Pre-launch discussion
From PenguinWiki
PROBLEM FIXED - thanks. --Christine 17:23, 25 January 2007 (CST) Sorry to butt in here but I've noticed a TECHNICAL HITCH. Changing the main page button in the navigation bar across the top to novel has created a problem. When you navigate away from the novel page, e.g. go to Ethical Guidelines, the button still says 'novel' but it doesn't take you to the novel page when you click on it. I think this is because it's the button for the main page of any section you're in - as distinct from the discussion page or history page, etc. In other words the top navigation bar buttons have a different function from those in the side bar. So in the top nav bar the first button from the left should read main page (or whatever it was originally) instead of novel, otherwise it seems as if the navigation links are broken when in fact they're not. --Christine 04:13, 25 January 2007 (CST)
BTW - I like the new look. --Christine 04:13, 25 January 2007 (CST)
From Kate - Can you add in the DMU logo please? Also, I think the blurb that is at the top of the page, that Jeremy wrote for the blog initially, should include some mention of the DMU student editorial team. Also, the resources tags need to be more specific - 'DMU' should say 'DMU MA in Creative Writing and New Media', and the 'Creative Writing' button should say 'DMU Team' and should point to this page http://www.hum.dmu.ac.uk/blogs/cwnm/students_2006-7/ instead of the page it is pointing to currently. I think our involvement needs to be highlighted more firmly and publicly then it is at the moment.--Katepullinger 05:07, 25 January 2007 (CST)
Some copy for an About the Wikinovel can be found here - please add your preferred blog/website if you want this up on the page.
This is my attempt at editing. I feel a bit dim having to announce that this is an edit but there you go.
Paris Hilton was at the airport when David and Victoria arrived.
Her mother had suggested she be there.
"It might help them acclimatise." said the Mom of Paris.
Nevertheless, Paris had been reluctant to go as Melrose Place re-runs were showing on HBO and she loved history.
(Jeremy, are you planning on images being included in the novel? From hosting my own wiki, it can be a bit tricky to explain to the novice how to upload them. The help page would be good to have very simple instructions because I know some people using mine just couldn't get their heads around very simple task, such as editing and so they went away- just a thought or two- I'll start drawing up some simple instructions tomorrow Biva - I think we should have 'technical guidelines' and something about what sort of behaviour (is that the right word) would be helpful/desirable. biva) I've started creating the 'ethical guidelines' now - follow the link.--Jeremyet 12:05, 23 January 2007 (CST)
From Kate - I think the 'article' button should be called 'novel' instead. agreed Kate
From Christine - I think a side bar link for Character Bios would be useful. --Christine 09:33, 16 January 2007 (CST) (< that was a result of clicking the 'Your signature with timestamp' button - hmmm...)
From Kate - I think 'A Million Penguins' should be on the homepage or framing page somewhere.
All good thoughts - keep them coming!
I asked the designer to do the basic configuration first since I thought that we'd find things out about the wiki through playing with it a bit - he will add a better design down the line, but I would like to get back to him tomorrow with some initial comments. In particular - what static pages do we want/need linked to on the sidebar.
Suggestions for sidebar links - Guidelines for contributors - Could 'Help' link be changed to 'Tech Help' or 'Wiki Help' to avoid confusion with help or guidance to do with writing? Also what are 'Current events'? I'll go find out. I've just checked the 'Current events' page but I'm none the wiser. Anyone know what it is? Should its name be changed?
Maybe there should be a separate sidebar block for Novel links in addition to the current blocks of links. If so it might mean moving the Main page and Recent changes links out of their current block and into the novel block. What do you think? Clear navigation is so important. --Christine 17:53, 16 January 2007 (CST) [ < Hey, what kind of time is this? CST? It's 23.53 GMT] { < Ah ha! I've worked it out - changed it in my preferences / time and date }--Christine 06:41, 17 January 2007 (CST) [ < Oh. It still appears to be wrong. Why?]
