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Underground > Policy & Help >

Wiki points and questions

01:23 / 02.03.05

sorry if this is a well covered topic and sorry if it's in the wrong place, it's late, my shoulder hurts so being lazy.

How do you get your Blog onto the Barblogger list?

How do you get yourself on the Barb map?

that's it really.

Thank you.

08:33 / 02.03.05

How do you get yourself on the Barb map?

If I remember correctly you have to send your location to Baz Auckland - see this thread for more.

Barbelith World Map

09:03 / 02.03.05

Thanks Jub, now just the blogger thing.

09:38 / 02.03.05

Well, I’m not sure who runs the barbeblogs site, it dates from before my time. But I *think* you have to write your message and url and stuff in the box on the right, then sacrifice a toad and run widdershins around a churchyard at midnight, and then go home and wait for updates. Or something. To be honest, because it relies on one person, it’s just likely to go out of date as the map. And so is *exactly* the kind of resource we could do with operating from a page on the wiki - then anyone could simply add or remove or adjust their details as they wish. Easy as.

Um, just saying. Wanna job, benny?

11:08 / 02.03.05

[offtopica]

Which way is widdershins?

[end offtopica]

13:49 / 02.03.05

widdershins = anticlockwise

rising and revolving

13:43 / 03.03.05

Nay! Widdershins means "contrary" basically (working from memory here, so it's not exact) which is generally referring to the direction of the sun. So, in the northern hemisphere that works out to counter-clockwise. In the southern, it's clockwise.

I know a lot of Aussie pagans, so this tends to come up a lot.

22:27 / 28.03.05

Can anyone point me to the list we previously talked about putting together that was supposed to cover some of the basics that come up as a precursor to possible trolling? As I recall, it was supposed to be sort of a we hold these truths to be self-evident thing -- I believed it was to cover reverse discrimination among other things, and that's what I'm looking for at the moment. I'll keep looking.

Thanks.

08:57 / 16.08.05

Why isn't there a link to the wiki on the main page? Like a link that says FAQ at the top of the page?

Tryphena Absent

22:40 / 16.08.05

Because it would look crap?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

01:21 / 17.08.05

I dunno, is it that crap? I've already got a bnuch of polite grey text telling me that I'm wearing my me suit, that I have severalty-three messages, who's new and how many punters have signed up to the board.

Now, one might argue that the number of punters signed up is a not very useful bit of info that could profitably be replaced with a 'Get news and help on the Barbelith Wiki' link as appears on this page. No?

Tryphena Absent

01:53 / 17.08.05

You don't want the members list linked to anymore? Because I do find that useful as well. About as useful as the wiki (but I'm not new). It's not like it's difficult to see the link after using the board a couple of times. You only have to move to a forum or thread to access the wiki link.

Of course we may have members who don't know that the wiki is the FAQ...

14:30 / 17.08.05

That's my point, the FAQ is likely to be most useful to new members, so it should be obvious and easy to find for those unfamiliar with the site. And the link to the wiki is only available from the post response page, n'est pas? Lurkers aren't likely to see that page much.

14:35 / 17.08.05

I take it back, am inherently unobservant. There it is right there.

17:32 / 20.08.05

The wiki is available everywhere for non-users and on every page apart the front page for logged in users.

12:54 / 18.02.06

I wasn't sure what to do with this question, so I found this old thread to place it in. I was trying to make an income-generating link to an amazon book yesterday--amazon.com, not amazon.co.uk--and I discovered that amazon.com does not use "asin" numbers anymore. The average book entry looks like:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415969239/ref=pd_cpt_gw_1/002-0476332-3741610?%5Fencoding=UTF8%2CUTF8&ref=pd%5Fcpt%5Fgw%5F1&v=glance&n=283155

Now, my link-fu is abysmal these past days, but I decided, initially, that the number after "product" was the equivalent of the old ASIN...but I couldn't get it to work just by following the old instructions. I can get this to work:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415969239/

But if I try to add "noahwylemanorani" to it, it doesn't work--error message is all I get. This may very well be my fault. (Amazon.co.uk is still using "ASIN" and I was able to get that to work.)

