A wiki Recording encyclopedia

[drumsound]

This is an interesting idea, but isn't this board that same type of thing without the "hip name?"

I've never been to any of the wiki sites...

While this board is very useful for finding information, I think that a wiki has its advantages.

First off, unlike the entries of a message board, the information can be organized into an easy to read fashion, making finding what your looking for faster and easier.

In the end, though, i don't think that this message board and wikiRecording will have the same sort of info. This is a really good place to ask "How do I get rid of the buzz when recording my guitar through a fender amp in a room with a carpet on the floor?" (bad example I know, but you get the idea) and other such specific questions, but I think wikiRecording could be a good source of information for how to understand the answers that people give you, atleast thats what i hope.

I see...

[jjbohn]

New here but sounds like a great idea to me. Also, I'd love to contribute

[YOUR KONG]

This is great - I'll contribute, but give me some time.

What about hosting audio files? Should those go on our own webspaces?

Edit - just found ourmedia.org, which is a non-profit dedicated to hosting files for free

[Brian Brock]

I feel that this is a good idea, and I would like to contribute what little I can to it. But I feel you should redesign it so that it has it's own look, possibly its own format. The whole it-looks-exactly-like-a-preexisting-website thing is, for me, kind of weird feeling. Just my opinion.

Perhaps someone on here is into designing websites and could come up with an interesting design.

b

[cdbabel]

I feel that this is a good idea, and I would like to contribute what little I can to it. But I feel you should redesign it so that it has it's own look, possibly its own format. The whole it-looks-exactly-like-a-preexisting-website thing is, for me, kind of weird feeling. Just my opinion.

Perhaps someone on here is into designing websites and could come up with an interesting design.

b

I have mixed feelings about the design, too. The irony is that wikipedia uses the same engine that wikiRecording.org uses and that look is build into the engine. It is possible to change "skins," but the others are, quite frankly, ugly.

Someday I want to do an overhaul of the look, but for now I'm concentrating on getting enough content to make the site viable.

[Jeremy Garber]

They don't allow you to edit a CSS file to customize things? That's very strange.

[cdbabel]

They don't allow you to edit a CSS file to customize things? That's very strange.

They do, but its very complex and would take a lot of time to get right.

[Jeremy Garber]

Welcome to web design!

Do they at least have comments (ones that make sense) in the CSS file to say what they're referring to? I do that with mine, because there is usually a long period of time between design changes, and I tend to forget things like that. lol

[cdbabel]

Welcome to web design!

Do they at least have comments (ones that make sense) in the CSS file to say what they're referring to? I do that with mine, because there is usually a long period of time between design changes, and I tend to forget things like that. lol

The comments are pretty good, but on a website as complex as MediaWiki, the CSS could take me weeks to go through and get right. Ofcourse, if anyone else wants to go to www.mediawiki.org and learn how to make a skin for wikiRecording.org, I'm all for that.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for looking like Wikipedia. So many people know the interface and are comfortable with it that it could make people more comfortable with using wikiRecording.

At any rate, its not the most pressing issue of the day.

[John Jeffers]

The new account form seems to be missing. When I click the "create an account or log in" link at the top, it takes me to the login page, but there's no option to create a new account.

[cdbabel]

The new account form seems to be missing. When I click the "create an account or log in" link at the top, it takes me to the login page, but there's no option to create a new account.

I've been doing some very heavy editing of the code today and I made a mistake which took the create an account option away. Its back up now, though.

Thanks for the heads up! That could have been a real disaster.

[cdbabel]

This is great - I'll contribute, but give me some time.

What about hosting audio files? Should those go on our own webspaces?

Edit - just found ourmedia.org, which is a non-profit dedicated to hosting files for free

Actually, wikiRecording will host the media files, as long as they are not to large. I know audio compression is a terrible thing to do to a sound, but the cost of server space is equally terrible.

[atdunlap]

Ok, I don't chime in very often, but this one really spiked my interest... I think it's a great concept! I have a few ideas that I thought I would present and you can do with them what you will (or will not)....

