Instructions for the Wiki
Mary Sue Ittner (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