14:33 / 18.02.06

Try

Undoing Gender by Judith Butler

...I think you need to keep all the exec/obidos stuff intact, ie *exactly* as it’s formatted in the wiki, and then just stick the ten-digit number in there, rather than make a link with the gp/product address-type stuff that amazon uses these days.

(I don’t know what I’m talking about, of course. I’m just guessing. But that link seems to work ok now.)

So, anyway, if that's okay, then the cut ‘n pasteable version of that would be:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415969239/noahwylemanorani">Undoing Gender by Judith Butler</a>

16:57 / 18.02.06

Ok! So, in other words, you have to cut/paste the barbelith string from the Wiki in place of the "product" nonsense that Amazon uses today. The "product" number is the same as the "ASIN." Yes?

Thanks. Is this obvious to others, or would it be worth updating the Wiki?

17:21 / 18.02.06

Well. Full disclosure, I wrote the bit right at the bottom of the wiki page, the ‘this is the short version’ section, and that’s what I was trying for: cut and paste this, stick the number in here, write the title here, post it to barbelith - because I didn’t really follow the explanation as it was originally written. I mean, I don’t even know what ASIN stands for. I just look for the likeliest 10-digit number in the address.

So, how would you change it? More explanation, or less? Either way, I’m sure that page could be made much easier to read.

19:52 / 18.02.06

Well, speaking strictly for myself, it's just that, since there was no mention of the fact that what you're going to find on the Amazon page is the gp/products/ stuff, I just assumed that Amazon had recently changed this (esp. since amazon.co.uk is still using the older ASIN numbers--and I'm sure that ASIN is the older system).

I further assumed that Amazon.com had made this change more recently than the wiki had been updated, so it didn't occur to me that the "old" ASIN stuff would work any more.

So, given what you're telling me here, I think a little more step-by-step description of 1) what you're going to see when you find an amazon product that you want to link to, 2) what you need to cut/past out of that product's URL (just the number after "product/") and that 3) you then NEED to cut and paste the "ASIN" style URL in place of the gp/product style URL in any Barbelith link...

(And the other part of my brain is saying: it will look too complicated and people will give up. If we're lucky, at best they'll just link to amazon.co.uk...)

While were on the topic, and slap me if this is obviously explained somewhere else on the wiki, is it possible to make any purchase I make from amazon income-generating for Barbelith, even if I'm not linking to the product on the 'lith itself?

21:09 / 18.02.06

Your last question has been asked several times, alas - I can distinctly remember liger asking, and benny the ball, I think - so, if anyone knows, please could you post to say? Only I don’t even know how this thing works, whether revenue is generated by click-through, like the google adverts, or only triggered if you make a purchase, let alone how much it’s all actually worth to barbelith.

On the wiki page - you’re right that most of it hasn’t been updated for years, it’s a really old page. It’s still even got elseware’s Policy-type question about the ISDNs in the middle of it. And whenever I come across stuff that was written before I joined barbelith, I do tend to add a P.S. onto the end rather than edit it properly and start over if necessary, which only probably clogs things up rather than making them simpler. So, sorry about that. Should’ve scrubbed any out-of-date stuff sooner.

grant, if you’re reading this, you’re the resident wiki-genius: does the barb wiki have anywhere we can upload images to? I’m thinking maybe we can use close-up screencaps from Amazon to show people precisely which bits they need to take out of the address bar. As I understand it, it’s only the identifying number that anyone needs, right? So, the instructions could just be: ignore the rest, cut and paste *this* number, stick it into *this* HTML, bob’s your uncle.

01:02 / 19.02.06

You'd have to upload images elsewhere (flickr.com, probably) and stick the URL in the wiki. I think it'll automatically read .jpg URLs as images. If not, just stick it in single-brackets.

12:26 / 05.03.06

Okay, so how’s that? Does anyone think that’s any easier to follow? Here is the old version, for comparison. I’d be grateful for any and all suggestions on how to make this thing clear and easy to understand.

