From the day we first opened up registration on the site, new members were able to add and edit authorities.   But the ability to edit the tree of rules and topics—the fundamental structure of the legal information on the site—was reserved for more experienced community members while the site was in the early stages of development.  We’re by no means done with the development of the site, but we’ve decided it’s reached a stage where the material covered on the site is ready to rapidly grow.   As part of that effort, we decided to relax some constraints and as of today all registered members can edit the tree.

We encourage people to get their feet wet with authorities when contributing to the site.   It’s easy to add new authorities using the “contribute new authority” link at the top of the authority list and even easier to edit an existing authority:  just rollover the authority with your mouse and click the edit link.   Filling in missing fields on authorities as indicated by question marks is a great place to start.

But you may want to add authorities where there is no appropriate rule in the tree yet.   With this change you can just add the rule yourself.  To add a branch to the tree, just click on the “add+” link in the narrow down box on the right.  You then fill in the short and long text and click on the image to select the kind of branch you are creating.    More guidance on how to edit and create branches can be found in the extended contributor guide.

We expect this change to be the first of many over the coming months to encourage contributions.

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