Help:Getting Started

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Revision as of 06:55, 12 August 2012 by Teleuteskitty (talk | contribs) (amended for use of episode list templates, general edit of first few sections.)
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This page covers the basics of setting up and editing a page, for more detailed information, see the list of useful links below. If you have any other questions or suggestions, please add them to the Community portal, where one of us will be happy to help.

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

Creating new episode pages

It's best to create a page before you start transcribing, to make sure 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! By adding your page to the episode list templates, they will appear on both the Main Page, and the individual SGU Episodes, or 5X5 Episodes, pages.

Full SGU episodes

It's easy to create a page. First, add your transcript of choice to Template:SGU episode list. Click "Edit" on the top right and you will see the wiki markup for that page. Don't worry, it's quite simple. Find the spot where your transcript belongs, and copy/paste a link, modify it and add the 'transcription in progress' icon template, {{i}}, so people know that it's in progress. For example, to create episode 355 you would add:

* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012 {{i}}

Which will appear like this:

Putting the page name between double square brackets inserts the link to the page (see the links section below). Click "Show preview" to make sure everything looks right; your new link will show up colored red, to indicate that the page that it points to doesn't exist yet. Add a summary to describe your edit, something like "added link to episode 355", and hit "Save page".

Now, if you go to the Main Page, or SGU Episodes, you will see your new edit in place. If you click on the link, you will be taken to an edit box for your new page, and you're good to go.

5X5 episodes

The process is a little different for 5X5 episodes, as they are displayed in a sortable table. For these, you should go to Template:5X5 episode list and open the editing page. To keep entries in a uniform format, we use another template, Template:5X5 list entry, to add rows to the table. These are easy to use, and an example is included in the editing box for you to copy and paste. A brief description and example of this is also included on the Template:5X5 list entry page itself.

5X5 episodes are added in descending numerical order, so copy the example text, scroll down to find where your page should go, and paste the example in. Then you can amend the text to suit your 5X5 episode. For example: 

|-
{{5X5 list entry
|incomplete = y  
|episode    = 104  
|date       = May 9 2011  
|contents   = Naturalistic Fallacy  
|category1  = Logic & Philosophy      
|category2  = Humor                    
|category3  = ESP                      
}}

Note, each entry should be preceded by "|-" to make sure it is presented as a new row.

Here's a quick description of each of the parameters:

  • incomplete – including this parameter will add an 'in progress' icon to your episode title. Once the transcription page is complete, this line can be removed.
  • episode – 5X5 episode number
  • date – date of broadcast
  • contents – title of episode as given on the SGU website
  • category1 – topic that best describes the content of the episode. To see a list of possible topic categories, go to Category:Topic.
  • category2 and category3 – these are optional parameters, which allow you to include other relevant topic categories.

Categories in these templates are case-sensitive, and need to match the topic category name precisely in order to link pages properly. If you're unsure about how to categorize the episode, you can leave these blank and another contributor can help.

Once you've done this, preview the page to make sure it works properly, add a summary of your edit in the 'summary' box, and save. Again, the links to the episode wil be red to indicate that the page doesn't exist. If you click on those links, you will be taken to the edit page for your new transcription.

Adding content

If you want to get transcribing right away, we are more than happy for you to do a text-only transcript, as this is really the lion's share of the work.

However, if you want to, it's easy to set up a new page, just copy/paste the contents of a skeleton page to get yours started. Go to Episode_skeleton for full SGU episodes, or 5X5 skeleton for 5X5 pages, click "Edit", and copy-paste the wiki markup into your new page. Then you can go to the show notes for the episode you're interested in, and copy/paste the relevant information over into your transcription page to make a custom skeleton, which will form the basis of your transcript. For information on how to set up the infobox on your page, go to Help:Episode infobox.

Once you're done, check your edit by hitting "Show preview". If you're happy with your page, add a description of your edit in the "Summary" field, like "created page" or whatever you like, and click "Save page".

To indicate that you are working on the transcript, add the transcribing all template at the top of the page, and insert your user name (optional):

{{transcribing all
|transcriber = user name
}}

This will appear on your page like this:

  Emblem-pen.png This episode is in the middle of being transcribed by user name (talk) as of {{{date}}}.
To help avoid duplication, please do not transcribe this episode while this message is displayed.

If you would like to work on a single section of the transcription, then you can use the transcribing template instead, placed in the relevant section on the page:

  Emblem-pen.png This section is in the middle of being transcribed by user name (talk) as of {{{date}}}.
To help avoid duplication, please do not transcribe this section while this message is displayed.

To indicate that your page has segments open for others to transcribe, you can add the {{Open}} template next to your page's entry on Template:SGU episode list, which will insert the Open for transcription icon.

Editing pages

You can edit any page 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 click on the "Edit" link to the right of the section heading.

After entering your content into the edit box, enter a description of what you did in the summary field, then click 'preview' to ensure that your work is being displayed as intended.

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 its glory.

Edit summary

When saving a page, it is considered good practice to add a brief summary of the edit in the 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 a page are automatically saved in their revision 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.

You can set your user preferences to show an alert if you try to save a page without entering a summary. When you are logged in, a 'My preferences' link appears at the top of the screen. If you click on this, and go to the 'Editing' tab, you will see a list of check-boxes, including one stating "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary".

