How To Edit and Import
From The Vid
Contents |
Editing
The goal of this project is to create a digital archive of the printed publication, warts and all. Create a user to edit this wiki, or send us those priceless files that you've been saving all these years (preferably text/Word).
To get started, let's get our terms consistent. When referring to any general piece of work (be it article, cartoon, drawing, etc), we'll call it a "piece." Otherwise when the type matters we'll specifically call it an "article," "cartoon" etc. A full issue (in a PageMaker file for example) is an "issue."
The Vid's wiki is using MediaWiki, the same system used by Wikipedia. If you've edited Wikipedia, this works the same way. Here's a quick primer:
To edit TheVid.com you must be a registered user. Create an account by clicking on "create account" in the top right corner. New users will be manually approved until we have a large enough crowd for effective policing (buzzword = crowdsourcing).
To edit a page, click on the "edit" tab a the top of a page (this will only appear when you are logged in). You can preview your edit before saving the changes. You must also put a one-line summary of your changes in the "summary" field at the bottom of the edit page. If it's a minor typographical/formatting edit, check "This is a minor edit".
Note: If you want something that you created removed, let us know and we will remove it and protect (lock-out) that article from being added again. Here's TheVid.com Privacy Policy.
For more details on editing, visit the following links.
How to edit a page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page
The general attitude of a collaborative wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simplified_Ruleset
Two cheatsheets of wiki code: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:MediaWikiRefCard.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet
New Pages
To create a new page, it's a bit unintuitive. You must first create a link to the new page on an existing page before creating the page.
For example, to add an article: Find the article in The Vid Issue Index. If the article title doesn't already have a link, edit the index page to surround the article name in double-brackets (ie "Celebrating Coeducation" on the page looks like "[[Celebrating Coeducation]]" in code). Note that quotation marks are not included inside the double-brackets, just the title itself.
If the article is not yet listed in The Vid Issue Index, add it to the index first. Then go back to the index page and click on the new link you've created. This will bring you to an edit page, which says "You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet." Now you can edit the article's page!
TheVid.com Formatting Conventions
The Index
When referring to any general piece of work (be it article, cartoon, drawing, etc), we'll call it a "piece." Otherwise when the type matters we'll specifically call it an "article," "cartoon" etc. A full issue (in a PageMaker file for example) is an "issue."
All pieces (including articles, cartoons and other artwork) need a wikilink, which is a set of double-brackets around the text. Do not include quotes in the wikilink. If you must display text that is different than the link (try not to if possible) us this convention: "[[real link|displayed text]]" …that's the vertical "pipe" line-thingie character: | … not a capital I…
For regularly occurring articles with the same title, add the publication date to make the link unique, a la "Staff Box (11/2/90)".
If a title has an ampersand, please enter it as "and" instead. Ampersands mess up URLs.
Articles
All articles start with a byline and a "breadcrumb" link back to the index. Here's the syntax:
by [[Tony Brooke]]
-from [[The Vid]]: [[Volume One]], [[Volume_One#Issue_1|Issue 1]], 11/2/90
Also put the SAME breadcrumb at the end of the article, to bring "google jumpers" to the next article from that issue.
-from [[The Vid]]: [[Volume One]], [[Volume_One#Issue_1|Issue 1]], 11/2/90
To preserve important formatting such as a line's leading spaces in a poem, surround the block of text with <pre> and </pre>.
For more formatting methods, see this cheatsheet.
Images and other files
To place an image in a page, use this code: [[Image:FileName.jpg|Caption text]] (…that's the vertical "pipe" line-thingie character: | … not a capital I…) or more ways here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#Images http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images
Sections and Subsections
To create subsection headings within an article, surround the subsection title with two equal signs and a space,
== Part 3: Getting The Cat Back Out Of The Dryer ==
That will make it look like this next subsection on file conversion:
File Conversion
Some of us old-timers carved our masterpieces on stone tablets, made a wax impression, rolled that in pterodactyl blood and mashed it onto paper. Then we got Macs.
If you have a copy of an article in Word, Pagemaker, WordPerfect or text, it's worth digging out old Macs and PCs to track down the oldest version of that app you can find. Current versions of many apps have dropped support for files that old. If you can open the file as is, just copy-and-paste it into the wiki. If you can't open it directly, try the ideas below.
Word (.doc)
First, figure out what version of Word the file was made with. Word for Mac v4 in 1989, v5 in 1991. Word for Windows v1 in 1989, v2 in 1991, v6 in 1993. Word for DOS v5 in 1989, v6 in 1993. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word#Versions
Older Word docs from the early nineties might not open up in current versions of Word. Try the oldest version of Word you can find. Word for Mac 2001 (OS 9 version) worked on a bunch of articles; when prompted, choose "Recover text from any file". Or, try OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/
Microsoft offered free "viewer" programs to open Word (.doc) files, but only for PC. Here's a free version of Word 5.5 for DOS (not for Windows): http://download.microsoft.com/download/word97win/Wd55_be/97/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_ben.exe
Pagemaker
Lots of Vid issues were laid out in PageMaker. Can current versions open up old PM files? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagemaker
Add your solutions here!
WordPerfect (.wpd)
What version was on the Lafayette computers? Weren't they just DOS? WP 5.1 for DOS came out in 1989, v6 in 1993. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordperfect#Versions
Try Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org/
Or for WordPerfect 6: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3657CE88-7CFA-457A-9AEC-F4F827F20CAC&DisplayLang=en
HTML
If HTML is an intermediate step, here's some HTML-to-MediaWiki formatting converters:
http://diberri.dyndns.org/wikipedia/html2wiki/index.html
http://www.google.com/search?&q=html+to+wiki+converter
Scanning Images and Text for OCR
For cartoons and other artwork, scanning is the only way to get them digital (unless it's one of our original stylin' MacPaint files). For articles, scanning is a last resort. If you have both textual and graphical copies, upload them both.
Scanning Then Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
- Scan it. Use the highest resolution you can.
- OCR it. Report back here on most acurate techniques.
- Correct all the OCR wrong guesses.
- Enter it to the wiki as text.
Scanning Then Uploading an Image File
- Scan it, then convert to one of these file types:
- In the sidebar, under toolbox, click "Upload file".
- Note the filename and/or give it a unique name.
- After uploading, place the file in a page using the code described in the section above about images.
