[CQ-Contest] Wiki-phobia?

Pete Smith n4zr at contesting.com
Tue Sep 29 05:02:28 PDT 2009


As I'm sure you're aware, I have been building the Contesting Compendium 
wiki for just over 4 months now.  Over that period, I've been modestly 
pleased with the reader response.  I try to add something new every day 
at least, and we have over 300 different pieces of content now.

There is one disturbing trend, however - for the last month, I have been 
the *only* one adding to the Compendium.  Guys (and gals), this isn't 
how it is supposed to work. To become a definitive source of information 
on all aspects of ham radio contesting, the Compendium needs *your* 
contributions.  Surely, when you look at the scope of the Table of 
Contents (http://wiki.contesting.com/index.php/Table_of_Contents), 
you'll agree!

I suspect that people may be put off by what they see as the difficulty 
of contributing material, or editing others' contributions.  Don't 
believe it!  Adding to or editing the text of an article on the 
Compendium is as simple as typing in a word processor (probably simpler, 
more like Notepad).  All you need to do is create a user account (please 
use your ham callsign as your username), log in, browse to the article 
you want to add or edit, and have at it.  There's nobody to notify 
before you change things, and no apologies required.  If the author 
disagrees with your edits, he or she can always contact you, or edit it 
back, or both.  To communicate your reasons for a change, you can click 
on the Discussion tab on each article and leave your comments, in the 
same simple, text-only format)

Sure, if you want to do something ambitious, involving a lot of graphics 
or fancy formatting, there are things to learn, but remember, I'm always 
here to help.  Just drop me a line if you need help with any aspect of 
editing or formatting.  In the meantime, go ahead and post your stuff, 
because you can always reformat it later.

-- 
73, Pete N4ZR
New Articles Daily - the Contesting Compendium at http://wiki.contesting.com
The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net



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