Help:How to Contribute
This page is very much "in progress", I'm just chucking in ideas for now, and will clean it up later. If you have any suggestions / comments, please add them to the discussion page.--Teleuteskitty (talk) 19:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
SGUTranscripts.org aims to help SGU fans search and reference topics, and to make the SGU episodes as accessible as possible. There are lots of different ways to contribute, this page describes some of them.
If you have any ideas for fun things to include on the site, please let us know in the Community portal.
'Editing Required' template
Pages that include the 'Editing required' template (orange box saying "This episode needs:...") show what aspects of the page need to be completed. These pages will also be listed in the relevant subcategory of Category:Needs attention, which is a good place to look for any loose ends that need tying up.
Once an issue has been addressed, it can be removed from the 'Editing required' template by deleting the input line in the page's editing box. If it is the last issue to be resolved, then the template can be removed from the page entirely.
Transcription
The most obvious way to help out is to transcribe an episode, or sections of an episode.
If you're new to transcribing, you might want to start with a 5X5 episode, or a segment of an episode. The Help:Getting Started page gives information on setting up and editing pages.
We don't have any rules for transcribing, but we try to keep as true to the podcast as possible.
While you don't need to include all the fillers, such as "um", "er", "you know", it's generally a good idea to stick to what is actually said, and not to interpret the Rogues' dialogue. The way a person speaks is often very different to how you would read or write text, and can be very messy, even non-sensical. However, with so many people contributing transcriptions, re-writing podcasts in a more 'readable' format would be heavily influenced by the writing style and interpretation of the transcriber, which would soon become impossible to monitor. Therefore, it's probably best to leave it to the reader to interpret, and to use punctuation (such as commas, dashes and "...") to indicate broken sentences, change of tack etc.
To help convey the tone of the dialogue, emphasis of words can be shown by including them in italics (see Help:Getting Started#Text_Formatting).
Where the Rogues laugh - and they often do - include (laughter) in the transcript.
If you have trouble deciphering what is said, just put (inaudible) where the speech would be.
Things to keep in mind
(needs better section title)
Whilst transcribing an episode, it is a good idea to keep in mind other aspects of the transcription page that you might want to add to. As transcriber, you will be familiar with the content, and able to identify the most important points. For example, it can be easy to note the times at which each segment begins and the topic categories that are covered when transcribing. In the same way, when an interesting fact comes up, you might want to add it to the 'Today I Learned' list for the episode (see below).
If you'd like to transcribe without adding other features, that's absolutely fine, and plenty of work in itself. If you come across something you want to point out to others editing the page, you can insert a comment in the editing box. For example, if you come across a fact for the 'Today I Learned' list, or a good quote from one of the Rogues, you can insert a comment using <!-- and -->. This won't show on the regular page, but will be included in the page's edit box.
| Appearance on page | What you type |
|---|---|
| text text text text text text | text text text text text text <!-- include this in TIL section --> |
Time-stamps
One of the main advantages of transcribing the SGU podcasts is for reference. By including time-stamps at the beginning of each segment, readers can revisit topics of interest, or point other people to the section, without going through the whole podcast (not that that's ever much of a chore).
Some transcriptions need time-stamps added to them, you can find a list of these pages at Category:Needs time-stamps.
Time-stamps are added in a small font in the section header, for example:
| Appearance on page | What you type |
|---|---|
Science or Fiction (45:16) |
== Science or Fiction <small>(45:16)</small> == |
Formatting
A list of pages needing to be formatted can be found at Category:Needs formatting.
Wiki Mark-up
Page skeletons
Infobox
Links
A list of pages needing links can be found at Category:Needs links.
Links provided in the show notes
Transcript pages should include all of the links available in the podcast show notes page at theskepticsguide.org.
Enter these immediately after the relevant segment title, and use a descriptive format for the linking text, instead of the raw URL. For example, instead of:
Use:
This allows the reader to see clearly where the link will take them, and is generally more inviting.
