Notes on Editing the Encyclopedia
by Mạc Vũ for the Encyclopedia of Vietnamese Music at PBwiki.
The following is a short list of things that someone editing or contributing to this wiki might want to familiarize him/herself with when adding or editing articles. You may wish to copy and paste this section into a MSWord document or something similar for future reference, as there will be code snippets and other things that will be routinely used.
Basics
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Tools to download
- Unikey - A program that allows typing Vietnamese in Unicode. There are a few other similar Vietnamese keyboards on the internet, but this is the one that I have been using and have never had any problems. Both typing style and font set are customizeable
Irfanview (optional) - An easy-to-use program for opening images of different types and quick interconversion between image types. It also has nice resampling algorithms for smooth resizing of images, batch conversion, image effects, and a host of other features. I have used it continuously for the past five years.
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Important pages for wiki management
Automatically generated pages
- AllPages - A pbwiki.com generated listing of all pages that are part of the vietmusic wiki. It can be sorted by name or by date. The most useful function of this page is probably to see all revisions made to an individual page.
- changes.php - A pbwiki.com generated listing of all changes made to the wiki. Useful for reverting to old versions of pages or seeing which pages have recently been edited and the order in which these changes happened.
User updated pages
- Progress - A listing similar to AllPages, but it must be manually updated. It separates real articles from redirection pages and symbols show articles in various stages of completion (+ is an empty page, +++ is an outlined article, +++++ is a complete article, etc.). The reason for this page is to keep up with the state of the wiki as a whole in a manner that is more organized than AllPages.
- Index and IndexCat - Please see below for more information.
Conventions: Basics of naming and page style
Creating a new page
- New pages can easily be created either by clicking on the New Page buttons at the top of pages while logged-in or by clicking on a link that does not have a corresponding page.
Vietnamese or English page names?
- If one is dealing with a term from Vietnamese music (such as "đàn bầu" or "cải lương"), a proper Vietnamese noun (such as "Phạm Duy" or "Huế"), or a Vietnamese term more widely used than its counterpart (such as "Hán-Việt" instead of "Sino-Vietnamese), then the page name is that term, __with diacritics removed__. All usage of Vietnamese terms __should have diacritics__, however, so a link like đàn bầu actually looks like [dan bau|đàn bầu].
- Otherwise, if one is talking about a concept that does not necessarily have anything to do with Vietnamese music specifically, use the English term. For example, if I want to write an article about Vietnamese musical theory I would simply make a page called "musical theory." Just remember that the intended audience for this version of the wiki is English-speaking.
- There will be some gray areas, which will be at the contributor's discretion, mostly concerning terms that may or may not be specific to Vietnam. For example, it would not really matter whether an article on Vietnamese popular music was named pop music or tân nhạc (although I personally would probably go with the former). It hardly matters, as we have redirection links available.
- As mentioned, you can make pages for the other versions of the term as well, and have these automatically redirect to the main article. Thus, đàn bầu is the main article, but đàn độc huyền, độc huyền cầm, and monochord all redirect to it. See Redirecting links for more information.
Making a stub (short article) from an empty page
- Basic form for a stub is as follows (everything in caps should be replaced with the proper information):
Code snippet
''This article is a stub. You can help us <a href="/MY%20STUB?edit=1">expand it</a>.
([dochuyen84@gmail.com|Email us] if you would like to contribute but do not have the password).''
!MY STUB
(also ''[ALTERNATE NAME1]'', ''[ALTERNATE NAME2]''
English: ''[ENGLISH NAME]''
MY WRITING ABOUT MY STUB BEGINS HERE. IT SHOULD BE VERY SHORT. NO MORE THAN A PARAGRAPH.
- The result from making a page with the code above can be seen at MY STUB. If you are not getting the white box, then it is because you are not starting the first two lines with a space. Also, make sure that in the html link, you replace all spaces with %20 in the page name.
Outline of a long article
- A longer article with multiple sections should use the following form:
Code snippet
!MY ARTICLE
(also ''[ALTERNATE NAME1]'', ''[ALTERNATE NAME2]''
English: ''[ENGLISH NAME]''
<toc>
!Section 1
!!Subsection 1.1
blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah
!!Subsection 1.2
blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah
!Section 2
blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah
!Sources
* Source 1
* Source 2
!See also
* [Link 1]
- Go to MY ARTICLE to see what the above code will look like. Note that when you expand a page from a stub to a full article, you'll need to remove the white box.
- See Introduction for an example of a longer page with an outline.
Redirecting links
Why do we need to make redirection links?
- Redirection links are necessary because some concepts might be expressed using different terms, such as multiple names for one instrument. It is preferable to have the article in only one place, so that you don't have to edit an article multiple times in multiple places. Thus, monochord, dan doc huyen, and doc huyen cam all point to dan bau.
How do I do it?
- Make and name the page that you want to redirect from. Then use the following code to make it redirect. NEXTPAGE is the name of the page you're going to, while THISPAGE is the name of the current page.
Code snippet
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL=NEXTPAGE?redirect=THISPAGE">
Go to [article name] if you are not automatically redirected.
I made the wrong redirect link, how do I get back to edit it?
- If you happen to make a redirect link that goes to the same place or otherwise isn't working correctly, simply type http://vietmusic.pbwiki.com/Page%20Name?edit=1 into the Address bar of your browser (replacing Page%20Name with the actual name), and make the necessary changes.
Updating the index
Alphabetical Index
- All articles should be indexed, even redirects, and displayed with diacritics if necessary. Therefore, dan bau is placed under "D" and shown as đàn bầu, while monochord is under "M".
- Administrative and navigation-based pages would not go in the index because they are not strictly "articles." These include pages such as Editing Notes, FrontPage, etc.
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Categorized Index
- The categories are mostly fixed as they are, and articles should be fit into the outline in the best possible place. If no place is apparent, please e-mail me and together we'll decide if the categories need rearranging.
- Whereas the alphabetical index puts each page on its own row, even if it is just a redirect, all redirects appear on the same row as the article in the categorized index. Therefore, the entry for dan bau looks something like:
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