparents, old family photos, historic images of the city, video clips of historic events you attended, scans of tickets, programs, etc. We also welcome comments on existing content, and repairs to errors where we might have made mistakes (one thing about doing a sprawling history project: there are always mistakes!).

The wiki format of the archive makes it easy to edit, add to, or create pages. Here's how:

To begin you'll need to Create an account. (Find this choice on the left sidebar.)

Let us know who you are and how you got here in the Questions for New Users page.

Help us fill in the blanks by contributing your words, stories, and memories to our pages denoted by Unfinished History .

To Edit an Existing Page:

Find the page you are interested in editing. Those marked with Unfinished History are open to being edited.
If the page is not protected, you will see Edit on the left sidebar.
Click "Edit" to make changes to the text of the chosen page.
Include a short note about your edits in the Summary field.
Click Save Page.
You can review your entry or edits by clicking Show Preview before you save your changes. (This is helpful to see how everything looks before you save...)

You can also Create a New Page.
Opening a new tab or window is helpful to be able to refer to these instructions while creating your page.

Step One: Select a Title for the page
Choose a name that best suits the page you want to make. Enter it in the Search field.
The Search Results page will come up with related or similar pages. Please scan this list to make sure a similar page does not exist. (If one does, and it can be edited or added to, try this option first!) We are looking for multiple perspectives on events, times, and locations, so feel free to create a new page.

Step Two: Create your page
At the top of the page it will say, There is no page titled x. Click on Create this page.
For general page formatting guidelines, see our Style Sheet, and browse the archive to get a sense of how the pages are formatted. Please always aim to improve the overall contents of the wiki with your edits.

Step Three: Choose a PAGE CONTENT TYPE for your page.
Find this on the Style Sheet.
If you invite further writing and photos choose Unfinished History.

Step Four: Upload a photo
In a second window go to the Main Page.
Find Upload File in the "toolbox" on the left sidebar.
Upload your photo. (Parameters: 72 dpi, 7 in wide, or 375x500 pixels approx. 95 KB.)
A screen with your image will come up.
Copy the name (i.e. Image:nameoffile.jpg).
Paste it below the PAGE CONTENT TYPE in your page inside double brackets.
Follow the Style Sheet's instructions on photo caption and credit. (bold caption = three single quotes on front and back of the caption. italics credit = two single quotes on front and back of your credit text.)

Step Five: Write or paste in your text
Some helpful hints to enhance your text: use bold and italics (formatting above or in Style Sheet), link to other pages within FoundSF (double brackets then PageName, add | symbol, text, double brackets), link to other pages outside of Found SF (single bracket then URLname, text, single bracket).

Step Six: Choose Categories
Tell us what topic, what neighborhood, what decade(s), and any other useful descriptors of your page. Find a complete list of existing categories at Categories.
Write it/them out between double brackets. (i.e. Category:Women - between double brackets).

Step Seven: Preview your page
At the bottom of the page, click on Show Preview.

Step Eight: Save your page
Include a short note about adding your page in the Summary field.
If you are happy with your page, click Save Page.

You're finished! Your page is now part of San Francisco's living history!

If you are having trouble with Found San Francisco, or have any questions or feedback about the project, please get in contact with us and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

The administrators of Found San Francisco reserve the right to remove unsuitable content at any time.

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