Librivox Wiki

[Gesine]

Looks good, Harvey. I think you should add whatever you have whenever you think it's ready/useful for others! :)

[kri]

Should we really be recommending portable cassette players for recording?

[harvey]

Should we really be recommending portable cassette players for recording?

Several answers.

There's a difference between pointing out all the options and recommending
any of them.

Since the goal is to get many people recording, suggesting equipment
they already have and may be comfortable with using furthers that
goal. As people gain experience, it may be they will want to improve
their recording equipment.

Like all the options, it depends on the quality of the equipment --
and the skill of the operator in using it. For example, see the
discussion regarding the applicability of the EV 635a microphone on
page 2 of What's your "recording studio" like?
http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6

Portability. I'm thinking, once the weather turns warmer (here in the
Northern Hemisphere) it might be pleasant to take the "script" and a
portable recorder -- tape or digital -- to make the recording in a
secluded spot out-of-doors. Hmmm... if the story mostly takes place
outside, as one I am considering does, how might the sounds of nature
that may be "caught on tape" enhance the recording?

[kri]

We have a thread where we've been discussing on location recordings: http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1601

I guess I should further my statement to say that perhaps we should discourage, by not mentioning, the use of casseste recorders. I'm concerned about the quality, as well as dealing with actually getting it into digital. For those that know how, they'll already perhaps think of using cassette recorders and submitt their recording if they so choose to do it that way. For those that don't know how (if such a way is easily and cheaply done) I don't think any of us want to deal with having to say, "Figure it out, we don't know how."

[harvey]

A Work-in-Progress section for the documentation wiki

http://www.librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/WorkInProgress

I added a new section WorkInProgress. There will be sub-pages to
follow. There seem to be several benefits. I've stated that I think
the documentation wiki needs better organization to help users find
easier what they're after. It's always easier to evaluate something
concrete than an abstract idea. So here is my start at improved
navigational aid for users.

Another benefit is to volunteers who are looking for answers and help.
Twice in the past several days, I've seen questions in the forum on
the topic of input recording volume. I'm writing a guide on this.
Although it's a ways from being finished, I think there's enough there
that it would be helpful even in it's current, disorganized,
unfinished form. Similarly, there are bits and pieces of things from
the forum that should migrate to the documentation wiki. Even in raw
form, put in some semi-organized arrangement within WorkInProgress,
it should be of some help.

Of course, there will be the appropriate arm-waving at the top of each
Work-in-Progress page to caution users about what they've wandering
into.

Another option for this is just to put any work-in-progress pages
where they belong within the documentation from the start, work on
them in-place, along with the arm-waving cautions.

[harvey]

A Work-in-Progress section for the documentation wiki

http://www.librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/WorkInProgress

I added a new section WorkInProgress. There will be sub-pages to
follow. There seem to be several benefits. I've stated that I think
the documentation wiki needs better organization to help users find
easier what they're after. It's always easier to evaluate something
concrete than an abstract idea. So here is my start at improved
navigational aid for users.

Another benefit is to volunteers who are looking for answers and help.
Twice in the past several days, I've seen questions in the forum on
the topic of input recording volume. I'm writing a guide on this.
Although it's a ways from being finished, I think there's enough there
that it would be helpful even in it's current, disorganized,
unfinished form. Similarly, there are bits and pieces of things from
the forum that should migrate to the documentation wiki. Even in raw
form, put in some semi-organized arrangement within WorkInProgress,
it should be of some help.

Of course, there will be the appropriate arm-waving at the top of each
Work-in-Progress page to caution users about what they've wandering
into.

Another option for this is just to put any work-in-progress pages
where they belong within the documentation from the start, work on
them in-place, along with the arm-waving cautions.

[harvey]

Change the current hyper-text "LibriVox Wiki" on the main Web site

A request to the maintainers of the main LibriVox Web site:
Please change the current hyper-text "LibriVox wiki" to something more
intelligible to people who like books but don't live on-line like many
of us (:-).

I use my father as a measuring rod for this sort of thing. He likes
books and reads a lot of them, but if he went to the LibriVox home
page, he'd ignore the wiki link because he hasn't the slightest idea
what that means and is not adventuresome when he's on-line. I didn't
know what a wiki was until I started here.

