Wikis are about speed and easiness of writing and publishing on the Web.
Also about collaboration. According to Ward Cunningham ‘People discovered that they can create something with other people, that they don't even know. But they come to trust and they make something that surprises them in terms of its value’.
Consequently wikis have been used extensively as environments for online collaboration. Examples of this are:
In order to start contributing to this wiki, like in most wikis, you need to create a user account.
Send an email to info@hackersanddesigners.nl to request for an account. Often, during events and workshop activities, the wiki is used and therefore new accounts are created.
Editing
How to write on the wiki?
Writing on a wiki is not not very different from writing a blog.
You have a Read and Edit mode.
Edit lets you enter content and make changes to existing content.
While you are editing, you can preview your changes in the Preview window.
Once done editing save the page, otherwise your contribution will be lost.
Text formatting
Although there is a specific syntax to format the text, you can use the menu to do much of the formatting you need.
In case you are interested to get to know the syntax here is cheat-sheet with the most important syntax.
You can experiment with writing and formatting your own User page. You can get go to this page by clicking on your username, next to the icon. The user page, is normally used to say something about yourself, but can also be a nice testing ground.
While writing your text you might need to separate the content in paragraphs, especially if the article is long.
Attention: To create line breaks, you don't need to use <br> tag anymore, just add at least one space in between paragraphs.
Titles
You can make titles with different hierarchic levels by using "=" as follows:
=Main Title=
==Sub Title==
===Sub-sub Title===
===Sub-sub-sub Title===
You can place content under each of these section
The result when the page is saved will be:
Main Title
Content under Main Title
Sub Title
Content under Sub Title
Sub-sub Title
Content under Sub-sub Title
Sub-sub-sub Title
Content under Sub-sub-sub Title
Page creation
How to create a page?
In a wiki the information is organized into pages or articles ( no great distinction between the two). If you want to say something about something for which there isn't a page, you create that page and start writing its content.
To create a page use the chain icon on the menu, as wiki page are essentially internal links. The result will be:
[[name of new page]] .
Quick page creation
Other option to create a page is to type the new page name in the URL bar.
You can also use a Create page section in the left-side menu. You can choose between an Article page or an Event page. The latter has extra fields to specify date, time, location and participants, whereas the former simply gives you a big text field.
Create New Article Page
Create New Event Page
External links
To link to external webpages, use the chain icon.
You'll be presented with:
[http://www.example.com link title] and simply need to replace them with url and title(optional)
Naming the page
Important: You shouldn't use slashes, colons, semicolons, question and exclamation marks in a page title. Using these symbols results in a broken link on the front end
Examples:
"How to become great at wiki-editing? By trial/error!" – wrong!
"Becoming a great wiki-editor by trial and error" – correct!
Audio-visuals
Uploading images
You probably want not only to write, but also to use images, audio and video on the pages you'll be developing.
Wiki allows the following formats:
Medium
Formats
image
png, gif, jpg, jpeg, svg
audio
ogg, mp3
video
ogv, webm, mp4
To upload you can use the picture icon on the menu. It asks you for the file name of the file you are going to upload (they must match) and a caption, if you to say something about that image, video, or audio.
When at this upload menu, instead of "caption" select "none" as the format of your upload.
[[File:myimage.png|My caption]]
This action doesn't upload the file, it only inserts a piece of syntax that allows you to upload the file. In order to do so, you need to:
Save the page you are working on
Click on the red link of the file you want to upload
always leave an empty line before and after an image, no matter if it is preceded or followed by another image or text
Do NOT include links inside image captions
Image captions
Captions can be added to images by using a vertical bar
[[File:myimage.jpg|Caption under the image]]
Image gallery
Images can be organised into a gallery, by using the gallery tag
Example:
Filename.jpg
Caption
Filename.jpg
Caption
Filename.jpg
Caption
</nowiki>
By using mode=packed, all images are aligned by having same height and justified.
Youtube/Vimeo/Soundcloud
To include video via youtube or vimeo, or an audiotrack via soundcloud, you need:
the id of the track you want to include in your page
to write {{#ev:youtube|id}} for Youtube or {{#ev:vimeo|id}} for Vimeo or {{#ev:soundcloud|id}} for Soundcloud. Where the id is the sequence of numbers and letters that follow ?v= in Youtube videos url, and vimeo.com/ in Vimeo videos and soundcloud.com/ in Soundcloud)
Means: page development is concluded. All content is as its authors want it to be. Page is ready to be reviewed by the Editors
Who: Authors/Contributors of that page
03 Ready to be published
Means: Page's reviews and corrections by the Editors are conclude. Page is ready to be proofread by the Proofreader
Who: Editors
04 Published
Means: Page's proofreading is concluded. Page is ready to be published
Who: Proofreader
WARNING: The right use of categories is crucial for the functioning of the project!
Changing pages' titles
Pages' titles can be changed by using the function Move in the top right corner in a dropdown menu next to the star.
The Move page permits you to attribute a new name to the current page.
Important: It is not possible to change the page's title by editing the title of the article/event.
Keeping track
How does one keeps track of changes?
via Category Pages
Say you are an Editor and you want to see if any new pages were tagged with the State Category "02 Edit Me", so you can start editing this page.
You can see all the pages that are under that category, by going to "02 Edit Me" category page.
All Category Pages are accessible on the left sidebar. Just expand it and you'll find the the Category you are looking for.
via mailing list
The Mailing list can help with this process on notifying and keeping track of relevant changes in the wiki.
When one makes a change of a State Category, she can notify the whole team of this change via the Mailing List, so that other can carry on the work.
How do collaborators, editors, proofreaders, coordinators and designers communicate withing this ecosystem ?
Say one totally disagrees with what is said in page where she is collaborating.
There are several ways to go about it.
mailing list
The disagreement can be handled over the Mailing list.
discussion/talk pages
Discussion or talk pages (synonyms) can also be used to communicate between users.
Discussion Pages are the backstage for the content of a page.
They provide a space of discussions, remarks, etc can be expressed between users, without spilling on to the page content itself.
You can access by clicking on the top left corner the Discussion link. See if there is something on this page's discussion page.
Discussion pages' content can be view by anyone who visits the wiki, but wont ever become visible in http://hackersanddesigners.nl/
history
How to go back in time to previous versions of a page?
The history of a page (top right "View history" link) shows:
the list of changes that happen to that page
when they happened and which user did them
compare different edit
seeing what was changed between them
see the page as it was in a given revision
edit (or simply copy) the content of that given revision
Say that in your most recent version(revision) you deleted something you need again. To recuse that content:
go to "View history" page of the page you are working on
on the left hand side select the revision where you still had your deleted content
Click "Compare Selected Revisions"
On the left column where says "Revision as of ..." click Edit
Navigate the content and find the piece of content you are looking for
Copy it
Go back to your page by clicking the "Page" icon
problems
editing conflicts
You might experience editing conflicts while editing the wiki
help
There are several ways to ask for help in editing.
Mailing list
Maybe the most direct is the mailing list for the project.
