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Wiki Topic Guide

For New Authors

New Authors should look around and find a best example that matches their intention, emulate and learn from those.

  • Please read. Below is a rough style guide, to set some standards and guidance.
  • Get familiar with Resources and Tools, they'll help you in everything you write!
  • Get familiar with Topic Types and Formatting Guide, to frame your thinking, guide your style.
  • No Login? First time?
    • Google Doc: You can submit to someone who has access, using a Google Docs document, just make it public (anyone with the link can view) and share the link and we'll take a look. If good, you can do more and we'll get them up.
    • Text file also works, you can format using basic markdown: headings (#), bold (**), italics ( *), bullets (- ), links ([title]<remove me>(url)). NOTE: There is not one markdown standard. We have our own. Keep it simple.

Topic Types

There are 3 topic types:

  • Transcripts of LiveStreams
  • Notes for LiveStreams
  • Articles

Articles will have a large range of topic possibilities, from People, Places, Names, Etymology, Translation, Concepts, Philosophy, and more...

Topic Type: Video Transcripts

Difficulty: Easy, with some technical writing if desired

How do we think about transcripts?

  • Standalone: A transcript should be standalone, and not require the video at all.
    • Imagine publishing a standalone book with this, it should be an easy and interesting read with all the information needed to engage the reader.
    • Supplemental Information should be added to help the reader with backstory or terms
      • Small supplemental information can be added inline
      • Large supplemental information can be referenced, rather then put inline

How we create transcripts

  • Start with the YouTube transcript
  • Edit extensively to
    • fix up all the foreign language words (Greek, Latin, etc), YouTube's voice-to-text butchers these
    • remove all the repetitions, keep it concise
    • fix all mis-speaking / stutters
    • remove "right?" from the end of every sentence
    • fix or tighten wandering or meandering speech
    • generally clean it up for easy consumption / reading by anyone (expands the audience and comprehension)
  • Add Supplemental Information within the transcript
    • terms (as bullets, with foreign language word + english transliteration + definition)
    • literature quotes (as a breakout box, with: title, quote, translation)
    • lexicon entries (as a breakout box: pasted from Alice to keep links & formatting)
    • notetaker provided backstory (as a breakout box)
  • Add Screenshots within the transcript:
    • Please dont paste in screenshotted images of text, it bloats the server.
    • Instead, use OCR to copy the text out. See Formatting Guide for examples and tips.
  • Add backstory if something is unclear to the layperson reading. As bulleted terms, As a break-out box (to clearly show supplimental material from the notetaker)

See Formatting Guide for formatting style conventions.

Topic Type: Video Notes

Difficulty: Difficult and Technical

Video Notes are to compliment a video, presenting all factual content, easy to follow along, as a reference.
Notes should also be completely standalone, not require the video.

What do we take notes on - facts

  • Focus on facts, avoid the irrelevant details
  • Drama or rants: only if it makes an important point to the material, otherwise skip it
  • Banter with the audience? only if it reveals some insteresting fact, otherwise skip it
  • Mentions of Personal or Personalities? only if it makes an important point to the material, otherwise skip it
  • Current Events? prefer to generalize the information. avoid anything that will make this wiki topic out of date in a year. If you must add it (e.g. making a great point about fundamentals of democracy) then cite the year/month of the example, clearly state the example, and maybe mention history repeats see this example.

How we take notes - Ideal Approach

  • Notes should stand alone. Not require the original video. Think: If youtube takes this down, will people still learn from SomaLibrary? Or would SomaLibrary be broken?
    • generally clean it up for easy consumption / reading by anyone (expands the audience and comprehension)
  • Organization: (pick one)
    1. same order as the livestream, for easy follow-along.
    2. completely reorganized, in those rare cases that everything presented just amounts to a list of bulleted terms.
    3. partial, when no time / only taking partial notes, then clearly leave a TODO at the top to indicate it's incomplete (life happens! some is better than none)
  • Add Supplemental Information within the transcript to add clarity
    • terms (as bullets, with foreign language word + english transliteration + definition)
    • literature quotes (as a breakout box, with: title, quote, translation)
    • lexicon entries (as a breakout box: pasted from Alice to keep links & formatting)
    • notetaker provided backstory (inline parenthesis; or as a breakout box)
  • Add Screenshots within the transcript:
    • Please dont paste in screenshotted images of text, it bloats the server.
    • Instead, use OCR to copy the text out. See Formatting Guide for examples and tips.
  • Add backstory if something is unclear to the layperson reading. As bulleted terms, As a break-out box (to clearly show supplimental material from the notetaker)

How we take notes - Minimum / Lazy approach

  • copy youtube transcript, fix up all the greek words, remove all the repetitions, fix all mis-speaking / stutters, remove "right?" from the end of every sentence, clean it up.
  • add a box at the top stating the article is under construction, needs work

See Formatting Guide for formatting style conventions.

