Thelemapedia:How to Contribute

(Revision as of 16:59, 7 Jul 2005)

This page is written to help you make great contributions to Thelemapedia. It really is a snap, and we encourage new editors to jump right in. There is one thing that needs to be said right up front:

The perfect Thelemapedia article does not exist. The pathway towards that ideal is travelled by multiple editors adding what information they can and collaborating on things like content, formatting, and grammar. It is far more valuable to add lots of imperfect material than to have a trickle of "perfect" contributions.

This page focuses on content, and does not give much in the way of wiki markup (the code that formats text). You can find out the basics of wiki markup in the Really Simple Tutorial or on the full Wiki Markup page which lists everything in detail.

Table of contents

1 Step 1: What to cook

1.1 Adding a topic that does not yet exist on Thelemapedia
1.2 Adding to an existing topic

2 Step 2: Finding the ingrediants

3 Step 3: Boiling it down

4 Step 4: Serve it up

Step 1: What to cook

There are two basic places to start:

Creating a new topic
Adding to an existing topic

Adding a topic that does not yet exist on Thelemapedia

Okay, you want to add a whole new article. Great! Here are the basic flavors of adding a new topic:

You already know what you want to write about. Just do a search on the site to make sure it isn't already there. Then go on to step two.
You have no idea what to write about. No problem! Here are some choices:

The Projects page. This page has a list of major projects the site is trying to put together. There will always be empty pages here, and you are welcome to tackle any of them. (There are also blue links to pages that have entries but still need more info).
List of all empty pages. These are pages that have links to them but don't contain any information (I'm sure you've noticed by now that links to empty pages are red). They are listed in order of number of links. You certainly don't have to start at the top...just scroll though until you find a topic that sounds interesting.

Adding to an existing topic

It is equally as valuable to add to existing pages. Many are incomplete and need more material. Remember, it is acceptable and expected for editors to make changes to articles. You are, of course, free to search and browse the site for any topic that you want to write about. You can also use the following links to find existing articles that need more material:

The Projects page. This page has a list of major projects the site is trying to put together. The blue links go to pages that have some info already, but probably need much more.
Stubs. Stubs are pages that have a really really short entry. These pages need your help!
Articles that need Thelemic info. (http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Template%3AThelema) Many pages on Thelemapedia have been imported from other GNU-licensed sites (see below) like Wikipedia, and are more or less complete. However, most of these have no imformation from a Thelemic perspective. It is up to you how much you want to do with these: you can add a single paragraph or rewrite the whole thing.

Step 2: Finding the ingrediants

Step 3: Boiling it down

Step 4: Serve it up

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