Advertising the Wiki?

[Marius Strom]

No, not ads on the wiki...

 

Are we at a point with the Wiki that we’re comfortable with advertising/issuing requests for information?

I was just about to make a plea for help on TheSamba, but figured I’d see if anyone had concerns with that.

[Peter DiFalco]

I'd like it to be easier for folks to see what's already there or what we're looking for. Perhaps if we were to display the categories and article count there, somebody might be intrigued by "transmission - zero articles" to contribute their superior knowledge of transmissions. Does that make sense?

As it is currently, I don't know if a contributor would know where to start looking for holes. 

[Mike "Rocket J Squirrel"]

Peter DiFalco wrote:
> I'd like it to be easier for folks to see what's already there or what
> we're looking for. Perhaps if we were to display the categories and
> article count there, somebody might be intrigued by "transmission - zero
> articles" to contribute their superior knowledge of transmissions. Does
> that make sense?

Um yes, that might be intriguing enough for some to sit down and sharpen
their writing skills.

This thing just needs a core group of articles to get it started.

Something I found useful with the old wiki was for someone who is not
intimidated by wiki markup to volunteer to take plaintext articles and
post them. This could lower the hump for some contributors. We like
lower humps. DEMAND LOWER HUMPS!

--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
Bend, OR
KG6RCR

[Peter DiFalco]

Well it is hump day. Maybe several volunteers (I'd be one) could handle formatting and posting a "queue" of plain text articles submitted to a shared email address which we would advertise. I don't have time to Wiki every day, but when I take an evening to do it, I can just plug away a few hours at it.

-Peter / El Pedro

[Sudhir Desai]

I can do markup as well.
I usually watch streaming TV during lunch at work (which can be time
for the markups instead).

Sudhir

[Steve Williams]

At 03:50 PM 5/12/2010, Mike \"Rocket J Squirrel\" wrote:
>Something I found useful with the old wiki was for someone who is
>not intimidated by wiki markup to volunteer to take plaintext
>articles and post them. This could lower the hump for some contributors.

Marius, can we configure FCKEditor as the default?

I just registered a new account and found "Start with rich editor
disabled" checked in the user preferences.

[Mike "Rocket J Squirrel"]

I agree that FCKEditor should be the default, and still urge the group
to promote a mail drop for plaintext articles for those who just want to
mail in their contribution.

[Mike South]

How was the mail-in thing done before? This group (currently, anyway)
is mailable by anyone, I think. So they could mail an article here
and one of us could pick it up. Probably only a temporary solution
until the spammers find the list.

mike

[Sudhir Desai]

we can always make filters

On May 13, 2010 11:40 AM, "Mike South" <mso...@gmail.com> wrote:

How was the mail-in thing done before?  This group (currently, anyway)
is mailable by anyone, I think.  So they could mail an article here
and one of us could pick it up.  Probably only a temporary solution
until the spammers find the list.

mike

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Mike "Rocket J Squirrel"

<camping...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Steve Williams wrote:
>>
>> At 03:50 PM 5/12/2010, Mike \"Rocket J Squirrel\" wrote:
>>>

>>> Somet...

[Steve Williams]

At 06:36 AM 5/13/2010, Steve Williams wrote:
>Marius, can we configure FCKEditor as the default?
>
>I just registered a new account and found "Start with rich editor
>disabled" checked in the user preferences.

The FCKeditor rich text editor should now be the default for new users.

Current users can make it their default here:

http://www.vanagonwiki.net/wiki/Special:Preferences

Choose the "Misc" tab and uncheck "Start with rich editor disabled."

[Mike "Rocket J Squirrel"]

Mike South wrote:
> How was the mail-in thing done before?

Informally. I emailed folk who had written up something useful for the
list and invited them to post their article. They demurred, citing
unfamiliarity with the process, so I asked them whether I could either
just copy their message to the wiki, formatted as an article. In some
cases, they did a re-write and sent it to me for posting.

> This group (currently, anyway)
> is mailable by anyone, I think. So they could mail an article here
> and one of us could pick it up. Probably only a temporary solution
> until the spammers find the list.

This makes sense to me.