Here's a draft for a 'Guidelines for new contributors' post. Feedback welcome!
Welcome to the Gwulo website. I hope these notes will help you get the most out of the site, but if anything isn't clear please let me know in the comments.
First post
Gwulo's readers have a broad range of interests, so most topics of Hong Kong's history are welcome. We have a cut-off at the 1997 handover, so content should relate to the colonial period or earlier.
The content we don't want to see is anything abusive, any plagiarism, or any AI-generated text or images.
Second and later posts
If you have more to add, these habits will help make Gwulo a trusted reference:
- Quote your sources
- Write once: avoid posting multiple copies of the same information
- Original content is always preferred over cut & paste copies
Advanced techniques
Learn how to use connections, eg photo 'shows Place', etc.
If you're about to comment on a photo, think whether your comment is about the scene (when & where it was taken, who & what it shows), or about something in the scene (e.g. memories of a building or information about a person). The first type is good to comment on the photo page, the second may be better as a comment on a Place or Person page.
Also see the list of FAQs for other tips.
Duplicates
Propose to add (probably under First Post):
Please check if this has already been posted on Gwulo.
I do know that this not so easy when the subject (e.g. photo) is unknown to the person that wants to post it, but an advice could reduce the number of duplicates (both photos and places).
upload limit
perhaps have a daily upload limit as well until you have been a contributor for X amount of time. I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed that so many posts go up it's hard to curate them for accuracy. I think most people would prefer quality over quantity. Just an opinion, mind you.
Guidelines for new contributors' post
I welcome and fully support Admin's proposed draft of updated Guidelines for contributing to this site.
In recent weeks we have been inundated with long "history" articles , many cloned from Wikipedia pages and accompanied by duplicated photographs ,copied from both this and other websites with the source not being indicated. These 'copy and paste' articles are not in the realm of true and original research and do nothing to enrich the aspirations of this valuable forum.
Thank you Admin.
Discussion on new Guidelines
I suggest that a clause should also be included that this is a primarily an English language forum and that descriptions and analysis of photographs should be written in English. We also do not wish to have multiple images of archived Chinese newspapers posted because the majority of followers of this forum are unable to read Chinese. While it is reasonable for information printed in Chinese newspapers and other publications to be referenced , descriptions and comments should be restricted to the English language. If this site is overrun with Chinese language posts, regrettably many regular followers of this site will be discouraged from returning to these pages .
Translations
It would definitely be a big plus if image uploads in Chinese had a translation directly underneath either as part of the image's description, or as a comment on the same image page. Right now we have multiple Chinese newspaper article uploads that have no context without the reader being able to track down the topic/thread they have been used for.
If we know what the articles are saying they may have use and context beyond what the user has uploaded them for. Right now we are getting translations, but they are done in-thread, so to speak, which I feel limits their usefulness.
Re: Discussion so far
Thank you David for the draft guidelines. I am in agreement.
My suggestions:
In the main, I agree with Klaus.
Each poster should endeavour to include a Title and Subject in their posts. Otherwise, it would be difficult for posters (both seasoned and new) to track down and note previously submitted content and photos.
2.Translations
Agree with philk.
Gwulo attracts Chinese and non-Chinese readers/visitors who have a connection to Hong Kong to its website.
It would be a positive step forward if uploaded Chinese articles, newspaper clippings/excerpts etc. could include (1) an English title/subject as well and (2) an immediate direct translation into English under the posted content(s) so that the wider audience can better understand and appreciate the subject-matter and the intention and objective of the poster. Such inclusion can assist non-Chinese readers/visitors to also make their own observations and comments.
3. Source of Information
As Gwulo has grown into a large and helpful resource of information and considered a trusted website, it is important that posters state their sources of information and where information has been derived from. Currently, there is a large section of newspaper articles posted without title, subject, source of information and content reference to any thread or forum. It is rather difficult for readers to follow or back trace.
Guidelines
Thank you all for your thoughtful feedback.
Some background first:
I want to keep the guidelines post as short and simple as possible, so we don’t frighten off potential new contributors, e.g. someone thinking of adding a family photo for the first time.
I also note that some of the good habits we follow now, such as quoting sources and avoiding duplicates, have taken years to develop. I won’t expect new contributors to follow these habits from day one, as long as they are open to learning them over time.
On to feedback on the points you’ve raised:
A. Duplicates: Please check if this has already been posted on Gwulo
Checking if a Photo or a Place already exists is harder than it sounds, so an FAQ on how to do this this would be a good addition.
