Well, there certainly appears to be some interest, which is good.
Let me explain what I had in mind in more detail. By the way, if people are not able to write English or prefer to write responses in French, that is OK, I can read it in translation. I figure people can understand my English more than they can understand my French.
The idea of WikiFur is to build a furry encyclopedia. Obviously, we could not write everything at once. We started with the topics that everyone could write a little about and then expanded from there, with other people writing about the things they knew about. You do not normally plan what things to write about, though it can be a good idea sometimes.
The first objective of the French WikiFur would be to have information that would be particularly useful to the people reading it. This might include an introduction to furry fandom, the basic concepts (furry art, fursuits, etc.) - and it might also contain information about the people in the French community, or on conventions that people from French-speaking regions of the world go to, or popular French-language websites.
It would not be limited to these things, though - it would grow over time as people found interesting things to write about. On the English version of WikiFur we allow topics that are significantly related to furry fandom. So, articles about games and characters are fine, if they concentrate on the furry part; but it makes little sense to have articles about non-furry topics - you can just link to Wikipedia for those. Exactly where to draw the line would be up to the other French contributors, because they are the ones who have to maintain the pages.
Few web skills are required - just the ability to write well in the language of the wiki - and if you do not know how to use this, then you can always ask others to do it for you. There is a
simple syntax - most people just look at existing pages that do what they want and copy it from there until they learn. And as Grumpfbear says, it is an excellent way of learning more about furry fandom. In fact, one of the reasons I started WikiFur is that I wanted to learn more about furries, but didn't want to have to go and ask everyone.
Let me now talk about the leader's job - though remember when I say leader, it could be several people. Most things on a wiki can be done by anyone - and everyone should feel free to do so. On a wiki, decisions are usually made together, in discussions like this on the "talk" pages. The purpose of the leader - or leaders, there can be many - is not to make the decisions, but to lead these discussions, to ensure that people reach agreement (usually the word used on English wikis is "consensus"), and to arrange for things to happen afterwards, either by doing it themselves or finding others to do it. They are only one voice, not the ultimate voice. (I have been overruled sometimes on my own wiki.
)
The leader's job is also to go outside the wiki and tell people in the wider community what is happening, point them to the interesting articles that are being written, and suggest how others can help. You may notice me trying to do this now . . .
. . . but the task is more than just asking for help. It is responding to concerns from others, and dealing with people who are affected by the wiki even if they are not contributors. For example, perhaps you have an article about someone, and they do not like it - though anyone could do it, it is often the leader who talks to these people. Or maybe someone says something incorrect about the wiki on a forum - the leader might go there and say "no, it is actually like this". I do
a lot of talking. (each archive link at the right has another long page . . .)
The leader's task depends on the size of the wiki - if it is small, there is far more writing and organizing wiki pages than there is talking to people about it, because there is nobody else to do these jobs. Someone has to start the first pages, and that is the leader! There may also be people who lead in writing or organizing pages, and others who do the job of talking to others - just like organizing a convention. The most important part is helping other editors, because you cannot write everything by yourself (otherwise why have a wiki?
)
Here is an
even longer article on the "people" part of starting a wiki that you might find interesting. Several of the things are already done, such as finding a host and making a logo, so it is an smaller task than the article suggests.
And who should be leading the project? Well, at the English WikiFur, we decide by looking at the people who act like leaders. So, if you are active in writing new articles, organizing existing ones, offer advice to others, help solve disagreements, and generally make the wiki a better place - well, you already
are a leader, and should be given any extra power you need to do your job (this mostly involves being able to block bad editors or protect very important pages if there is vandalism, as well as edit the pages that control how the wiki looks). You can do most admin things without extra powers, so everyone should try to act like one.
Looking at the replies, it seems like there are a lot of people who want to help with translation, but PanzarDragon wishes to take the lead in organizing things, so perhaps I should talk to him further about it. But everyone should feel free to try editing things on the wiki. It is easy to fix things if they go wrong - just go into the history tab and click the old date, then click edit and save it. Try starting with the User: page about yourself - once you register on the site, you can get to it by clicking your name at the top.
That reminds me - there is a difference we have on the English WikiFur between pages from people and pages about people which you might also find useful. The User: page (like
User:GreenReaper) is usually written as if you were talking to someone, in the "first person", while the main one (e.g.
GreenReaper) is in the "third person". This means you can have one "personal" page where you say what you like, how you like, and one "public" page which is written like a proper encyclopedia article. The public one is the one that everyone else edits. Timduru could put "Timduru is the master of the universe" on the [[User:Timduru]] page if he wanted, and it would stay there, but it might not stay on [[Timduru]] unless he proved it.