General links
There are many occasions where a link can be a useful addition to the transcript. Generally, these include:
- Technical jargon
- Key concepts that may not be immediately obvious (e.g. argumentum ad hominem)
- People / organisations
- Websites
- Articles/blogs
For the first three of these, it is best to start looking for a link in Wikipedia, unless there is reason to use an alternative source. This helps to keep things uniform across transcript pages, and also means that you don't have to search for the ultimate website to explain this or that. (are wiki links preferrede???)
Most of these links can be added to text in the transcript itself, however, there are some cases for which there is no appropriate words to turn into the link. For these, use references, see Help:Getting Started#References.
Categories
A nice easy way to search through SGUTranscripts is to browse through categories, see the browse categories page.
Categories are automatically listed at the bottom of a page.
Episode pages that haven't been added to categories are listed in Category:Needs categories.
Using template
To add categories to a full SGU episode, include Template:Page categories, for 5X5 episodes, use Template:5X5 categories. The template pages show the available categories and what code is needed. The category templates add the page to the available categories, and apply a sort key based on the page name to separate out full episodes from section links on the category pages, and keep numbered order (e.g. see Category:Nature & Evolution).
For this reason, if you are applying a category to any other page, you should use the regular way of applying categories (i.e. [Category:Nature & Evolution]). This will avoid using an inappropriate sorting key.
Categorized segment redirects
SGU podcasts cover a multitude of topics through a single episode, which can make it difficult to find exactly what you're looking for. To allocate individual segments to categories, and list them on category pages under a relevant title, a redirect page is needed. For example, episode 1 contains a segment on exploding toads, and was entered into the category 'Nature & Evolution'. However, on the category page for 'Nature & Evolution', listing 'SGU Episode 1' is not very informative. However, making a page with the title 'Exploding toads baffle scientists (1)' that redirects straight to the segment, and categorizing that under 'Nature & Evolution', will make it much clearer.
Episode pages that do not have categorized redirects for their segments are listed in Category:Needs segment redirects.
There are a couple of ways of contributing to these, you can propose a title for the redirect page and/or create the redirect page itself.
When adding categorized redirects, first check that they haven't already been created by clicking on 'What links here' to the left of the page. Redirects are marked as "(redirect page) (← links)".
Redirect page titles
These should be short and informative, and similar in style to headlines. These can often be based on the segment heading in the SGU show notes, but remember that they need to be unique, and descriptive. They should also include the episode number in brackets at the end.
Interview titles should start with the interviewee's name and include some clues as to what they spoke about, e.g. 'Neil deGrasse Tyson interview: Spaghettification and education (156)'
Science or Fiction segments can have a redirect for each topic, but as these present information differently to other podcast segments, you should also include "SoF" in the brackets to inform readers.
If you are not creating redirect pages, simply add your proposed titles to the talk page for the episode
Creating redirect pages
Proof-reading
A list of pages that have yet to be proof-read can be found at Category:Needs proof-reading.
It can be a long, hard task to transcribe a whole episode, and it's easy to miss typos and attribute lines to the wrong speakers. That is why it's good to have a second contributor proof-read pages.
As with transcribing, proof-reading a page should not include re-writing the transcription into a regular writing style, but should stay close to what is said on the podcast.
Today I Learned
A list of pages without 'Today I Learned' fact lists can be found at Category:Needs TIL.
These sections include a bullet-point list of interesting facts that came up in the episode.
Favorite Rogue Quotes
The weekly Skeptical Quote is a great homage to outstanding thinkers and orators, but what about all the great quotes that come from the Rogues themselves?
To celebrate the profound and humorous utterances of our friends at the SGU, we're building a list of our favorite Rogue quotes (link pending).
To add to this list, first check that the quote isn't already in the list, then enter the quote into the table, adding the speaker(s), the relevant episode, and the topic. Use the Categories list to help define the primary topic for the quote, that way, the table can be sorted easily. For example, if it's a joke, use "humor", if they're deploring the state of science education, use "Science & Education".