Also, grant, the reason I asked about the uploading is that after looking at/trying to understand this mediawiki ‘help’ page, it sorta looked like there’s all sorts of interesting things that we can do with images once they’ve been uploaded to the wiki. I may have misunderstood all that. But I just wondered if we could ‘do’ uploading, is all.

00:05 / 13.03.06

I tried to search the Wiki today, and I got this:

Database error
From Barbelith
For query "flyboy"
A database query syntax error has occurred. This could be because of an illegal search query (see Searching Barbelith), or it may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

SELECT cur_id,cur_namespace,cur_title,cur_text FROM cur,searchindex WHERE cur_id=si_page AND MATCH(si_title) AGAINST('+flyboy' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AND cur_namespace IN (0,9,11) LIMIT 0, 20

from within function "SearchEngine::showResults". MySQL returned error "1016: Can't open file: 'searchindex.MYI' (errno: 145)".

As those young whippersnappers say (and maybe Bobossino will too), "WTF?"

Less searchable M0rd4nt

06:42 / 13.03.06

Yeah, the wiki search function is broken. Has been for months. There's a thread about it somewhere.

12:04 / 13.03.06

*blushes*

Oh. Sorry.

13:12 / 13.03.06

I just noticed an old unanswered question:

While were on the topic, and slap me if this is obviously explained somewhere else on the wiki, is it possible to make any purchase I make from amazon income-generating for Barbelith, even if I'm not linking to the product on the 'lith itself?

Any Amazon link that has Tom's codes in it will send dosh his way. Doesn't matter the origin, just the code.

Oh, and ASIN stands for Amazon Standard Identity Number. I think it coincides with an ISBN, but not always. The link there says it's the same as an ISBN except on books & other items that don't come with ISBN (the International Standard Book Number).

Wikipedia is an amazing resource -- I think that ASIN page would answer any questions about Amazon linking, actually.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:41 / 16.03.06

Could we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put Gypsy Lantern's definition of "fnording" in the Wiki?

Fnording: A term used to describe the activity of people on occult internet message boards who have replaced their capacity for critical analysis with a series of soundbytes culled from the works of Robert Anton Wilson and the publishing output of New Falcon. This activity is pernicious as it often manifests as jovial back-slapping, in-joking and procrastination - at the expense of ever actually doing a single fucking thing to help anybody (and I mean anybody that you could actually point to in a room) with the alleged magical abilities to tip the scales of reality that are under debate.

12:49 / 17.03.06

In Post Etiquette or The Temple FAQ?

It should definitely be linked both places.

14:03 / 17.03.06

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:28 / 17.03.06

I kiss you. Whilst wearing a wacky Diskordian hat.

14:07 / 30.05.06

Okay, so I mentioned in another thread that I was thinking about revamping the Main Page of the FAQ. I started fiddling around with this a few weeks ago, but then a load of STUFF happened and, well, anyway, I’m back home now and thought I’d ask you all. About the wiki. Basically, I’m thinking that the Main Page we have is years and years old - we just sort of add any new bits onto the end, so mmmmmmaybe some important stuff is currently way down the index and some less-than-crucial stuff is near the top. I’m sort of thinking it might need changing for the benefit of any newer users who might want to be able to find important stuff without digging too much.

So, anyway, here’s the version we’ve got now. And here’s a prospective new version. I haven’t touched all the ‘what is barbelith?’ text at the start, obviously, and it isn’t finished, obviously, and yes, half of this is about me seeing if I can figure out how to do colours, but there are all my main Main-Page-revamping ideas, anyway. All the how-to-use-barbelith stuff, the etiquette and the formatting and the page about RSS, all that is right up front and highlighted and everything, and then the other barbelith-related, wider-community stuff, like flikr and the blogs, is all right up on top, too. The ‘FAQs by forum’ bit sort of indicates how the different areas of barbelith - Revolution, Spectacle - are laid out. Er, and then there’s all the other stuff after that.

Er, so, anyway. Thoughts, anyone?

19:16 / 21.09.06

BARBELITH USERS:

Click the "Barbelith Wiki" link up top and check out the new Main Page.

19:38 / 21.09.06

OH! It is lovely! thank you!

20:00 / 21.09.06

Thank Bedhead. He did all the heavy lifting.