Topic Type: Articles

Articles are freeform journalistic pieces where you're:

  • pulling together information from many articles and sources
  • telling a story
  • laying out an evidence chain

You'll use techniques learned in Notes and Transcripts, for your Articles.

Articles should ideally pull together facts from relevant transcripts, notes, or external sources. Articles may be original work. Articles should cite sources, ideally, to be deeply credible, otherwise it will be perceived as one person's information. Credibility is as strong as 1. your arguments and 2. your sources. Use your judgement to determine the right mix of sources and story telling (that laying out of information, evidence chains, arguments).

If creative or historical fiction, please state that at the top, clearly.

See Formatting Guide for formatting style conventions.

Formatting Guide

Below are examples of formatting standards that you should use in wiki topics.

Formatting Guide: Images

Paste images if necessary to make a point. ⚠️ Avoid taking up server space!
Good Examples:
  • e.g. a picture of caduceus in an article about early Medicine Rites involving the mystery pharmakon
  • e.g. a picture of tyrian purple dye, in an article about tyrian purple
  • e.g. pictures of medusa carvings over time, to show early representations (just hair) vs later (with snakes for hair).

Add Screenshots within the transcript:

  • Add only relevant presented pictures.
  • Expected Types: supporting images only, no pictures of text
  • ⚠️ Please dont paste in screenshotted images of text ⚠️
    • it bloats the server
    • prevents people from easy copy/paste for further research
    • Extract the text instead (see below)
  • Screen Grab
    • iOS - power + upvolume
    • MacOS - CMD+SHIFT+4 and draw a box (saves to Downloads or Desktop usually)
    • Windows - Windows + Print Screen to capture the entire screen and automatically save it to the Pictures > Screenshots folder
  • Extract the Text
    • Use OCR to copy the text out.
    • iPhone photos allows you to select text (works with english)
    • Use an OCR app - a few listed in our resources section

Formatting Guide: Terms

Terms help ground the reader in meaning, should be easy to see/find
Always put terms in bullets:
  • πειραστὴς (Perastes) - one who is applying that pressure, who is testing
  • πειρατὴς (Perates) - is the Lestes of the sea

Formatting Guide: Providing Sources

Sources lend credibility, provide further depth of study.

Direct Quote

Put into a box, with: title (if available), quote, translation (if available)
Hesychius Alexandrinus, Lexicon, edited by Kurt Latte (vol. I–II, Copenhagen 1953–1966).

(419*) a. Or. 24, 1 in sede Philoxeni; Or. 612, 37 Werf. (codd. HI): αἴξ· παρὰ τὸ ἀΐσσω, τὸ ὁρμῶ, οὗ ὁ μέλλων αΐξω, ἀποβολῇ τοῦ ω καὶ συναλιφῇ αἴξ· ὁρμητικὸν γὰρ τὸ ζῷον.

αἴξ — from ἀΐσσω, ‘to dart, rush forward,’ whose future is αΐξω; by dropping the ω and contracting it becomes αἴξ; for the animal is impetuous.

Backstory, inline using Parenthesis

The Greeks were doing abc (see Reference for more info)

Backstory, as Box

From Reference: There is the story of Trophonius, which goes like...

Bibliography / Sources

Give: name of publication, author, year, relevance to article
Put into bullets:

See also

Formatting Guide: Adding Your Own Commentary or Backstory

as text:

The Greeks were doing abc (from the notetaker: I think this means xyz)

as a box:

from the notetaker: I think this means xyz

as a Commentary section:

## Commentary (Heading)

I think this and that, because of other and thing, therefore I think this is what's really happening in the above. (Paragraph Text)

Formatting Guide: Leaving a warning at the top of page

Use a top-box to communicate clearly. Also to get the attention of other Authors to fill in details

Examples:

⚠️ Under Construction, explanation goes here

⛔ Warning, explanation goes here

⛔ Caution, these views are explicit, we dont advocate for these views of the ancient cult, this is not and never will be a cult, for scholarly study only.

TODO: needs more information for xyz

TODO: needs more sources generally

TODO: remove the term xyz, because it's problematic for abc reason

Formatting Guide: Other Formatting Best Practices

Resources and Tools

Authors will utilize several tools to help them fill in supporting information.

Help yourself by creating quick-access bookmarks

Bookmarks - iPhone Greek FolderBookmarks - iPhone Greek Folder
Bookmarks - Greek Folder on Mobile Phone

Bookmarks - Desktop Browser
Bookmarks - Greek Folder on Desktop

Frequently Used Tools