I would like to create a piano wiki for Piano World.

Already purchased the domain (wikipiano.com) and had a friend set up the software. But... I don't know how to use it

I wanted to seed it with categories and topics, creating a place we all could use to build a permanent record of piano-related information.

Think wikipedia, but for the piano.

Anyway, it lives here...
http://www.wikipiano.com/mediawiki/index.php/Special:Specialpages

If anyone knows how to use the software, or wants to try helping us get is set up, I'd really like to see it work.

Hi Frank,
This is really ambitious on your behalf. Are you aware that editing is open ended, meaning anyone can add/modify/delete published web pages? If you're comfortable with this, here's a URL for a free tutorial :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

Regards,
Roger

Frank,

I knew how to wiki, but the first time I actually tried to do it, I threw my back out.

Now I stick to waltzes and foxtrots.

Seriously, I don't know much about it except for what comes up when I google a term that is in wikipedia. Im happy to help, if I can.

Note to Rick - I think you might be trying the Fred Astaire advanced version of wiki...

previously, the only wiki I knew was WikiWachi in Florida... the place with mermaids

Ok, I went and registered. I'm not sure how to help from there. Is there any place to have a real time "chat" session?

Frank

I added some shell content for you, probably enough to get started. On Main Page just set up some examples of Brands... Each brand can have its own title and then individuals can edit at their discretion. Using the plus sign new categories can be created. Should be interesting to see if anyone can figure out a good way to organize.

I think we should set up sub categories or should we set up main categories such as digital, acoustic, and divide acoustic into upright and grand?

Can we add categories for accessories? Like benches, stands, monitors, mixers, software, books, etc?

Is there a place we could chat, IM or whatever to work out the categories and ideas? It looks interesting.

I just added the umlaut over the "o" in Bösendorfer!

That code is pretty wide open. I didn't even have to have an account!

I guess that is the idea.

I wish we could add photos of pianos, perhaps from the manufacturer's website. But would that violate copyright issues? Perhaps just links to manufacturers? But then, that is sort of boring!

Shammy

I am no expert with Wikipedia...my perspective has been that it is an encylopedia...so I don't know if you can nest categories or if one can use "Pages" to achieve sub categories. I have no idea if there is a chat or IM function either.

I am pretty sure that the sysadmin can set it up such that not everyone can just edit content but users could submit for approval. On the otherhand their must be some "roll back" function if editing is near realtime.

so... If you can't wiki... are you wiki-challenged? and if you CAN wiki... are you a wiki-wizard?

Until something more happens here, we are all just Wiki-'watchees'.

Thanks everyone, we'll get the hang of this yet.

http://www.wikipiano.com/mediawiki/index.php/Talk:Main_Page

I do, fortunately, know how to Wiki. On the main page, http://www.wikipiano.com/mediawiki/index.php it links to the new Piano brands page. Please go there and submit information, I've attempted to follow a simple theme throughout.

Excellent! Thanks Timothy (In Cyprus).

If you have the time, and don't mind, maybe you could teach us (me) how you did this?

I have a list of Topics and Sub Topics I'd like to seed the Piano Wiki with, but couldn't figure out from the instructions how to do it.

Again, thanks much.

Best,

- Frank B.

Okay, it's really quite simple. On the page you want to link from you type the title of the page you want, then stick '[[' on the left of it, and ']]' on the right of it, then save the page. Then click on the link which will have appeared, and it will give you the option of making a new page.

Timothy

That would be censorship and would undermine the very idea of Wikiwhatever.

Censorship creates a bias of whoever censors. Uncensored edits create balanced content.

It is like Communism vs. Captialism, or a regulated market vs. a free market.

Timothy[/b], I've been to your island and had a wonderful time. Actually, I'm just now listening to a Concert for 10 Pianos & Orchestra, conducted by Maciej Zoltowski, with the Cyprus State Orchestra. What an amazing sound 10 pianos can produce!

Thank you for assisting with this endeavor from so far away. Isn't the Internet great?

