jonlaing
296 posts
Jul 27, 2011
12:34 PM
|
So I had an idea when someone posted up something about another forum. What if, in addition to compiling all this great information into a fluid format like a forum, we made an official harmonica wikipedia? I'm a web developer for a living, so I can provide the framework, if I have enough support for people to fill out the content.
The goal would be to compile this wealth of knowledge floating around on the web into one place. This could include everything from the history of the harmonica, to music theory for harmonica, to customizing techniques.
What do you guys think? Good idea to benefit the harp community, or a stupid waste of time?
Last Edited by on Jul 27, 2011 12:59 PM
|
Todd Parrott
590 posts
Jul 27, 2011
12:45 PM
|
Sounds like a great idea, and a great way to have a directory of who's who in the harmonica world as well.
|
MrVerylongusername
1794 posts
Jul 27, 2011
12:48 PM
|
I think someone on the forum already tried it (was it Germanharpist?)
|
MrVerylongusername
1795 posts
Jul 27, 2011
1:12 PM
|
no - but I'm pretty sure it never really got off the ground. Sorry, just a half recollection from someone with the memory of an amnesiac goldfish. Try the forum search and see if it comes up.
|
jim
948 posts
Jul 27, 2011
1:12 PM
|
You need a mac os powered server to use Apple Wiki. I have already tried to persuade people to learn MediaWiki markup.
I have tried that two times. Forget it.
----------
Free Harp Learning Center
|
timeistight
111 posts
Jul 27, 2011
1:21 PM
|
I think it's a great idea. Go for it!
|
MrVerylongusername
1796 posts
Jul 27, 2011
1:24 PM
|
Yeah I think so too, I was a little disappointed nothing ever came of it.
|
nacoran
4381 posts
Jul 27, 2011
1:53 PM
|
We gave it a shot but the people at Wiki were a pain in the butt. They kept harassing us saying that blues harp wasn't a big enough topic for it's own portal page. I thought we had a good start and were making progress but we got out-voted and removed. We were even going to put sound samples up for different effects.
We got archived. I really like the idea of A wiki but doing it on Wikipedia wasn't the right way. We needed a site were harp players were the final arbitrators.
There is a lot of general stuff on blues and on harmonica both on Wikipedia and on Wikibooks, but it's all over the place if you are trying to browse it a harmonica fan. I think something like that would be a great resource and a great draw for whatever site hosted it, but you'd need server space, some tech oriented people and content people and it's hard to get all those things together in one place.
After the Wiki idea fell through I started organizing some of the info on the forum in my Thread Threads Organizer, but they aren't user friendly enough. The forum archive was another attempt at organizing information. (I think that was GH's baby.)
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
jonlaing
298 posts
Jul 27, 2011
3:06 PM
|
Well I do most of my development in Ruby on Rails these days (PHP and I broke up), and I host my own sites. As it turns out, there aren't a whole lot of Wiki frameworks for Rails, and the ones that do exist are kind of piss poor, so I was going to kill two birds with one stone by making the Harmonica Wiki, and making a good Wiki gem for Rails. (sorry for the nerdgasm)
So the technology isn't a problem. My biggest concern is getting people to contribute so it doesn't just go stagnant with a half-baked archive of information.
|
MrVerylongusername
1798 posts
Jul 27, 2011
3:15 PM
|
If you build it, they will come
|
nacoran
4384 posts
Jul 27, 2011
4:06 PM
|
Somewhere I've got what we had saved. Unfortunately all the links were formatted for Wikipedia. I can share what we had though. :)
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
Shajan
25 posts
Jul 27, 2011
5:17 PM
|
@nacoran
What if you told them you want to make it for harmonica in general, both diatonic and chromatic? He surely can't say thats too small for it's own portal...
|
nacoran
4386 posts
Jul 27, 2011
8:18 PM
|
Wikipedia is very cliquish. If you are an established presence I think you can do more, but as outsiders (my entire Wikipedia editing career before the harp project) was starting a stub which took off and a few minor grammar corrections I stumbled on while reading articles about stuff (probably fewer than half-a-dozen, not the sort of stuff that gives you much pull on Wikipedia). Wikipedia is also kind of fanatical about citing secondary sources. If you can't find it in a book somewhere you can't put it on Wikipedia, which is about verifying information, but kind of counter-productive when you have a wealth of primary resources available in some topics.
----------
Nate
Facebook
Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
|
