User:Symon/blog/What is the EK Wiki?
From EastKingdomWiki
< User:Symon | blog
The first in a multipart series by Symon of Barnesdale
What is a wiki?
In simple terms a wiki is a website that any user can edit and contribute to. In the age of Facebook and YouTube, that might not sound like much, but once upon a time it was a radical notion. Wikpedia is a wiki most people are familiar with.
A more sophisticated view is that a wiki is a collaborative store of information. Because any user can contribute, and building on the notion that "We is smarter than me"[1], or at least "We knows more than me", it's a place where groups of people can share and make something that is more than the sum of its parts.
That is what the East Kingdom Wiki is. The East Kingdom Wiki contains around 3000 pages of content, including histories of the East Kingdom and its local groups, descriptions and communities of various arts and sciences and martial activities, advice and articles, lineages, photo galleries, customs and shtick from the East, and much much more. Or, to sum it up as one Baron I know put it, "It is so freaking useful." [2]
How do I get involved? What can I do?
While there are lots of ways to get involved, the best place to start is by requesting an account and standing up a Populace page for your SCA persona. Having a Persona page is a great way to share information about who you are, what your story is, what you do in the society, and so on. You can set it up to show your offices, your awards, and your rankings. You can showcase your projects, share your handouts, and show your connections. Populace pages are an invaluable resource for scribes looking to create scrolls tailored to the recipient, to heralds looking for the correct spelling of a name, to polling orders gathering information on a nominee, or for anyone looking for others who share in their passions or for individuals to teach them new passions.
Don't worry, editing is fast and simple. Creating new material and linking to existing material is at the heart of the wiki.
I'm not going to go into great detail on that now, because there are lots of resources to help you get started already. For example:
- EKWiki Getting Started A rough and incomplete guide here in the EK Wiki itself. (Already an EKWikixpert? Want to contribute to that page?)
- EKWiki Part 1: Why a Wiki? The first in a three part series by Þórý Veðardóttir on what the wiki is, and how to build a populace page.
- Creating an EK Wiki Page The first in a two part set of postings from Ivan Matfeevich Rezansky on how to create a populace page. Part one is the basics, part two talks about some 'extras' that you use to add flair to your populace page.
What's next?
In future posts I'll talk about other ways you can contribute, formatting tips, cool tricks, and ways of getting the most out of the EK Wiki.