PoliceWiki:To Do...

To Do... list for PoliceWiki

Want to help out with the wiki, but not sure where to begin?

Right now the list of work to do is nearly endless, but here's a quick guide to ways you can help out (along with specific jobs on the administrators' check lists)

Things for all "To Do"

• Contribute concert pics. Did you take photos at any particular Police or related concert or event? Please consider uploading one or two which can be used on the appropriate performance or event pages. Images should go in the appropriate Images category, though if you are uncertain where to put them or need a new category added, please ask sockii. Make sure to provide the appropriate information including your credit and the date of the event.
• Contribute other images. We're still in need of book & magazine cover photos, memorabilia photos, ticket scans, album and single sleeve art, etc. Again, all contributions welcome, just put them in the appropriate Images category or ask if one doesn't exist for what you need.
• Start building pages! There are thousands of articles that are little more than Stubs or blank templates at this point. Even if all you can do is add song lyrics to Song pages, or a set list from a concert, or links to outside reviews, all such contributions are welcome! An article does not need to be built in one day or be absolutely complete before contributing to. The evolution of the wiki is very organic in that fashion and every contribution helps the final project along.
• Add more song/album/etc information. We know we don't have every Police & solo song or album out there listed yet. If you know some are missing, please feel free to add "stubs" in the proper categories for them.
• Add website and fandom info! Webmasters, PoliceWiki can be a great way to promote your own site, as well as keep information about it up to date. Check Category:Fansites (The Police), Category:Fansites (Stewart Copeland), Category:Fansites (Andy Summers), Category:Fansites (Sting) etc to see if your site is listed, and/or to add information about it. Template:Fansite can help you format the information.
• Check category assignments. Special:Uncategorizedpages and Special:Uncategorizedimages list articles and pages which are "orphaned" and in need of proper categorization. These can easily be edited by anyone, and you can check PoliceWiki:Site Map to see where a page or image properly belongs.
• Ask the administrators questions! Bug us if something doesn't make sense, if you have a suggestion, or need help figuring out wiki coding. That's what we're here for.
• Promote the wiki. Link to it in your blog, on your website, in other communities where there are Police fans, etc. The more folks get involved in sharing their information and experiences, the better the wiki will be.

sockii's current tasks

• Finish page templates. List yet to tackle:
  • Template:Performances overview

...anything else I'm missing?

• Finish adding magazine cover images from Dietmar's collection; add other images as I have them for the printed matter resources.
• Build more userboxes for fun and mischief.
• Respond to DM in lolCat when the brain stops working.
• Assist DM in killing disambiguating Stewart. (Much obliged.--DM-Kellie 09:34, 30 March 2008 (PDT))
• Promote wiki.
  • Currently announcements posted to: pf.o forum, stingus, sc.net, police.com, xmission list, MySpace Police group, topix, last.fm--Sockii 08:27, 2 April 2008 (PDT)
  • Announcement posted at the_police and everybreath on livejournal.--Sidewinder 04:32, 4 April 2008 (PDT)"
• Get Curved Air pages in some basic shape, then go to Curved Air fan groups/communities to ask for help filling in more specific details.

DM's tasks

• Kill Disambiguate Stewart (I'll help.--Sockii 09:28, 30 March 2008 (PDT))

* Dump "Albums"? Screw it. It's an extra step, but without it, things fall apart, the center cannot hold.--DM-Kellie 13:53, 19 April 2008 (PDT)

• Think later: Songs (Orchestralli)?
• KK/bastard song redirects
• SC/bastard song redirects
• Event/timeline redirects
• Paste templates in tours
• Paste templates in albums (other bands)
• Paste templates in songs (Andy, other bands)
• Fix La Notte/ensemble/album
• Fix musical gear initial caps (ARGH)
• Venues (band)
• Tour cats
• Work out double-assigned songs
• Recategorization/fix broken links/clean-up
• Figure out how to anchor link asterisk in Site Map
• Figure out how to do footnotes
• Surf through and fix all "the" and "a/an" alphabetizing
• Proofread those Help and About pages once they're complete
• Email sockii with annoying questions
• Deal with historic events redirects
• Learn to speak lolCat
• Double-check the templates one more time (including comments/instructions) to make sure we haven't changed anything
• Comb through the Disambig pages for consistency (cf. Shadows)
• Check templates
• Fix Orchestralli (disambig) (???)
• Vet each template as sockii wills it into existence with the power of her mind
• Later: Flesh out Henry
• WAAAAAAY after launch, think about book tours, screenings tours, exhibits, etc. But only after much druggage.
• Double-check architecture and map

ref: Something like this would probably be a good model to follow for mapping? Just a thought...--Sockii 03:27, 8 February 2008 (PST)