One major issue I see is that of terminology used in articles. I bring this up because, as we all know - recording/live sound/broadcasting/audio equipment/etc... All have their own esoteric gibberish and for the large part everyone has a different name for the same concept or peice of equipment. I'm just wondering if it might be worth getting a small group of the "pros" (Jeremy, et al) and trying to reach a consensus on some terminology, if nothing else. For instance, will the "wiki standard" for *placing a microphone to transduce the sound generated by a source* be micing, miking, mic'ing, or something else all together. Or will we say DI, Direct Box, Direct Injection Box, etc?

I realize that this is all somewhat subjective and forcing everyone to use the same terminology (especially if they disagree with it) seems closed minded and kind of "hoaky," but lets look at the advantages to the concept.... We could solve one of the problems that has plagued this and other recording forums since their inception by allowing the word *micing* (in example) to like to a dictionary like definition of that term, or for the word *condenser* in an article about am *sm-81* to lead to an article about condensers....

I'll rap this up, but another idea would be that if you were to go this route, perhaps there would be a way to display the list of already standardized terms on screen when one is in the "article editor" window so that they can simply click the word and have it show up where the cursor is in the window, or even if the terms were plain text so that one could select the word and drag it into an article.......

I apologize for the length of this post, but I hope that it might be worth something to somebody....

[cdbabel]

Ok, I don't chime in very often, but this one really spiked my interest... I think it's a great concept! I have a few ideas that I thought I would present and you can do with them what you will (or will not)....

One major issue I see is that of terminology used in articles. I bring this up because, as we all know - recording/live sound/broadcasting/audio equipment/etc... All have their own esoteric gibberish and for the large part everyone has a different name for the same concept or peice of equipment. I'm just wondering if it might be worth getting a small group of the "pros" (Jeremy, et al) and trying to reach a consensus on some terminology, if nothing else. For instance, will the "wiki standard" for *placing a microphone to transduce the sound generated by a source* be micing, miking, mic'ing, or something else all together. Or will we say DI, Direct Box, Direct Injection Box, etc?

I realize that this is all somewhat subjective and forcing everyone to use the same terminology (especially if they disagree with it) seems closed minded and kind of "hoaky," but lets look at the advantages to the concept.... We could solve one of the problems that has plagued this and other recording forums since their inception by allowing the word *micing* (in example) to like to a dictionary like definition of that term, or for the word *condenser* in an article about am *sm-81* to lead to an article about condensers....

I'll rap this up, but another idea would be that if you were to go this route, perhaps there would be a way to display the list of already standardized terms on screen when one is in the "article editor" window so that they can simply click the word and have it show up where the cursor is in the window, or even if the terms were plain text so that one could select the word and drag it into an article.......

I apologize for the length of this post, but I hope that it might be worth something to somebody....

As luck would have it, i've run in to the problem of the word 'micing' already. I don't even have an idea of what form I like the best. The idea of a standardized sense of terms appeals to me, but I'm not sure it would be possible to pull it off.

However, there is a sort of solution built in. For things like DI (Direct Box, Direct Injection Box, etc) its easy to just create a new article about DI and link all the difference concepts to the same article. While this isn't the best solution (who wants to switch pages in the middle of reading an article), it at least helps the reader if they are completely befuddled.

[atdunlap]

Yeah, I knew of that option existing in wiki, I just wondered if there was any other way of doing it, but maybe that is the best way? I don't know.... would it be better to let everyone say whatever they want, however they want and then just like all synomomous concepts to one central article (that *biasly* is named only one of those terms) arghhh, I don't know... This is why creating a wiki is so much fun... I just thought that I would interject with a concept that might help us to keep our sanity before the project took off too far down the road... But hey - I used to know HTML, but I don't know the first thing about style-sheets or whatever it is that they program in now... If the wiki engine isn't flexible enough to allow there to be a centralized database of concepts then we'll just have to do what we're always talking about in recording. That is - to force ourselves to be even more creative with limited resources and capabilities.

However.... If someone has the knowhow to enact such a change to the wiki engine, I still think that it might be worth *considering.* Sorry though, I'm not trying to tell you how to build this thing...