A) You will land on an existing Mahalo search result page. That search result page will either be managed by a fellow Mahalo user, if not, you can choose to become the Page Manager for that search result. Just click the option to "Claim This Page" that appears in yellow across the top of the page and in a box down the left column. Once you've claimed the page, it's yours to manage and update. Or...

B) Your search result has not been created by Mahalo, now you have the option to build the page from scratch. Continue on to learn more about how to build a Mahalo Page.

Legal How To's:
The content in this page is not a substitute for professional legal advice. Please contact a law professional before using the information presented here.

Medical How To's:
The content in this page is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please contact a doctor before using the information presented here.

Financial How To's:
The content in this page is not a substitute for professional financial advice. Please contact a finance professional before using the information presented here.

Text: This will allow you to just write some information on the page. It will mostly be used on more content-heavy pages like How To's or Video Game Walkthroughs.

List: This will add a numbered or bulleted list to your page. These will often be useful as timelines, if you want to list, for example, biographical information on a historical figure, a director's complete filmography or all the albums released by a band.

Blogs: This will pull in a Mahalo blog search on the topic of your page.

Map: This will import a map from Google Maps. If the title of your page is a location, the map will automatically display that location. If you want to specify a location for your map that's different from the title of the page, click "Edit" and enter the name under the "Location" box. You should also include a brief description of the area depicted in the map and indicate why you have placed it on the page.

Stock Quotes: If you are making a page about a company, you may want to include a stock quote in your links. Choosing a stock quote section will automatically pull in financial information for a company of your choice. To enter an appropriate stock symbol, click the "Edit" button and then enter it into the appropriate box. The stock ticker should display automatically.

The Mahalo Top 7: This adds a Top 7 to your page. You can then fill in the Top 7 with the best links from the page by clicking the "7" button in blue next to each link. A Top 7 is not needed on your page...Only include it if you have 5 or more VERY high quality links that you consider essential to have at the very top of the page.

DOUBLE BRACKETS

To make a word or phrase into an internal link to another Mahalo page, put double brackets around it.

[[Mahalo]] is an Internet [[search engine]] will look like this:

Mahalo is an Internet search engine

Put double brackets around all proper nouns, years, dates and any other terms you think would make an interesting Mahalo search.

To refer to a term differently in the text than what the page is called, you can use a pipe to separate the term, placing the page title first and the text second like this: [[New York State|NY]] will look like this: NY and inlink to the page titled New York State.

BOLD AND ITALICS

To use italics, put two apostrophes on either side of the word or phrase you want italicized. Here is an example:

''The Great Gatsby'' will look like this: The Great Gatsby

To use boldface, put three apostrophes on either side of the word or phrase you want bolded. Here is an example:

'''The Great Gatsby''' will look like this: The Great Gatsby

CITATIONS IN TEXT

If you want to cite a fact you are writing in a text section of a Mahalo page (as opposed to a Fast Facts section), you can use <ref> to designate a link. Take a look at this sentence as an example.

[[Barack Obama]] is the 44th President of the [[United States]].<ref>http://www.mahalo.com/barack-obama</ref>

Now here's how that would look on a Mahalo page:

Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States.http://www.mahalo.com/barack-obama

Click that footnote number and it will take you to the bottom of the page, where your URL is now listed as a "reference."

A citation is NEEDED whenever you:

1. Use a quote
2. State a statistical fact
3. Paraphrase information from another source
4. Utilize someone else's opinions and interpretations
5. Are making a medical, legal, or financial claim
6. State specific and detailed information which is not commonly known
   
   

Citations are NOT NEEDED when you:

1. Are stating "common knowledge." A general rule of thumb is, if you are not sure whether something is common knowledge or not, it probably isn't. Common knowledge statements are claims that are generally accepted and known in a given community.http://www.uta.fi/FAST/PK6/REF/commknow.html
2. Are giving your own interpretations. In general, subjective and first person writing is not condoned on Mahalo. However, the nature of How To's demands that writers interpret information and present it in their own voice. Within reason, then, interpretive statements are allowed—but should be tempered with sourced opinion.
   
   

This scores are not intended as punishment, and getting a lot score does not mean that you will be automatically removed as page manager. It is our reporting mechanism for letting page managers know where their page currently stands, in the opinion of their vertical managers and Mahalo staff, and where we feel that page needs the most improvement. Questions about why a certain score has been received can be referred to the person who administered the score (typically a vertical manager), or by writing to contact@mahalo.com.

Upon receiving a low score (below 5) or a score that comes with direct and immediate recommendations for future action, a page manager should typically respond and make the recommended changes within 48-72 hours.

The scores are on a scale from 0-10, with 10 representing the perfect Mahalo page and 0 representing a blank Mahalo page.

