Help:Getting Started

Thanks for your interest in helping out with the SGU transcript project!

As you probably know, there are over 350 full episodes of the SGU, and over 100 5x5 episodes, so we appreciate any and all of the help we get.

We want to make it clear that we welcome all contributions, regardless of whether you can tell the difference between Jay and Bob, don't have time to do all the formatting, or can only transcribe parts of episodes. We encourage everyone to contribute just as much or as little as they wish.

This page covers the basics of setting up and editing a page. For more detailed information, see the list of [useful links] below.

Getting started

First things first, find an episode that you want to transcribe, make sure it isn't already listed on the Main Page, and create a page for it.

If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

???what about marking episodes with section work only???

Creating new episode pages

It's best to create a page before you start any of the work in order to make sure that no-one else is working on the same episode. You don't want to put in all that effort only to find out someone submitted the same transcript just before you did!

It's easy to create a page, just enter the name of the page you want to create in the search bar, for example:

"SGU Episode ###" or "5X5 Episode ##"

Searching for this will let you know if the page has already been created by someone else - in which case you should find another episode to transcribe.

If no-one has created a page for that episode, then the search results page will say:

There were no results matching the query.

Create the page "SGU Episode ###" on this wiki!

Click on the red link to open the new page's editing box, and type ''page in progress'' in the editing window.

Saving this page creates a new page for your episode that notifies people viewing it that someone is working on it.

Adding to the Main Page

Before you run off to start your transcription, you should add your new page to the Main Page. This makes it extra clear to other contributors that you've called dibs on this episode.

⊗ If you would like someone to do this step for you, or if you have any questions/suggestions, just put a note in the Community portal, and someone will be happy to help out. ???link to section on portal???

You can edit pages by clicking the 'edit' tab at the top of the page, which allows you to edit the whole page. If you just want to edit one section, you can also click on the 'edit' link to the right of the relevant section heading.

Find the section on the Main Page where your episode should go and enter the link to your page, the date and mark it as incomplete. If you are transcribing a 5X5 episode, also include the episode name , for example:

[[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 (incomplete)

or

[[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy (incomplete)

The page name between double square brackets inserts the link to the page. You can remove the "(incomplete)" text from the Main Page once you've finished your submission in the same way.

Editing pages

Once you've done all the hard work, it's time to show the world.

Go to the episode page you created, click the 'edit' tab, and paste your text into the editing box. Click on the 'show preview' button at the bottom of the page to show what your current edit looks like.

It's generally best to check the preview before saving a page in order to avoid excessive entries in the Recent changes log. This log shows all changes made to the website, and is useful for checking for new additions, such as messages in the Community portal.

When you're happy with the page, or want to save your progress and come back to it later, click 'save page', which will show your newly edited page in all it's glory.

When saving any editing of a page, it is considered good practice to add a brief summary of the edit in the text entry field above the save and preview buttons. For example, "Interview segment added", "page formatted" or "transcript completed".

Adding a summary helps to distinguish between different revisions of the page should users wish to compare edits or return to an earlier version. All versions of the page are automatically saved in the Page history, and can be viewed by clicking on the 'View history' tab of the page itself or from the link in the Recent changes log.

If you would like someone to look over your transcription to help with distinguishing the Rogues, or to help with any parts of the transcription process, it is helpful if you can insert a comment stating the time in the podcast at that point, and post a message on the Community portal. Comments are entered between "<!--" and "-->" in the editing box and do not appear on the saved page. Therefore entering:

<!-- Help needed to distinguish Rogue speaking at 1:02:48 -->

makes that text visible only in the editing window. This means that any user that tries to help with this problem will be able to get to the root of the issue quickly.

Wiki mark-up

Here, we briefly describe the most commonly used wikitext markup and html tags for pages on this site. For more detail, see [[1]]

⊗ If you would like someone to mark up your page for you, just put a note in the Community portal, and someone will be happy to help out.???link to portal section???

Headers

These are used to mark the different podcast segments, and are automatically incorporated into a table of contents that appears at the top of the page.
An example of the different headers used in transcription pages can be found at Episode templateTK???
??? sentence case for segments but not sub-sections???

Description	Appearance on page	What you type
Headers for each of the different segments of the podcast are made by using 2 'equals' signs	Podcast Segment	==Podcast Segment==
Headers for subsections within the podcast segments are made by using 3 'equals' signs	Segment subsection	===Segment subsection===
???We also include the time at which podcast segments starts in a small font using the <small> tags	News Item 2 (24:32)	=== News Item 2 <small>(24:32)</small>===

Line breaks and paragraphs

Line breaks in the editing box do not appear in the same way on the actual page.

Description	Appearance on page	What you type
Starting a new line in the editing window does not show on the final page as a line break	This is my first lineThis is my second line	This is my first line This is my second line
To start a new line, use the <br> tag This tag does not need a closing tag You can use this on the same line, or on a new line	This is my first line This is my second line	This is my first line <br>This is my second line
To start a new paragraph, leave an empty line between text in the editing window	This is my first line This is my second line	This is my first line This is my second line

Text Formatting

Description	Appearance on page	What you type
Words in italics are indicated by using 2 apostrophes	We want to emphasize words	We want to ''emphasize'' words
Words in bold are indicated by using 3 apostrophes	We want to emphasize words	We want to '''emphasize''' words

Quotes

Description	Appearance on page	What you type
Long quotes are defined using the <blockquote> tags This indents the text from both margins	All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players	<blockquote>All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players</blockquote>

Links

Description	Appearance on page	What you type
Internal links (pages on sgutranscripts.org) are given within double square brackets	Main Page	[[Main Page]]
External links refer to other websites, and are automatically detected from the editing text	http://www.theskepticsguide.org/	http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
To assign external links to text, add a space after the URL, insert the required text and enclose using single square brackets Internal links can be named in the same way when full URLs are given	SGU website go to front page	[http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ SGU website] [http://www.sgutranscripts.org/wiki/Main_Page go to front page]
If no text is assigned to a link within single brackets, it appears numbered	[2]	[http://www.theskepticsguide.org/]

References

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Tips for Transcription

You should use whatever method of transcription you find suits you best. So far, we don't know of any speech recognition software available to do the task for us, so the following is for manual transcription only. Here's some quick info on what we've found useful so far.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions to add.

Audio software

(copied)My method of transcription is to use VLC media player, and dial down the speed until I can type comfortably. A quick alt-tab, then shift-left a couple of times will skip back a few seconds if you missed something.

ExpressScribe is a free program that allows you a lot of control over the audio playback, whilst using the text editor of your choice. You can assign hot-keys to actions such as play, pause, speed up, skip back etc. that are system-wide (i.e. they work no matter what other program you're in at the time).
You can find an overview of ExpressScribe functions in this article

Text editing software

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what program you use for writing your transcription, but some have their advantage and disadvantages.

Here are some things you might want to consider:

• spell-checking
• automatic correction of common typos (e.g. with MS Word)
• ???preferences for format/saving file type

Community Portal

To post a message in the Community portal, click on the 'edit' tab on the portal page and enter your note at the bottom of the editing box. If you are replying to a post, you should indent your text by including one or more colons, ":"
You can automatically insert your user name and the time of the post by using 4 tildas "~~~~".

Useful inks

• Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.
• Configuration settings list
• MediaWiki FAQ
• MediaWiki release mailing list
• [3]