Galactic Library:Contributing

Welcome! Thank you for considering contributing!

Setting Up An Account

The Galactic Library is tied closely with the ToughSF Discord, which is being used to coordinate contributors' efforts.

First, you need to join the Discord. The Discord will not be linked directly, but you can easily find the link on the ToughSF blog.

On the Discord, you will prominently see the area for Galactic Library contributions. Ping @Librarian to request a wiki account.

Editing Existing Articles

The beauty of a wiki is that, with many eyes, deficiencies can be noticed and corrected quickly. The flip-side is that everyone must be considerate of the hard work others have put in!

Our basic model is that for significant changes (rewriting large blocks of text, rearranging, etc.), to first discuss it on the Discord. It's polite, and it helps keep the collaborative and cooperative spirit our small community would like to achieve. It also helps to prevent misunderstandings, duplicated effort, and race-conditions.

Wikimedia uses "wikitext" syntax to write articles. Wikitext is sensible, but does take some getting used to. Here is the reference and the more-practically useful cheatsheet.

In sum: feel free to edit articles, but please try to discuss nontrivial changes on the Discord first.

Creating a New Article

One creates a new article in the usual way for a wiki—except that we ask that you check with us first on the Discord. The reason why is that, in the current early days of this wiki, we want to ensure that your work isn't wasted drafting a duplicate article concurrently! We also want to make sure that your article fits into the wiki's categorization (which we will expand and rearrange as-needed).

So, the procedure is:

1. Propose the article idea on the Discord (ping @Librarian in the Galactic Library area). If the article is reasonably on-topic and isn't already being written, it will almost certainly be greenlit.

However, if you do not have an article idea - but you would like to contribute regardless - please consider checking out the following articles:
Article Ideas
The Grand Table of Newtonian Tomfoolery

1. If approved, you can then draft your article. You can use any workflow you like. For example, you can collaborate with others in a Google Doc, write it directly into the wiki's text editor, or something else. Note that some members of the Discord have a standing invitation to help you revise/edit your draft before it touches the wiki, if you'd like.
2. Post your drafted article onto the wiki! Basically, you just navigate to the desired URL it should live at (take a guess or discuss on Discord if you aren't sure), click to create the page, and submit your text.

Note: it is strongly recommended to back up your work regularly if you choose to compose in the wiki editor! You do not want to lose stuff just because you accidentally hit refresh, or the server has a moment of downtime right as you submit.

Style

The Galactic Library is written in English (which occasional loanwords and slang for taste). In the current early days of this wiki, style is less-important than substance, but as the wiki evolves, we will gradually edit toward more consistency, and this section will be updated.