From Kate: re sidebars - we definitely need a sidebar link to the DMU course website - can't miss this recruitment opportunity I'm afraid!!! Big priority, as far as I'm concerned. If we are sticking to what's there already (on the left) and adding - I'd say add DMU links beneath the Penguin ones, in the box called 'resources'. Here's the link: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/pg/ma/cwnm.jsp Maybe it should say 'DMU Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media'?
I'm going to try uploading an image to test how easy/tricky it is: Image:Example.jpg < Ah - that was a result of clicking the 'Embedded image' button. So where do I upload on image or does the image have to be hosted elsewhere? Ah ha - would normally go to 'Special pages' but uploading files is disabled, so can't upload images right now. --Christine 06:55, 17 January 2007 (CST)
Well I'm not sure I want to follow the lives of Paris and the Beckhams, but am intrigued to see how user-concocted fiction might develop. I picture a sea of Penguins in the streets of the city, like one of those mass naked photo art works, and perhaps Hilton, Beckham and Spice being carried aloft by the Penguinhood, crowdsurfing from fin to fin... Anyway, just wanted to say hello.
Chris (Meade)
From Kate - I haven't figured out how to add new pages or how to link to new pages. Has this not been enabled? I think it should be, so that we can have pages with character biogs that are seperate from the novel itself. Also, I suppose, people might want to start breakaway chapters and things like that. The images don't seem to be working. Can other people see the images Christine has experimented with?
From Kate - Jeremy have you figured out how to limit people's contributions? Is there a piece of software in here that can do that? Or are we going for an honesty-policy on this?
Tim - Hello everyone. First I'll introduce myself - we're helping Jeremy set this up. I'll take all your comments on board and make some amends but here are a couple of thoughts.
Images - I'm not sure if allowing images is a good idea. I can see all sorts of issues with copyright.
Pages - Again, it should be OK to allow the Novel to branch and people add pages if this is the way you want things to work. I wasn't sure if we were aiming for a linear contribution when there is only one way for the story to go or to allow multiple paths. I guess we could always runt the project one way for a couple of months then start a new novel or allow branching.
Word limiting - I think this may be officially called edit throttle or something like that. We can try and work out a way to do this but surely a wiki relies on the good nature of the contributors. If someone is feeling inspired to write then maybe we should let them keep at it. Maybe if we allow for a branching novel this won't be a problem as people can go off at tandem if it looks like someone is trying to direct things to far in one direction. I guess the risk of this is that the project becomes lots of people writing their own novel from a set start rather than a collabrative effort.
I think thats it for now - these are only thoughts I've had. What do you all think? __________________
From Alison - I agree re not including images at this stage. How about get the story structured first and when it begins to hold itself together maybe invite suggestions for images? (Alison N)
from Jo, 21 Jan (Joanna Howard) Hello Tim. Nice to hear from you. Word limit: We did talk about a 250 word limit. In my view, that would be a good start. Writing short bits is a good discipline anyway. If it's complicated technically, contributors could be warned that more than 250 will be guillotined or edited down. I like the phrases below the text entry box("Please note that all ....") very useful and a good outline. Possibly other brief guidelines could be added.
Images: I also agree about no images at this stage. It could be that if we have subpages as in the LOST wiki Jeremy mentioned, or sidebars as Christine suggested, the images could go there - for landscape, characters etc, with full copyright issues clearly explained. Or people only submitting their own work - illustrators for example?
Pages and branching. This needs serious thought. Your point about people going off and writing their own novel is a good one. Perhaps there need to be an emphasis in the introduction about the aim of collaboration and the need to enhance and add to the main story as it develops. I guess there will be guidelines about 'no offensive material - racist comments etc'? as in a normal moderated discussion forum?
