Vinismo is written by its readers -- Internet users like you -- and we need your help! Try our getting started guide to learn how.
There are as many ways to help Vinismo as there are wine enthousiasts. This article is for those who like the idea of Vinismo, but are having a hard time getting started with contributing.
- Add new wines to Vinismo. We are very far from completing our mission which is to create a guide of all wines in the world. Every time you taste a wine, visit a winery, or browse through the aisles of your local wine store, you can find new wines to add to Vinismo. Read this page to know how to do this.
- Find articles to help with. There are many ways to do this. The Vinismo project is very young; lots and lots of wines need to be added in its pages. Here are good starting points to find articles that need your help:
- Special:Newpages gives you all the pages that have been created recently.
- Special:Recentchanges gives you the pages that have been edited recently.
- Orphaned pages gives you articles that do not have links pointing to them. Unless you do something about them, they are most likely to be forgotten about, because contributors will ordinarily never come across them or improve them.
- Dead-end pages are those which do not link to any other. Sometimes this is okay, but often this indicates that the page has been created by a new user who is not yet familiar with inserting wikilinks.
- Special:Randompage, as the name suggests, will throw up a random page. Usually, you can find something to improve in any page.
- Proofread. This is one of the easiest ways to get started with helping with Vinismo. While you're reading an article, watch for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or other writing gaffes. If you see one, edit the page and correct it. Vinismo is now that much better -- thanks to you!
- Reformat articles. Vinismo has some guidelines for giving a consistent look-and-feel to our content and making it easier for wine enthusiasts to find and use information. Just as with proofreading, you can do a lot of good just by reformatting or restructuring articles. Articles that need reformatting are typically "stubs" which usually lack standard headings and outlines. The dead end pages, which list articles without any links on them, are also worth a look.
- Organize the geographical hierarchy. Vinismo has a way to insert a code, called isIn to show breadcrumb navigation on top of the page. This will make it easier to automatically identify wines by their origin.
- Check the wines produced in your region. Navigate to the wine regions and appellations you know well, either by going through the directory on the Main Page or using the Search functionality. If the article is there, take a good look to see that it's correct. Make sure that major information is listed, and see if you can fill in any details for any of the entries there. If there's not a page about your region or your favorite wine, start one yourself!
- Check for articles for wines you've tasted or wine regions you've visited. Check them for accuracy, add information, or start them new. If these articles don't exist yet, you can start them.
- Don't limit yourself to things you already know. You don't have to have firsthand knowledge of a region or a particular wine or any other topic to contribute to the article! Find articles that need work and do some research to get started on working on that article.
- Make outlines. Don't be daunted by the task of writing all of the article about Italy or Greece-- just get it started with a few sentences. People are much more likely to change or add to articles than to start them from scratch. If you only know a teensy bit about a subject, go ahead and add it in. It is easy to create an outline for most articles and move them to the next level. You can help there.
- Watch for wanted articles. The Special:Wantedpages feature of our software lets you see which articles have been linked to but not yet written. These are excellent places to get started -- you're filling in what is an obvious need for the travel guide.
- Take Vinismo with you. Before you go shopping for wines, try to find articles in Vinismo about the wines you're interested in. Print them out -- or download them to your PDA, or whatever -- and take them with you. Keep notes on what's right, what's wrong, and what's missing. If the wine you're tasting isn't in Vinismo yet, take notes for a new article to start when you get back.
- Promote Vinismo. The more people who read and contribute to Vinismo, the better it becomes, and the closer we get to our goal of making a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable guide of all the wines in the world. There are a number of ways to promote Vinismo; check to see if you can do one or more of them.
- Help new contributors. New users contributing to Vinismo can have a lot of questions and problems. Your experience with Vinismo can make their learning curve a lot easier. Watch for questions in the Wine Bar or on Talk pages, and respond helpfully. If you see the same question over and over, add it to the FAQ. You can even add to the Help index for more complicated questions or issues. If there are help topics already in place that people seem not to see or understand, maybe you can help get that information out by reorganizing the help area.
- Cheerlead. Nothing makes people feel better than knowing their work is appreciated. When you see a good piece of writing, or a great picture, or whatever, let the person who made it know that you liked it. Just a bit of encouragement on the article's Talk page, or on the user's Talk page, can make a world of difference.
- Shape the community. Our project is very young, and much of the way we've decided to work together with you is still untested. If you have ideas for how to work together better, please suggest them as new community policies or contributor guidelines. You can submit your ideas beforehand to the nice people at the Wine Bar to make them even better. It doesn't matter how long you've been part of our community: you just might have an idea that will make things work smoother. At worst, you'll make explicit some policy that's currently implicit; that's a good thing. If there are policies already in place that people aren't following, maybe you can help get that information out by reorganizing the policies area.
- Welcome new users. When new users come onto Vinismo, it's nice to leave them a brief welcome message pointing them to important parts of the site such as the Project Home or the Help pages. We normally wait until folks have created a User account and possibly set up their own user page. Welcome messages let new contributors know that they're part of a community, and also make sure they have pointers to important tools for contributing.
- Work on MediaWiki. The software we use for Vinismo is called MediaWiki. If you know the PHP programming language, contributing to MediaWiki really helps Vinismo. Fixing bugs or adding features makes it easier for other wine enthusiasts to add great content. If interested, you can start by contacting Evan, our Sysop-in-chief.
