Thelemapedia:How to Contribute
(Revision as of 21:40, 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:
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 |
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 information 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
Now that you know what you want to write about, you need to go about finding good information. But first, here are some important principles to keep in mind:
- Thelemapedia is an encyclopedia. It is NOT a journal, blog, or personal website (for more, see what Thelemapedia is not). Articles SHOULD reflect knowledge that is generally accepted in the Thelemic community, drawing from EXPERT SOURCES or COMMON KNOWLEDGE. Articles should NOT advocate your personal beliefs or report on your subjective experiences.
- Crowley comes first. At Thelemapedia, Aleister Crowley is considered to be the primary source of information regarding Thelema and magick. He is by no means the only source, of course, but Thelemic information should most often come from him before anyone else.
- Write in the third person. No article should contain phrases like, "I believe..." or "I have found that...".
For other important Thelemapedia policies, see the Editorial Policies page.
Sources of information
On Thelemapedia, the source of information should come from the knowledge base, meaning books and other publications (and the Web in rare instances). The idea is to reference material in a concise, neutral way. Think of Thelemapedia articles as short high school research papers.
Since Thelemapedia is a reference site, information needs to come from verifiable sources, especially books and peer-reviewed journals (and the Web in some cases). As was said above, Crowley is considered to be the best source for Thelemic information. Other excellent writers include: Israel Regardie, Lon Milo DuQuette, Kenneth Grant, Gerald Del Campo, Rodney Orpheus, Martin Starr, Lawrence Sutin, Richard Kaczynski, Sabazius, Dionysos Thriambos, Hymenaeus Beta, Jack Parsons, and J.F.C. Fuller.
Online sources for Crowley
Useful research tip: Google is your friend. One way to get lots of information quickly is to do detailed searches on specific sites. For example, if you wanted to know what Crowley said about "Baphomet", you could do a search on Google (http://www.google.com) with the following in the search box: "Crowley Baphomet site:hermetic.com" which would return all hits for Crowley and Baphomet on the site Hermetic.com.
Some excellent online sources for Crowley (and some other Thelemic writers) are:
- The Hermetic Library (http://www.hermetic.com/)
- One Stop Libri Shop (http://mysteria.com/liber/)
- The Equinox (http://www.the-equinox.org/)
- The Ape of Thoth (http://larabell.org/Hanuman/)
- A.'.A.'. Collection (http://pturing.firehead.org/occult/thelema/)
- The Book of Thoth (http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_thoth.htm)
- The Vision and the Voice (http://mysteria.com/liber/L_418.txt)
- Thelema Lodge Calendar (http://billheidrick.com)
Other online sources
Esoteric References
- Sacred Texts Archive (http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm) (this site it too awesome!)
- Bulfinch’s Mythology (http://www.bulfinch.org/)
- Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica (http://www.esotericarchives.com/)
- Folklore & Mythology (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html)
- Rosslyn Sanctuary Library (http://www.rosslyn.org/library.htm)
- Astro.com (http://www.astro.com/astrology/in_intro_e.htm) (astrology)
- Skeptic's Annotated Bible (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/)
- Sacred Magick Esoteric Library (http://www.sacred-magick.com/Main.html)
- Magick Dictionary (http://www.choronzon.com/tocmirror/tzimon/Magidict/magdic1.html)
General References
- Encyclopedia.com (http://www.encyclopedia.com)
- About.com (http://www.about.com)
- All Reference (http://reference.allrefer.com)
- Bartleby (http://www.bartleby.com/)
- U.S. Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/)
- RefDesk.com (http://www.refdesk.com/)
- InfoPlease (http://www.infoplease.com/almanacs.html)
Open source sites
Open-source sites have material that is openly available, as long as you conform to a few rules. It is possible to take text from these sites verbatim as long as you properly cite the source. For example, if you copy over the article "Ratchet", then you must put a reference at the bottom of the page, such as:
- Adapted from: Wikipedia. (2005). Ratchet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet). Retrieved on July 7, 2005.
More on citing and referencing is later in this article. But first, here are some quality open-source encyclopedias with much information on the occult:
- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/)
- SourceryForge (http://sourceryforge.org/)
- Acadine Archive (http://www.acadine.org/w/Main_Page)
- Wikinfo (http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/)
- WikiSource (http://wikisource.org/)
Step 3: Boiling it down
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