Moderating. Other contributors editing or removing - (as in phrase below the box) I think wikis can save earlier versions - am I right? It would be a shame if a good contribution were removed by someone who had a different idea - or wouod we just run with that? /Jo
________________________
from Kate: this came from Toby Moores, of Sleepy Dog, games developer, in discussion about another wiki project - "At a recent conference Ester Dyson said that to get the best out of a wiki you need to arrange the chairs in the room:
If you walk into a big empty hall with all the chairs stacked against the wall people often cluster nervously near the door because they don't know how to use the room. If however, the chairs are laid out as a lecture theatre or a restaurant then people know how to use the room.
Thus a certain amount of preparation by the mavens amongst us would facilitate the adoption of a creative wiki and other collaborative/social software.
The Dresdener Kleinwort (DRKW) Wiki case study on use of wikis also highlighted a need for management to use wikis to post agendas, calendar events and to do lists to promote the habit of visiting the wiki, even if only as an observer. There is also a me-too element discussed, with regard to contributions.
Priming the pump Collaboration is going to happen because there is a visible, persistent, low risk environment in which to work, both at-the-time and over-time."
There is some interesting food for thought there.
Note for Tim from Kate: - we decided on 250 words as part of a discussion about how to prevent people from uploading their entire unpublished novel into the wiki once they realise that Penguin editors are involved in the project. I'd take the opposite approach from you - start with a word limit, then, perhaps, relax it as the project takes shape. Another question - is it possible to allow people to use different coloured fonts?
TIM
Hello everyone. Adding a new page is just done by adding an internal link when editing a document like this.
I agree that the 250 word limit is a good idea especially when you consider how many unpublished authors are out there and this providing a platform which could be open for abuse. I'm not sure if there is a way to do this technically - I will keep trying to work this out. Providing the commmunity is strong and we reserve the right to cut down entries over 250 word length then hopefully this should police itself. I'll see what we can about coloured fonts - are you thinking that people can then colour up their entries?
I would worry that different coloured fonts might be visually very very confusing - what if five different people edited the same sentance Tim - can we do anything so that timestamps are displayed in GMT? I copied the following from the wikipedia help page... 'Wikipedia's servers record activity based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC for short). You can set your user preferences to display time for the time zone you are in. If you do this, Wikipedia will show all times in Recent changes, page histories, and contribution histories based on your local time zone. However, when you sign a talk page with Jeremyet 09:53, 23 January 2007 (CST), the timestamp is created in text, so it has to be displayed in UTC. Automated logs such as image file uploads are also shown in server time (UTC). --Jeremyet 09:50, 23 January 2007 (CST) _________
From Kate - I see your point re coloured fonts - bad idea.
Also, I'm putting the Terms and Conditions that Penguin drew up for the project on another page: Terms & Conditions
[suggestion from Jo - we could add here something like "These cover the legal aspects of this project, including Penguin's position on liability, confidentiality, copyright, acceptable style and avoiding offense. You need to agree and comply before you post your instalment of the story"] PS I can't figure out how to get a text colour!
Jo Howard I'm not sure of the function of the "move" page. From all the warnings on it, it looks a bit dangerous. Does it have to be there? and (later, Jan 29) the + tab, which comes up as 'Welcome editing Talk'. What does that do?
Hello
To understand beter the project.
Is it inspired by Linux the penguin?
The project to write a book , a novel, is ended?
Is it possible to propose another subject,for another book?Yes?If
yes,is it possible to propose as a new subject,a scientific enquiry
over three differents facts?
The facts are what happened : FACT ONE : the 27/09/1985(september) in Braine
L'Alleud,Belgium,in a
supermarket Delhaize where 3 persons were killed ,and a few money taken.
FACT TWO : the 27/09/1985(september) in Overijse,Belgium,in a
supermarket Delhaize where 5 persons were killed,and also a few money
taken.
FACT THREE : the 09/11/1985(november),in
Aalst,Belgium,in a supermarket Delhaize,where eight persons were
killed,and a few money taken,(?cigarettes? also?)
Thanks for reading this.--A Reader 17:19, 1 March 2007 (EST)
