Instructions for the Wiki

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Thu, 19 Jun 2003 14:11:08 PDT
Dear Jamie and all,

I know that some of you have had trouble with the wiki. For some of you it 
has been very easy and for others it has been a struggle. I don't want to 
be defensive about this but I have labored over the FAQs adding new pieces 
each time something comes up and I wonder if anyone is reading them.

http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/

is our home page. That is where everything starts. That is where you access 
the photograph page that has all the genera on it. That is where you find 
the upload file. That is where you find the disease pages, the mystery 
bulbs, the contributors page, the FAQ, the section that tells you how to 
use the wiki, how to add pages, how to edit.

On the page where you upload the file I have written the following:
Instructions for naming your file, how to upload it, how to find the name 
of your file if you have not made a note of it when it is uploaded, and 
what to do with it after you have uploaded it. What else do I need to add 
to help you all figure it out. I am open to suggestions.

In the FAQ there is this question:
What do I do after I have uploaded the file?

In most cases we hope you will add the URL for your picture to one of the 
Wiki Pages. There are pages for Mystery Bulbs, Diseases, and for many bulb 
genera. If your image is for a species or a hybrid that does not have a 
genus page already created for it consider making a new page for that genus 
on the Photographs and Information page (see below to learn how.) If you 
just have one image of a plant from a genus that is not yet listed on the 
Photographs page you may just add information and your URL to the 
Photographs page.

Go to the Wiki page you want (named genus, Mystery, Photographs). Select 
edit at the bottom of the page. Add information alphabetically by the name 
of the plant. Please credit the person who took the picture and briefly 
tell what it is, country of origin, whether photographed in the wild or 
garden, and other brief information that might assist someone who is 
interested in growing it. Below this information on a separate line add the 
URL for the image of the plant preceded by three % symbols. Do not use 
brackets around the URL file when you add it to our page so it will become 
a wiki link on our page. After you have previewed your work to make sure 
you are satisfied with how it looks, save it. For editing tips see below.

If you want the people on the PBS list to know that you have posted a 
picture please send an email to the list telling them about your picture. 
Include the URL for the wiki page if you have more than one picture to 
share instead of the URL for the file. For example: 
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

There are a lot more questions and answers like this.

Does this information also need to be on the Photographs page since people 
obviously are not reading the FAQs? I think we hoped the photographs page 
would stand alone and not be a how to page so the how to pages were put on 
the wiki home page.

In addition I am always willing to help people learn the system and 
everyone I've helped has learned it. Since the wiki is interactive any one 
of you can "improve" the instructions. That is fine with me. If you want to 
add to the FAQs just send me your ideas and I will update them. The Wiki 
instructions we started with were terrible. I have tried really hard to 
make them clear and so am feeling very discouraged. Perhaps as I keep 
adding more information to help everyone it makes it look too complicated 
so people panic and I need to take away some of the instructions.

On the photographs page I recently added information about how to use the 
search feature which I learned from trying it out. On the top of every wiki 
page (except for the files page) there is a find page box. When you click 
on it you can type a word in the full text search and find a reference to 
any word that is written on any page.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

And http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/ is the preface for every 
single wiki page. Just add the name of the page on the end. So if you know 
the genus and there is a page for it, all you have to do is add the name of 
that genus. You can actually go to the url that is displayed and just 
change the last word and hit enter.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… will get you the Lilium 
page.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… will get you the 
Contributors page.

I could add this information to the FAQs but would that help?

I check the uploads every day, sometimes twice a day as does Mark and I 
don't think many of them are falling through the cracks. Some people have 
uploaded files that know how to put them on pages, but just haven't had 
time to do it.

Write me privately all of you who have struggled or are struggling and tell 
me how to improve it.

By the way I went to the files page as directed on the upload page and 
sorted by date and found the two beautiful pictures of Lilium pardalinum 
that Jaime uploaded.
One was named Lilium_pardalinum .JPG and the other was named 
Lilium_pardalinum_profile.JPG so using the system of adding the names of 
his files to the location of the files his urls became:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…
Since this one has a space in it the space is replaced with %20
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…

Mary Sue



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