Help:Getting Started

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Thanks for your interest in helping out with the SGU transcription project.

As you probably know, there are over 350 full episodes of the SGU, and over 100 5x5 episodes, so we appreciate any and all of the help we get.

We want to make it clear that we welcome all contributions, regardless of whether you can tell the difference between Jay and Bob, just don't want to do all the formatting and mark-up for a full wiki page, or can only contribute parts of episodes.

We encourage everyone to contribute just as much or as little as they wish

Here, we cover some of the basics of setting up a page and editing. For more detailed help, see the list of [links] below.


Getting started

First things first, if you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

Find an episode that you want to transcribe, make sure it isn't already listed on the Main Page, and create a page for it. ???what about marking episodes with section work only???

Creating new episode pages

It's best to create a page before you start any of the work in order to make sure that no-one else is working on the same episode.
You don't want to put in all that effort only to find out someone submitted the same transcript just before you did!

It's easy to create a page:

  1. Type the name of the page you want to create in the search bar, for example:
      "SGU Episode ###"
    or
      "5X5 Episode ##"
  2. Click 'Go' or 'Search' (it doesn't matter which)
    • If someone has already created this page, then it will appear in the search results, and you should find another episode to transcribe.
  3. If no-one has created a page for that episode, then the search results page will say:
      There were no results matching the query.

      Create the page "SGU Episode ###" on this wiki!

  4. Click on the red link to the new page to create it, this takes you to the editing section for that page.
  5. Type ''page in progress'' in the editing window, and click 'save page' at the bottom left of the screen.

This creates a new page for your episode that notifies people viewing it that someone is working on it.

Adding new pages to the Main Page

Now, before you run off to start your transcription, you should add your new page to the Main Page. This makes it extra clear to other contributors that you've called dibs on this episode.

⊗ If you would like someone to do this step for you, or if you have any questions/suggestions, just put a note in the SGUTranscripts:Community_portal, and someone will be happy to help out.???link to section on portal???

  1. Head back to the Main Page and find the section that your episode should be entered into.
    • e.g The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts, 2012 or The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts, 2008
  2. You can edit sections of a page separately by clicking on the 'edit' link to the right of that section, opening that section's editing box directly.
    Alternatively, you can open the editing box for the whole page and find the relevant section within it using the 'edit' tab at the top of the page - whatever you find easiest.
  3. Enter the link to your page, the date and mark it as incomplete. If you are transcribing a 5X5 episode, also include the episode name , for example:
      [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012 (incomplete)
    or
      [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy (incomplete)
    • You can remove the (incomplete) once you've finished your submission.
  4. Preview and save the page

Right, now you're ready to go ahead with the fun part!

Tips for Transcription

You should use whatever method of transcription you find suits you best.

So far, we don't know of any speech recognition software available to do the task for us, so the following is for manual transcription only. Here's some quick info on what we've found useful so far.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions to add.

Audio software

(copied)My method of transcription is to use VLC media player, and dial down the speed until I can type comfortably. A quick alt-tab, then shift-left a couple of times will skip back a few seconds if you missed something.

ExpressScribe is a free program that allows you a lot of control over the audio playback, whilst using the text editor of your choice. You can assign hot-keys to actions such as play, pause, speed up, skip back etc. that are system-wide (i.e. they work no matter what other program you're in at the time).
You can find an overview of ExpressScribe functions in this article

Text editing software

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what program you use for writing your transcription, but some have their advantage and disadvantages.

Here are some things you might want to consider:

  • spell-checking
  • automatic correction of common typos (e.g. with MS Word)
  • ???preferences for format/saving file type

Posting Transcription

So, now you've done all the hard work, and it's time to show the world.

  1. Go to the episode page you created and click on the 'edit' tab at the top
  2. Paste your text into the editing box
  3. Click on the 'show preview' button at the bottom of the page to show what your current edit looks like.
    • It's generally best to check the preview before saving a page in order to avoid excessive numbers of editing entries in the Recent changes log.
      • ???This log shows all the changes made to the entire website, and is handy for checking for new additions, such as messages in the community portal.
  4. If you're happy with the preview, or want to save your progress and come back to it later, click 'save page', which will show your new page in all it's glory.

Wiki mark-up

If you would like someone to mark up your page for you, or if you have any questions/suggestions, just put a note in the SGUTranscripts:Community_portal, and someone will be happy to help out.

Here, we describe the most commonly used wikitext markup and html tags for pages on this site. For more detail, see [[1]]


Line breaks and paragraphs

Description What it looks like What you type
Starting a new line in the editing window does not show on the final page as a line break This is my first lineThis is my second line

This is my first line
This is my second line

To start a new line, use the <br> tag
You can use this on the same line, or on a new line

This is my first line
This is my second line

This is my first line
<br>This is my second line

To start a new paragraph leave an empty line between text in the editing window This is my first line

This is my second line

This is my first line

This is my second line


Headers

Headers are used to mark the different podcast segments, and are automatically incorporated into a table of contents that appears at the top of the page.

Headings are made by using 2 or more 'equals' signs:

What it looks like What you type

Podcast segment

==Podcast segment==

Segment subsection

===Segment subsection===

??? We also include the time at which that section starts in a small font using the <small> tag, for example:

=== News Item 2 <small>(24:32)</small>===

is displayed as:

News Item 2 (24:32)


Community Portal

To post a message in the SGUTranscripts:Community_portal:

  1. Click on the 'edit' tab on the portal page and enter your note at the bottom of the editing box
  2. Sign the post using 4 tildas ("~~~~")
    • This automatically inserts your user name and the time of the post.
  3. Don't forget to hit 'save page' when you're finished.


Links

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