Last year I created a Piano Wiki[/b] for us...

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

Since then, very little has been accomplished, either because not enough people are aware of it or because they weren't sure how to add/edit information in a Wiki.

If you know anything about working on Wikis (think wikipedia), please help us build up our Piano Wiki.
There are links to some instructions on the page linked above.

If you'd rather not try to add/edit material to the Wiki itself, please post your suggestions and/or materials to this thread and we will try to add them to the Wiki.

Speaking of posting piano related stuff... please also check out our new Video/MP3 links section:
http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/topic/23/93.html

Frank

Do you know if its possible to hotlink from a thread to the Piano Wiki? Certain words in any post could always be a click away from the Wiki--this would be an alternative to the search function for certain standard, static info--i.e. brand attributes, individuals, dealers other info.

Good question.
We can link to specific categories, but I'm not certain we can get down into the specific article.

For example, this will take you to the Brands category...
http://www.wikipiano.com/mediawiki/index.php/Piano_Brands

But the syntax for the link to a specific brand contains % signs and ascii code, which the forums software doesn't allow in a link.

This is because the name of the page also becomes its link url.
In the case of the Steinway page, the name is
Steinway & Sons (Hamburg, New York, Essex & Boston)
So the link wants to be:
http://www.wikipiano.com/mediawiki/index.php/Steinway & Sons (Hamburg, New York, Essex & Boston)

which needless to say, isn't considered a valid link syntax.

I note that a couple of the brand pages (Kawai, Bosendorfer) have become infested by advertising links. I guess the Wiki format makes it difficult to stop this.

Best wishes,
Matthew

Exactly.
My fault because I haven't looked at it in quite a while. Now I need to clean it up and try to maintain it.

I just looked at the Piano Wiki.... one thing that struck me is that there's no place for the only topic I might be able to contribute something to (adult piano learners.) Could there be a section on piano study, with sub-sections for adult learners, traditional learners etc?

But if there were such a section, what would the content be? I'm just wondering what kind of information people might be looking for if they were looking at the piano wiki...

Sorry for thinking outloud here.

I would be happy to add an article if the topic was learning, or maybe learner's resources, but I'm not sure if/how that would fit in the wiki as it stands now...

I tried to send this backchannel but Frank's mailbox was full.

Frank, I wanted to go to WikiPiano. First I had trouble finding it - I couldn't see a link on PW. Then I found it but the page that came up was full of Chinese characters. Just thought I'd let you know.

Thanks for everything!

Yeah - looks like spammers got a hold of it. The page needs to be reverted to its version from a few months back, and possibly protected.

EDIT:

I have just reverted the main page to the last good version I was able to track using History tab.

Simple way around this is to use a "tinyurl" in your link. As an example here is the above Steinway url:

Steinway Wiki Page