Getting started

From New Orleans Wiki

1 Getting Started with the New Orleans Wiki
2 How to Edit

[edit] Getting Started with the New Orleans Wiki

[edit] What is the New Orleans Wiki?

The New Orleans Wiki is a volunteer-maintained collection of articles about the City of New Orleans. The New Orleans Wiki is also used by neighborhoods and civic organizations as a collaborative authoring tool.

So what, exactly, does that mean?

[edit] The Volunteer-Maintained Web

You may have read about wiki projects such as Wikipedia. These projects are open to anyone on the Internet who wants to contribute. But what is a wiki?

Wiki: Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. source

A couple key concepts are in this definition. The first is the ability for a wiki to allow users to freely create Web content. That means you can freely create Web content.

The other important concept is the volunteer-maintained Web. The New Orleans Wiki is written, maintained, and driven by people just like you, each of them contributing their time, effort, and knowledge to making the New Orleans Wiki the best resource it can be.

[edit] What Can I Do With It?

The New Orleans Wiki is, essentially, whatever you want it to be. The nature of the wiki allows you to create articles about any topic that happens in, concerns, or affects New Orleans. If you're a civic organization and need to publish your events, you can publish them here. If you're a Neighborhood Organization with issues you'd like to communicate, you can communicate them here. Organize, document abandoned cars, or just get together with fellow citizens; the limit is yours.

[edit] Getting Started

So, what do you have to do to get started?

First, you should get an account; you can sign up here.

It's not required that you have an account, but having an account lets you communicate with other wiki users more easily and gives you your own user page. If you have articles that you want to keep an eye on, your account also allows you to track those articles (we'll cover how to do that later).

Second, sign up for the volunteers mail list. This is a medium-volume, public email list where the New Orleans Wiki volunteers can communicate. Once you're signed up (you will receive a confirmation email), simply send an email to volunteers@thinknola.com and everyone on the list will receive your message.

Third, you can promote Think New Orleans. Have a website? Link to us. Have a heavy traffic area near your home? Hang a poster with the URL. Know of an organization that could use a public web space? Contact us. Comment on any of the local blogs. Spread the word; the more Editors, the more we can do!

And, you can always check out the Help page for more information.

[edit] Roles

There are many roles for contributors. This list is only the beginning of the ways you can help Think New Orleans.

Editing - Contributors often refer to themselves and other contributors as Editors. Anyone can be an Editor and the more Editors for the Wiki, the better. Editors create, edit, and add to articles in the Wiki. Check out the Wiki Editors page for more information.
Gardening - "Gardening" is a term used to describe the process of structuring the wiki. Since anyone can be an Editor, lots of people are adding articles all the time. Gardeners structure this information, "weeding" out junk articles (such as spam), or trimming old and dead articles. For more information about gardening see the Social Text page
Help other users - Editors often ask for help with current projects via the volunteers mail list; you can help them to edit large or complex articles.