Refer to the help page on [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing WikiMedia.org]
There is a [http://wikipedia.mozdev.org/index.html Firefox Extension for editing the wiki], which I find very useful. Consider creating [[MetaWikiPedia:Templates]] for text that is often used. Templates could be used to make menus, headers, and footers. The main WikiPedia use them a lot. For example: [[MetaWikiPedia:Template:H:f_Help|Help Footer]]. You can use [http://www.jtidy.de/jtidy/ JTidy] to convert HTML snippets to Wiki syntax.