Exactly what I was thinking, only theirs is way prettier than I had in my head. I was thinking of coupling it with a page-by-page check of the whole wiki, but I may need to separate those a bit just for the sake of time. --DM-Kellie 11:10, 8 February 2008 (PST)

Propositions open for discussion

Moving this discussion from PoliceWiki:To Do.., as originally posted by User:Brandnew so as not to be confusing with two separate "To Do" lists. This is the official "To Do..." article as linked on the sidebar. Discussion preferably should be taken to the talk page for this article or in the comment sections below.--Sockii 18:29, 21 April 2008 (PDT)

First step (just to begin with)

These are only propositions...

A history in music (with samples)

I always wanted to try something with The Police music which would require to use samples of bootlegs. I'm looking if on MediaWiki, there's a way to upload audio content (or video content) or if simply there are media players. The general idea would be to explain musically what was the evolution they brought. Like, why Stewart's drumming was important in the punk/reggae era with samples and comparaisons. Comparaisons of, for example, The Clash and what was the big change in The Police. Of course, when I say Stewart's drumming, I don't want to say it was not a collective decision to bring something to music. They did. But most importantly, the task would be to use samples from bootlegs, to compare with other bands, to understand why their sounds was so important and their music so rich.

It would be divided by era, although I think I can say they really changed music in the beginning, then it was more about quality of composition than revolution.

The uploading of short audio .ogg samples has previously been enabled on the wiki, but beyond that I am, for the moment, hesitant to allow direct uploading of larger audio and video content. One reason is because of my hosting service. Video content can be a big bandwidth drain, and Dreamhost has been very tough in the past on coming down on users who include copyrighted video or run up high bandwidth usage due to video files. It is preferable at this time, therefore, that authors who want to reference or cite video content do so with external links. Uploading of various media types beyond simple graphics files and ogg samples can also open the database up to hacking & abusive scripts. I will look into some of the various extensions for this more in the future, to see which may be the easiest to install--if safe and easy on the bandwidth--but I really need to make sure it won't affect the stability of the wiki first.

On the other points, one thought I have had is to open up what I'd call an "essays" category on the wiki where articles such as a musical analysis of The Police could fit in. Because in general information articles (ie, the main page for The Police or a biography page on someone, it's best in a wiki to "stick to the basic facts" as much as possible -- avoiding what could be perceived as points of opinion. But I do believe it would be interesting and useful from a scholastic standpoint to have an area of the wiki open for more interpretive discussion and writings and not necessarily be as "dry" as the other articles.--Sockii 18:44, 21 April 2008 (PDT)

A history of bootlegs

Maybe it would be really time to regroup all the informations we have about bootlegs. Police is a bootlegged group and have a list of every single bootleg that exist would be a good idea (www.thepolicelive.com has already done a lot but it would be interesting to see this in a collaborative way). If we could only make a complete list of all known recordings, we would centralize a great source of information.

A comprehensive bootleg list would certainly be a nice idea and could fit in under the Performances category easily enough, especially as it could link then to individual tour dates directly from the article. If you have an idea for a tabular format for the data, I could fairly easily draft up a template that could be added to from there.--Sockii 18:48, 21 April 2008 (PDT)

Interviews

Why not a list of interviews we could find (www.thepolice.com has already a lot but once again a collaborative work on that would be a good thing). We would provide links only to interviews with licensed content (maybe a presentation of who interact in the interview and the general purpose of the conversation). If it's too redundant with what already exists, we could also make a "Stewart's Hall of Fame... of interviews" so it wouldn't be just encyclopedic but cheerful. With the funniest lines he said. And also the mot inspired since I myght venture that he's probably the most inspired during interview of them three.