How You Can Help

Think you want to help build Lindypedia? Great! If you're already here, then you'll have no difficulty learning how to contribute to this wiki. We not only welcome you to help put Lindypedia together -- we hope you do!

Below are answers to basic questions that will help you become a master editor.

Intro: What's a wiki?
If you're not familiar with Wikipedia, you should head over there and have a look. Wikipedia was the founding wiki on the internet, and it has prompted a new age in gathering knowledge. It is perhaps the best answer to this question, in its own right.

If you're over the age of 20, you might remember leafing through dark blue tomes called encyclopedias. In those days, there was a central authority -- a publisher -- who gathered information to their wishes and printed them in somewhere between 20-26 volumes. Limits to these books were, of course, that they often went out of date, and they only provided one perspective -- that of the publisher.

With the advent of wikis, information is now gathered socially. Anyone can add or remove information from a wiki. Though the information is in flux, far more information is gathered than ever was under conventional means. Wikipedia has already surpassed the knowledge contained in some of the greatest encyclopedias ever produced.

And, of course, a swing wiki like Lindypedia has the potential to gather information from the entire world population of swing dancers -- to include every dance step known, every regional variation practiced, every music that you might shake it to. Where else will you find that?

How do I start?
Go ahead and create an account with Lindypedia if you haven't. You don't even have to provide an e-mail address, and it only takes a few seconds. You'll be sent back here when you're done.

How do you edit a wiki?
You can edit any unprotected page by clicking the edit tab on the top of the page. You'll be taken to a new page with an editor. Wikis use a very simple code to create structure, and you can learn this code very quickly.

Check out these tutorials to get started with editing:
 * A simple tutorial on the Wikia main site
 * Sandbox - Our sandbox, a place for you to goof around with coding.

One of the best ways to learn is to simply look at how pages like this one are built.

How do I create an article
There's a box on the Main Page where you can type in any subject you wish to create an article on. You can also search for any article, and if does not exist, you are given the option to create it.

Alternatively, you may use the box below:

How can I upload a picture?
There is a link in the toolbox menu on the left for uploading photos. Alternatively, you may click here to Special:Upload.

You'll be given the chance to name a file when you upload it. Remember that name, and all you have to do is click the button for embedding an image in the wiki edtior and replace the name. You can also simply type the image name in double brackets, like this:

However, for proper use in an article, you should include tags that say the photo is a thumb and include its caption, like (photo at right). This will also resize the photo.

Remember, you must not upload copyrighted material.

How can I make neat-o diagrams with dance steps?
You may have noticed dance diagrams on this site like the one on the right. Creating such diagrams is easy! If you want to add your own, or improve upon others, read this guide to Creating dance diagrams.

Note that you should usually include these in an article without specifying thumb and captions, as they will be sized down in the display.

How can I edit a photo?
If you don't have photoshop or some other program for editing photos, you can try using The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). The GIMP is a high-quality, free image editor for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X that you can use to do more complex photo manipulation like lighting and color correction, as well as simple tasks such as cropping and rescaling.

The latest stable version of the GIMP for Windows can be downloaded from here.

Remember that the GIMP is free and open source, so if you don't like it or can't figure it out, you've not wasted any money. The GIMP contains no adware or spyware.


 * Download the GIMP for Windows
 * Download the GIMP for Macintosh