Submitted by The Computer Au... on Mon, 11/30/2009 - 04:20
Over the last year many users asked for a way to create lists and create articles in an efficient manor while collaborating with all the CA readers from around the globe. In response to those requests and my own desire to implement such a feature, I've created the Computer Audiophile Wiki. The CA Wiki is now in Beta and will progress with more feature and more access levels as more miles are put on the tires and it moves out of Beta. I am very excited about the Wiki and think we have an opportunity to expand the available knowledge on CA exponentially. As the famous quote says, "Many hands make light work." What follows is some general information and rules that are critical to the success of the Wiki. A permanent link to the Wiki is in the navigation menu on the left.
Intro
Any time that people work together, it is important to make rules that they should agree to follow. The rules written here must be followed by everyone. Noncompliance with these rules will lead to banishment from the complete Computer Audiophile site. This includes several methods of banishment such as IP Address banning and username blocking, and other measures to frustrate banned users attempting to access Computer Audiophile.
While the CA Wiki is in Beta users will not be able to create articles on their own, but will be allowed full access to edit an article after its creation. To have an article created please use the contact form until full access is opened up to all registered users. In addition more Wiki type features will be enabled as the site progresses.
What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems. Most wikis serve a specific purpose, and off topic material is promptly removed by the user community. Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Computer Audiophile has heavily relied on Wikipedia, the number one Wiki in the world, for guidance to make this the best user generated computer audio source possible. The following rules are borrowed from Wikipedia . If these rules are good enough for Wikipedia they are certainly good enough for Computer Audiophile :~)
Instead of copying and pasting or rewriting I have linked to some very important rules all Computer Audiophile Wiki users must abide. Obviously some of the text in the linked documents pertains only to Wikipedia. Please use common sense when reading those pieces of information.
3. Vandalism
5. Please do not bite the newcomers
6. Be kind
What the Computer Audiophile Wiki is not
The Computer Audiophile Wiki is not paper. The Computer Audiophile Wiki has no size limits. Pages can be linked to other pages and they can be changed quickly. You can write long articles.
The Computer Audiophile Wiki is not a soapbox, a place for trying out ideas or a place for talking. This means that you should only put facts in an article. You should not put your thoughts about something in an article. An article is for the truth, not what you think.
The Computer Audiophile Wiki is not a link repository. This means you should not make a page that is only links to other websites.
The Computer Audiophile Wiki is not a blog and is not a place to be in a group. Although there are group parts in The Computer Audiophile Wiki, the idea is to create an encyclopedia, which is a book of facts, rather than groups of people.
The Computer Audiophile Wiki is not censored. Censorship is the hiding and changing of facts.
The Computer Audiophile Wiki is not a crystal ball. The Computer Audiophile Wiki is not for posting information about future events that are not notable and have no references that do not show why they are important and are not certain to happen. This Wiki is about notable events that have happened.
What the Computer Audiophile Wiki entries are not
Discussion forums. The Computer Audiophile Wiki's comment pages are not forums. They are for talking with other people about how to make articles better. For example, on the talk page of a DAC article, you can talk about how someone did not cite what he/she added. You cannot talk about how you think the DAC makes good or bad sound.
Propaganda or advocacy. That means that if you believe in something, you should not try to say that idea in the article. You should say every side of the issue. If you want to talk about your ideas, go to the forum.
Mere vehicles for testing anarchism. Anarchy means a system where there is no government or control. You should not do silly things on an article to see if this can work. We want to make good source of information, not see if anarchy can work.
Personal essays, that say your thoughts on something. We want to make articles about things that many people know is true. Your opinion is not always true.
Primary research. If you have discovered something or found something out, put your ideas in a book for a learning school, not on the Computer Audiophile Wiki. The Computer Audiophile Wiki will talk about your ideas once it is known to a lot of people.
Mere collections of external links. You can put links to other websites at the bottom of an article, but a page should not just be links. That is called spam.
Mere collections of internal links. If a word has many meanings, you can make a page with links to all the meanings of that word. Some pages should have parts with links to other articles, but an article that only has one meaning should never be only links to other articles.
Mere collections of public domain or other source material like complete books, writings, letters, past writing, rules, and other things that are only useful if they are not changed. Instead of putting the entire writing into the article, make a page about the writing. If there is a book of knowledge in the public domain (like the 1911 Britannica), a page from this can be used to make an article.