Here's some guidelines on how to interpret your scores:

10: Perfect page. These will be very rare.

9 - 9.5: Excellent page. This is what you'd expect a Vertical Manager or staff member to produce.

8 - 9: Very good page.

6 - 7.5: Promising page with room for improvement

5 - 6: Potentially good page with some significant work needed.

3 - 4.5: A problem page. Urgent attention needed from Page Manager.

0 - 2.5: A poor page. We would consider replacing this Page Manager were effort not taken quickly to correct problems.

Here are the scoring standards:

Spelling error (-.25 to -.5) per error, depending on severity

Very minor spelling errors or typos will not impact your overall score. This is only for significant spelling errors that will impact the page's readability.

Grammatical error (-.5)

Again, very minor grammatical mistakes - such as misused commas, apostrophes or semi-colons - will not impact your final score. This is only for grammatical "stop errors" that render the page difficult to read for an English speaker.

Factual error (-2)

Mahalo pages should have NO inaccurate or incorrect information. All dates, data, statistics and other specific information should be backed up by citations.

Bias/NPOV (-1)

Mahalo pages should not take a perspective on an issue or a side in a discussion. All information presented on a Mahalo page should be fact-based, rooted in supportable research from external sources rather than anecdotal information. This includes political pages or pages about controversies, but also general interest pages. Remember that even positive statements of opinion (such as "schnauzers are great dogs for kids!" or "cinnamon buns are the best way to wake up in the morning") count as biased and should not be included. (NOTE: How To pages may occasionally include a bit more "anecdotal evidence" and "personal opinion" than standard Mahalo pages).

Vague writing/filler (-1)

Often, page managers may be tempted to "pad" their writing in order to create the appearance of more content on their pages. This is strongly discouraged. Examples of padded writing or filler could including repeating the same point or phrase multiple times, talking around an issue rather than getting right to the point or making obvious statements that any person with common sense would already know.

As well, being vague or misleading about a topic should be avoided. Always be as specific as possible, and when writing descriptions of objects, places, events, processes, etc., try to work in as many details (who, what, where, when, why, how) as possible. Remember that the ultimate goal of Mahalo pages is to be truly helpful to readers.

Not updated to reflect new info (-1 to -2)

Obviously, no page can be rigorously updated every minute while breaking news is happening. But if more than 12-24 hours has passed after a significant event that changes important aspects of a topic, and the page is not updated, that page will lose 1 point. The page will also lose points if it has not been updated in a long time or if it includes outdated information.

Word Count

Topic Pages

Under 100 words of original content (-2)
Under 200 words of original content (-1)
Under 300 words of original content (-.5)

300 or more original words on each Mahalo page should be considered the new "standard" for topic pages. This includes all original writing on the page, such as the top section, Fast Facts and written sub-sections. These 300 words INCLUDE Fast Facts, video/image descriptions and all other original text that appears on a Mahalo page and is composed by a user. List sections that just list information such as movies, books, nominees of awards etc. do not count towards the word count requirement.

How To Pages

Under 100 words of original content in a step or intro (-1 for each section)
Under 200 words of original content (-0.5 for each section)

Not enough internal links (-.5 to -1)

A full point will be lost if NO links to other Mahalo pages appear in any of the original written sections of the page. If important words that could link to a worthwhile Mahalo page are not double-bracketed, the page will lose half of a point.

No categories (-1)

Eventually, categories will be integrated into Mahalo Tasks. As of now, they should be added to pages after the Task is accepted and the finished page appears on Mahalo.com.

No related Mahalo pages (-1)

A writer should include at least 3-5 "related pages on Mahalo" to every topic page. Failure to include at least 3 related pages will result in the loss of a point.

No image section (-1)

Every page on Mahalo should include an image search, and should have an appropriate image selected in the first available spot.

General formatting error (-.5)

This can include any basic formatting problem on the page. Common examples include sub-sections in the written content that do not have "headlines" or titles, Featured Videos that do not have descriptions or sections that are misplaced on the page. Points will also be taken off if the page has no featured video.

No citations (-1)

If a page contains specific, factual information that is not cited, that page will lose 1 point. Not ALL factual information needs to be cited. A good rule of thumb is whether or not that fact is "common knowledge." That Barack Obama is President of the United States who was elected in 2008 is a commonly-known fact that would not need to be cited. That he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is much more specific, less commonly-known info and should be cited.

No disclaimer (on medical, legal, financial pages) (-.5)

These disclaimers appear automatically on all new pages in these three categories. They should remain intact on the page and you will be marked down for not having/including them.

No Fast Facts/Tips (-1)

All topic pages require Fast Facts; all How To pages should include Tips sections. Fast Fact sections should include no fewer than 6-8 facts and Tips sections should include at least 3 tips.

• How do I prevent "pinned" items from traveling on the page?