Adding comments

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, 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. For exmple: 

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

makes that text visible only in the editing box, not the page itself. This means that any user that tries to help with this problem will be able to get to the root of the issue quickly.

Comments can also be very useful when you want to come back to a section later, or add links.

Wiki mark-up

Here, we briefly describe the most commonly used wikitext markup and html tags for pages on this site. Html tags take the form <tag> to start, and </tag> to end, encompassing the text that the tag applies to. Most require a closing tag, but not all of them (e.g <br> and <references/>).

For more detail, see wikimedia: Advanced_editing

⊗ If you would like to leave the mark-up to some-one else, or if you have any questions or suggestions, just put a note in the Community portal, and someone will be happy to help out. (see notes on the Community portal below)

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 the Episode skeleton page

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 start in a small font, using the <small> and </small> tags.

News Item 2 (24:32) 

=== News Item 2 <small>(24:32)</small>===

Line breaks and paragraphs

Description Appearance on page What you type
Starting a new line in the editing window does not appear on the actual 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, which doesn't require 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 double apostrophes.

These can be used to signify when a speaker emphasizes a word.

We want to emphasize words 
We want to ''emphasize'' words
Words in bold are indicated by triple apostrophes. We want to emphasize words 
We want to '''emphasize''' words
Superscript text is placed between <sup> and </sup> tags November 15th 2011 
November 15<sup>th</sup> 2011
Subscript text is placed between <sub> and </sub> tags Water: H2O 
Water: H<sub>2</sub>O
Special characters can be inserted using wikitext.

For a list of special character codes, see wikimedia - Advanced editing

ï é

Naïveté 

&iuml;  &eacute;

Na&iuml;vet&eacute;

Quotes

Description Appearance on page What you type
Long quotes are defined using the <blockquote> and </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]]
Internal links to sections of pages are identified using # Help:Getting Started#Wiki mark-up 
[[Help:Getting Started#Wiki mark-up]]
If an internal link is used, but no such page exists, the link is displayed in red. Birds vs Monkeys 
[[Birds vs Monkeys]]
To use different text for internal links, add a pipe-line between the page name and the text. Mark-up 
[[Help:Getting Started#Wiki mark-up|Mark-up]]
URLs including http:// 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.

Remember to include http://.

Internal links can be named in the same way when full URLs are given.

SGU website

SGU forums 

[http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ SGU website]
[http://sguforums.com/ SGU forums]
If no text is assigned to a link within single brackets, it appears numbered.

However, this should be avoided, and references should be used in cases where it is not appropriate to embed the link in text. (see below)

[1] 
[http://www.theskepticsguide.org/]

References

When it does not make sense to assign a link to words in the transcription, you can use references.

References can include both text and URLs, and appear as super-scripted numbered links on the page. These link to a reference section, usually inserted at the bottom of the page, which in turn links back to the point in the text where the reference was made.

References are usually placed after punctuation.

Description Appearance on page What you type
Mark each reference separately at the relevant point in the text, using <ref> and </ref> tags.

Include the text/links you want to appear in the reference section between the tage.
Clicking on the reference links in this example will take you to the examples in the next row.

I read that article.[1]

Their website is great.[2] 

I read that article.<ref>Example 1</ref>
Their website is great.<ref>Example 2</ref>
Pages with references must contain a section for listing these including the <references/> tag.

This automatically lists all references on the page.

Clicking on the arrows takes you back to the place where the reference was made in the above row.

If <references/> is not included, an alert is shown when previewing or editing the page.

References       

  1. ↑ Example 1
  2. ↑ Example 2 
== References ==
<references/>

For more information on references, see Wiki Help:Footnotes.


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

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 also use this program with a foot pedal. You can find an overview of ExpressScribe functions in this article

VLC media player can be also used, by using the playback speed function. Dialling down the speed until you can type comfortably in your favourite text editor, a quick alt-tab to switch to vlc, then shift-left a couple of times will skip back a few seconds if you missed something. Alt-left and alt-right skips larger chunks of time. With a little practice these commands become second nature.

Text editing software

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

Here are some things you might want to consider:

  • Spell-checking – the editing box on this site underlines unrecognized and/or misspelled words with a dotted red line, but is relatively limited.
  • Automatic correction – some text editors (e.g. MS Word) automatically correct common typos, e.g. 'taht', 'beleive' and 'sicence'. This can be very handy, however, it can sometimes cause problems if a false correction is made and not noticed.
  • Grammar checking – not for the podcast content itself, but for errors such as lower case letters after full-stops and two spaces in a row etc.
  • Formatting – e.g. only 'straight' (or 'typewriter') apostrophes are recognised in wiki-markup for bold and italics etc., 'curly' (or typographic) apostrophes, as often used in MS Word, are not.
    • To change this in MS Word, go to Tools>AutoCorrect Options>AutoFormat As You Type and deselect the checkbox for replacing "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes".

Community Portal

The Community portal is a page where you can post messages about the website. This is the place to ask for help, make suggestions etc.

You can post a message here by editing and saving the page like any other, entering new posts at the bottom. 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 "~~~~", or by clicking the signature button at the top of your editing box.

Useful links

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