![[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]](images/stone-hello.png "Sensei's Library")
Hi, my name is Tom Nelson, 6k kgs, 11k dgs. I often look at SL when I need help with some aspect of my go, or I'm bored at work. I was reading through the "future of SL" type pages and I feel like as long as I'm here, I should try to contribute some to the upkeep and development of Sensei's Library. But there doesn't seem to be a "community portal" type area the way there is in wikipedia.org, and pages are never tagged with "needs a cleanup" or "stub" or similar. So I have to ask: where should I go to help? Also unlike wikipedia, POV comments & questions seem in general to be added directly to the page in question, rather than the discussion page. Is this standard policy, and maybe more importantly, should I refrain from editing text signed by someone else? I don't want to step on someone's toes, and I don't want to start a flame war. For example, RankAndWhatYouKnow is on the ToBeMasterEdited page, but it consists almost entirely of signed text, so I'm very hesitant to change anything, especially as a stranger.
So, what can I do to help SL?
-Tom
-edit: making a page for myself emeraldemon
Welcome, Tom!
Your help is needed and will be appreciated. :-)
Also unlike wikipedia, POV comments & questions seem in general to be added directly to the page in question, rather than the discussion page. Is this standard policy, and maybe more importantly, should I refrain from editing text signed by someone else? I don't want to step on someone's toes, and I don't want to start a flame war.
A little SL history: The forums were a late development, so that questions, comments, and so on were included in many pages that came before. As a result, many such pages need reorganization. This can be done by using a table of contents, moving material to subpages, or making edits, particularly a WikiMasterEdit.
As for editing someone else's text, copy editing is not a problem, but, of course, changing the meaning so that it appears that the person said something they did not is a no-no. If you edit to make an unsigned summary of a discussion, you don't want to misrepresent anybody's ideas. If you accidentally step on someone's toes, I think that they will understand that it was an accident. (Besides, they can always edit your edit. ;-)) I wouldn't worry about a flame war. Even the most heated discussions of the past did not become flame wars. The contributors to SL are united in their effort to make it excellent.
About point of view: A great deal of SL is pedagogical, and not written by professionals. In such material differing interpretations, judgements, and opinions are unavoidable. The challenge for such pages is not objectivity, but clarity, balance, and fairness.
One area that needs work is navigation. How to find what you are looking for? There is talk about adding new search capability, but high level organization, such as index pages and paths, can also help. High level organization is also desirable for different pages that treat the same material, sometimes with different points of view, sometimes with much overlap.
Another area that needs help is in providing citations and examples. There are a lot of unsupported assertions on SL. Providing citations and examples from the literature can give them needed support (or the opposite, if they are in error). Doing so will not only improve the quality of SL, it will improve the perception of quality, and the confidence that people can have in SL as a reference and resource.
Glad to have you on board. :-)
Hi Tom
Hi Tom,
Welcome to SL! It is indeed a more chaotic place than wikipedia; sometimes the chaos produces good results, sometimes it's frustrating, but we seem to muddle through somehow. I'm not sure we have anything so well defined as a "standard policy" yet!
I too was initially rather nervous about editing pages here, but I soon found that if I messed something up then a more experienced user would fix it or revert it, usually with a friendly and constructive comment. Most people here are tolerant, and it's hard to do any serious damage. So my advice is that you should just go ahead and do whatever looks useful to you.
Re signed text: of course if you change the text but leave the signature then you've misrepresented someone, which is probably not a good thing. It's quite OK to simply delete the signed contributions and replace them with a summary of the discussion, if you feel qualified to do so. Or, if you think the conversation deserves to be preserved, copy it to a /discussion subpage before you do anything else. (Personally I think this would be appropriate for RankAndWhatYouKnow.)
Another suggestion: if you create a home page for yourself, however minimal, then it is easy for other people to leave messages for you.
Happy editing!