As to what to substitute, I haven't found anything I particularly
like, but it should be something helpfully descriptive like

• LibriVox Documentation
• LibriVox Guides and FAQs
• More info: Guides and FAQs
• All About LibriVox
• Guides for Listeners and Volunteers

I'm also wondering if it isn't time to remove the two links "More
info" and "FAQ" in favor of the single link above, whatever it gets
named. And even to start deleting those pages which are now
supplanted by improved versions in the documentation wiki (with
appropriate server re-directs for the old URLs).

[kri]

People who are new and unfamiliar to the internet need to learn the terms of the internet in order to navigate themselves around. Otherwise, what's the point of having internet specific vocabulary if you don't use it? Wiki is a common term known by a majority of the people who are online. I think it is important to make sure that it is clear the link goes to a wiki.

You could put something like Librivox wiki (How-tos) if you needed to specify.

And for goodness sake, people who aren't adventurous when using the internet will get very little out of it.

The work in progress seems like a needless waste of time. The whole point of a wiki is that it is all a work in progress. Why add an extra step to that? We can easily note at the top of incomplete pages This page is missing important information, and is incomplete. You see something similar at Wikipedia when it makes note of the "Stub" pages, that are very short and incomplete.

[thistlechick]

Do instructions exist for creating your own homepage at the Librivox Wiki?

I want to suggest to people to use this feature of the Librivox Wiki for keeping track of their chapters, but I don't know how to explain how to do it... and am not finding instructions in the help pages.

[HerrSchildkroete]

People who are new and unfamiliar to the internet need to learn the terms of the internet in order to navigate themselves around. Otherwise, what's the point of having internet specific vocabulary if you don't use it? Wiki is a common term known by a majority of the people who are online.

I'm with harvey on this one. If I want to help by reading I don't care about whether the guides I am willing to work through are in a Wiki, a pdf file a cms a blog or whatever the name of the thing is. The only thing I want is to access the information. Most important: I would never click the link of something unknown while looking for specific information.

[kri]

I'm with harvey on this one. If I want to help by reading I don't care about whether the guides I am willing to work through are in a Wiki, a pdf file a cms a blog or whatever the name of the thing is. The only thing I want is to access the information. Most important: I would never click the link of something unknown while looking for specific information.

Perhaps you should change your searching style, because that is the way to find some of the more obscure and most helpful things, honestly.

I understand you personally not caring about the meaning of various terms, but it is important. Why do we have any industry specific vocabulary? It is to better communicate your point. It is sometimes important to know the difference between a wiki, blog, cms, whatever. For example, someone gives you two resources to choose from to find your information. Which one do you choose? On the other hand, someone else gives you a blog link and a wiki link to find your information? It would be easier to choose off-hand which source to use depending on your topic.

Anyways, the whole point of this is to say that I think it's important to keep the reference to the Documentation being a "wiki". This may not be important to everyone, but it will be useful to enough people.

[harvey]

Do instructions exist for creating your own homepage at the Librivox Wiki?

Betsie,

If you mean something specific to LibriVox, I believe the answer is "No".

Here's a brief start (forum and wiki accounts are independent):

• Go to the Wiki: http://www.librivox.org/wiki/
• Create an account for yourself: click on "Login"
• Click the "HelpContents" tab
• Notice the two links:
  1. HelpOnPageCreation - how to create a new page
  2. HelpOnEditing - how to edit a page

They're on their way.

[thistlechick]

Do instructions exist for creating your own homepage at the Librivox Wiki?

Betsie,

If you mean something specific to LibriVox, I believe the answer is "No".

Here's a brief start (forum and wiki accounts are independent):

• Go to the Wiki: http://www.librivox.org/wiki/
• Create an account for yourself: click on "Login"
• Click the "HelpContents" tab
• Notice the two links:
  1. HelpOnPageCreation - how to create a new page
  2. HelpOnEditing - how to edit a page

They're on their way.

Great. Would someone please write that up as a librivox wiki page "How to create my own Librivox Wiki page"? so that I can link to it.... i just don't have time to work on it right now. thanks.

[harvey]

Would someone please write that up so that I can link to it

http://www.librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/HowToCreateAPersonalLibriVoxPage

[thistlechick]

Would someone please write that up so that I can link to it

http://www.librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/HowToCreateAPersonalLibriVoxPage

Thank you.