The island's lovely. Didn't know we had 10 concert grand pianos on the island, though, but there we are. Our local Steinway D is in terrible state--they brought it and have given so little care to it it's shameful. In Lefkosia they carry concert grands around at a 40 degree angle on forklift trucks underneath--it looks so dangerously wobbly that I can never bear to look.

The internet's wonderful for things like this--I co-administrate two medium-sized bulliten boards in the USA, our business rents three servers in London which are all administrated locally. I love broadband.

Timothy

I added a minimal set of Wiki editing instructions available from the main page. It will suffice for most needs.

Thanks CMS, very helpful.

Must read them myself:-)

- Frank B.

Interesting Place, Wicki.....

I created an account....

What do I do with it?

Larry

My goal is to set up categories and topics, all related to the piano.
Hoping we can get knowledgeable forums members (and non-members) to enter facts and information.

Would like to build it into a piano specific resource, similar to the wikipedia.

There have been thousands and thousands of really good posts on our forums over the years, but unfortunately the information often gets buried (unless someone remembers to elect it for the FAQ areas).

The Wiki would give us a place to organize and store piano information.

hi, frank, i took a look, and i obviously can't figure it out either. i wanted to edit your grotrian pages because steinweg is misspelled. there is no umlaut (right term?) over the second e in steinweg. it is just a regular e.

this looks very cool, btw, and seems to have tons of potential. i look forward to participating in the content when i have more time. great idea!

Can someone please educate me? What is the point of posting something in a wiki, if any jerk can come along and modify it to something entirely different? My understanding of wiki is that someone could take the time and trouble to post a thoughtful, well researched piece, only to have someone with an ax to grind totally ruin it. Am I missing something? Is there a wiki honor system? does it rely on the law of averages that there are more truthful people than jerks in the universe?

Most people by nature are well intentioned, as evidenced by the fact that we have nearly 16,000 members and only a very few jerks.

One of the advantages of a Wiki is that it retains all versions of a thread. If some knucklehead comes in and ruins a perfectly good post, we can roll it back to the version before (and ban the culprit).

- Frank B.

I edited the umlaut out of the Grotrian-Steinweg heading.

I also added the rest of Fine's "tier one" pianos, and several of the tier two ones too.

And, I alphabetized the list, putting lastname first, comma, firstname.

There're so many knowledgeable people in this forum. Can someone at least define general terms such as pitch raise, voicing, regulating, sostenuto, A440, etc. on the wiki site? :rolleyes:

Interesting idea, I can probably help out.

One thing that should be done is to get rid of the extra URL stuff so the pages are either "wikipiano.com/article_name" or "wikipiano.com/wiki/article_name" instead of "wikipiano.com/mediawiki/index.php/article_name". This can be done with just a couple small changes, and is probably worth doing before you get any external links.

Also, the piano brands index page should probably be named as a category instead of an article.

As far as seeding the content goes: An outline of all the "expected" categories should be made. Then use this outline to make a table of contents page (either on the main page or linked to from the main page). Then categories and articles can be added from the context of the table of content... Seems like the most effective way of getting content added while keeping everything organized.

Thanks ForTehWin, good suggestions.

I have to look into the directory structure.
A friend installed the application for me, not sure how he set it up.

Problem is, I haven't had time to learn how to use it correctly.
I have plenty of ideas for categories/topics.
And yes, I'd prefer to have a table of contents right on the index page.

Best,

- Frank B.

For the structure, first you'd have to rename the "mediawiki" folder to just "wiki" or move all the files from the "mediawiki" folder to the root directory (I'm pretty sure there are no places you have to change the directory info, but not 100%).

Then you'd add this to your .htaccess:
and change $wgArticlePath in your localsetting.php to:

There are other ways to do it if that doesn't work. They can be found at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_a_very_short_URL

As far as the topics/ToC goes, why not post the topics here (or someplace else) so we can work together in organizing them into a good ToC?