A news report. The Computer Audiophile Wiki should not have news on new stories.
A vehicle for advertising. Do not make an article on an item just because you work for a company that makes it, or you make it yourself. You can link to a page about a company if it is to show what companies are important in certain topics.
Dispute Resolution
Chris Connaker, Founder of Computer Audiophile, has the final say about what should happen when there is a dispute or when someone does not comply the rules.
Chris Connaker
Founder
Computer Audiophile
Hi Chris - Great !
Edit :
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Hi Guys - I've implemented a very Beta version of a Wiki on the site. More features and Wiki-type linking, editing, searching, etc... are coming as the Wiki gets used. Here is a link.
... which I only saw after you posted that in the forum topic, and which was later. So never mind the below I guess ! (mr. late bird you :-)
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I hope I am allowed to make some hopefully useful comments;
To me, at this moment, it seems that the most powerful feature making a Wiki a Wiki, is not there : automated hyperlinks. This would mean, for example, that by typing just this very text within the Wiki, the words "Wiki" would become hyperlinks, once a topic "Wiki" has been described.
You may look here to see the example : http://www.heartprofit.nl/www/wc.dll?www~WhatIsAWiki~Y ( our current CSS shows hyperlinks just a tad "off black" (greenish) and you may not see them easily).
I must be careful with "stating" how a Wiki should behave, and maybe even WikiPedia doesn't work like this (I never tried), and the only thing I can say is that this example - my own creature - is from before the WikiPedia era, and Wikis didn't exist all that long back then.
So, IMO the big power comes from a phenomenon being described earlier, and by just typing it you would be referring to it. Or the other way around : when describing it as a topic later, all words/phrases equalling the topic, will become hyperlinked automatically (interpreted during the presentation of the page).
On a side note, the feature will be REALLY great once you are able to incorporate it in the Forum threads. Thus, when someone talks about an Alpha DAC, it will receive a hyperlink automatically when it is described in the Wiki;
There was a time I was sure to implement such a feature myself, but since our forum software is third party (though open source) I found the job too tedious to implement. But imagine, if one is to explain something to the other, it would need a few words only, and the whole explanation is at your finger tips.
The same, of course, counts for within the Wiki itself, which at the beginning is one big pile of recursive describing, but soon it will only benefit (and benefit and benefit). Example :
The example topic "Digital to Analog Converters" won't let itself describe in full within one topic. Thus, the one describing it will find him/herself talking about Sigma-delta, oversampling, filtering, etc.; This will, nomally, be a matter of memorizing (or writing down) these phenomena, and create separate topics for it. And, at describing the "Digital to Analog Converters" you will find yourself being relatively brief, knowing about the other upcoming topics - nicely described separately, being very structured in the mean time.
Of course, those separate topics can be written separately anyway, but there is no way (as how I see it working conveniently) that you will go back to the original "Digital to Analog Converters" topic later, to stuff in the links. *If* you'd already know about the topic (which may be hundreds by the time) which virtually imply the reference to the subject you are coincidentally writing today (could be about I/V conversion the DAC topic referred to right form the start, but at the time never intended to have as a separate topic).
I can imagine you think this is overdoing things, while having this Wiki to start with is good enough for now. But please, it is not. I mean, I already sat down (for fun) to go ahead with the DAC topic, but there are so many subjects involved that it is not doable. Please try to see this, if you don't agree already.
But also be careful with it;
If those helping you with this software never actually created real Wiki features, it may take them a year and a year's money. I know. There is much much more involved than what I just talked about to let it work really conveniently. And again, when it is not conveniently working it just "can't" be used. And thus it won't. A Wiki is there to save time at describing, and not to fill your day with making things consistent.
But you probably all know this already, and after beta comes gold.
One more small comment for now : Categories. This too is part of a Wiki, and already a great help by maintenance. But also great for just browsing, like a CategoryDAC would show all described DACs (Categories are formal, and not something like Googling for words/phrases).
Well, I hope you find this remarks a bit beneficial, and I sure hope "we" will have built a great repository in a few years time ! Maybe sooner.
Thanks,
Peter
Lead developer XXHighEnd
Hi Chris,
I love it. Especially your words on what the wiki is not!
Claudius
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