A push for the wiki

[strider1551]

About two weeks ago, I cleared out a bunch of spam from the wiki, made some categories to give it some structure, and revamped the main page. No spam has been seen since (thanks Daniel), so I would like to invite everyone to add some content... not that anyone needs an invitation. As I see it, the wiki is a place to consolidate all the discussion we have here, so that newcomers can learn without reading through pages of conversation.

I'm especially excited about an idea I had concerning the structure: the Gallery and blueprints. The Gallery is for anyone who wants to add picture of their own build, descriptions of stuff they've tried, etc. Blueprints would be for builds that have complete instructions - materials to buy, steps of assembly with photos or drawings, measurements, everything someone would need to make an exact duplicate. There's tons of other stuff that can be written about hardware, of course (and software!).

Anyway, the wiki is the community's project. I just wanted to clean the place up, kick start some life into the thing, and add content where I can.

[bnz]

Good thing that you put the reminder here. I would still like to suggest a more fine-grained structure though such as something like what I suggested here.

The reason is pretty simple. Once you create a number of pages and stubs, people will know where text is missing and may add it if they feel competent enough. As an extreme noobie member of this community who hasn't even built his own scanner yet, I would dare to go on and force some structure that isn't generally accepted. On the other hand, if obviously content is missing, I would try to fill it as good as I can and mark it somehow as text that needs to be reviewed.

Furthermore, I'd suggest some kind of table of contents on the first page. I find it pretty bothersome in general about mediawikis is that the main page doesn't tell me whether the wiki actually contains content or not and if so, what the content exactly is.

[daniel_reetz]

I like the gallery and blueprints idea a lot... great stuff. Thank you SO MUCH for cleaning up the spam and keeping an eye on things. Later this week I will revamp the homepage to include the wiki, and also make one of these posts sticky here in the forums, so that it is obvious to everyone.

BNZ, how much are you willing to implement your ideas? I think they're good, but I think the fastest way for you to make them happen is to dive right in and start editing...

[bnz]

My overall time is limited, but I do have always some time inbetween. If no one objects, I might just give this a try, create this kind of table of contents, create the necessary stubs and also some content that I feel halfway comfortable with.

[Misty]

I'd love to help out when I'm a bit less busy. Thanks for all your work, Strider!

[daniel_reetz]

If no one objects, I might just give this a try, create this kind of table of contents, create the necessary stubs and also some content that I feel halfway comfortable with.

Create as much content as you like and as you feel comfortable with. Everyone's time is limited, and I definitely understand and respect that.

The best way to do this might be to start a scratch page for yourself, get it up to your standards, and then we'll move it all to the front page. That way you don't have to consider other people while getting your organizational ideas straight.

[daniel_reetz]

I'd also like to voice my thanks to all our Wiki admins. And now, there is a link to the wiki at the top of the forum - something that should have been there the whole time.

[gnosis]

Perhaps you could add a link to wiki from http://www.diybookscanner.org next to 'forums' and 'news'?

[daniel_reetz]

A fine idea and one that I should have implemented by the end of the day.

[chrisgage]

The wiki URL on the home page currently gives a 404 error....