I’ll change point 2. above to “Avoid duplicates: don’t post multiple copies of the same information”
B. English language & translations
I’ll add a note that Gwulo is an English-language website.
I don’t see a problem with Chinese-language newspaper clippings, as long as they include a translation and follow the other guidelines.
C. Too much new content
Even after we fix problems of adding poor content, there will be times when there is lots of noise: new content that doesn't match our personal interests. At the moment, I’m a source of this with the project to transcribe a wartime diary, filling up the ‘What’s new’ with new diary pages.
The quota idea is one approach, but I don’t see any Quota module available for the software we use, and in any case I’m not sure that it is the best way to solve the problem. Rather than limit the volume of new content added, can we change the What’s New to show less content that you aren’t interested in?
e.g. create a custom ‘What’s new’ page where you can block content by page type (e.g. ‘Diary Page’) or by the creator (e.g. ‘Admin’), then you’re left with just the content you are interested in.
Or turning it the other way round, have the option to ‘Follow’ a user, then show a custom What’s New that only shows new content from users you follow.
Would that help, or have you seen any other site that handles the problem of too much new content in a good way?
Here is the updated version of the guidelines for new contributors:
Welcome to the Gwulo website. I hope these notes will help you get the most out of the site, but if anything isn't clear please let me know in the comments.
First post
Gwulo's readers have a broad range of interests, so most topics of Hong Kong's history are welcome. We have a cut-off at the 1997 handover, so content should relate to the colonial period or earlier. And as our contributors and readers come from all around the world, please write in English.
The content we don't want to see is anything abusive, any plagiarism, or any AI-generated text or images.
Second and later posts
If you have more to add, these habits will help make Gwulo a trusted reference:
1. Quote your sources
2. Avoid duplicates: don't post multiple copies of the same information
3. Original content is always preferred over cut & paste copies from other websites
Advanced techniques
Please see the list of FAQs for additional tips and techniques.
Re; Too much new content
Hi David, I don't necessarily mind the quantity of posts, so I don't think a filter/block would be particularly helpful. I find many posts interesting and would never use a filter against a particular user (although no doubt a few would like to see fewer of my own posts...).
It was the quality that was mainly at issue, for me at least, and I think asking people not to copy/paste AI summaries should be enough to prevent some of the more recent posts that contained some rather large errors.
Regarding the Chinese articles, I feel a translation directly under the image should be a prerequisite. lausanching has been posting an amazing amount of information recently on some very long topic threads, but once these threads have run their course they will eventually drop off into the back catalogue of older posts and the related images will make no sense without the explanation provided within the thread. It could be they contain information that links to another part of the website that can be nicely connected, but without that information on the image itself they will just appear in my random picture feed with no explanation of their content/purpose. Is there a way to link an image to a thread in the same way that we can link a picture to a place? That would solve part of the issue i think. However, the other issue is that many of us on Gwulo cannot read or write Chinese, certainly not to the extent that would make it easy for us to use these images ourselves using the "image insert" facility. So having a Chinese title for an image also limits its searchability on that part of the website functionality.
Just my 2 cents anyway. I really don't mean to offend anyone as I value everyone's contributions no matter how big or small.
English translation
lausanching
articles
Dear lausanching
a heart felt thanks for providing the translations for these articles. David (admin) is a one-man team and already has a lot of work cut out just keeping the site up and running so I think a code change, even if possible, is unlikely to happen. The functionality you see is more or less the same we have been using for many years, and provides a pretty good level of usability for most peoples' needs. However, as you can see the images need to have information (labels, tags, places, people, descriptions, translations etc) included within the image's main page/node, otherwise this information is never directly linked to it.
Regards
Phil
re: English translation
Dear lausanching,
The way that the Gwulo website works is a bit different from, say, writing a Word document with photos embedded. Here each photo gets its own page - photos are a key part of this site, and we've developed a set of good practices for how we format them.
To give an example of how a clipping looks in Gwulo's style, I've taken your clipping for Sainan Girls' Middle School (https://gwulo.com/media/56069) and made a new copy at https://gwulo.com/media/56069
The key points to note are:
Also recommended:
As you want to show the translation on the main page here's another version that just directs readers to the main page for the translation: https://gwulo.com/media/56070
Whichever approach you choose, https://gwulo.com/comment/81277#comment-81277 also needs similar edits:
Thank you for joining us. If you have any questions about how to follow the style described above, please leave a comment below.
Best regards, David