Guide for Contributors
Welcome to our “wiki” and thank you for your interest in contributing to this resource!
What is the purpose of this wiki?
The purpose of this wiki is information. Data physicalization is now everywhere but there is no resource on the Web that covers this topic broadly and can help curious people sort things out. The aim of this wiki is to fill this gap.
How is this wiki different from the List of Physical Visualizations?
The List of Physical Visualizations is hosted separately and based on an entirely different system:
- The list of physical visualizations is a list of examples to which people can contribute by filling a form. Stuff gets added over time and generally doesn't get edited afterwards. Entries are short and there is no overall structure besides chronology, tags and categories. The intended audience is rather broad.
- This data physicalization wiki used to be a MediaWiki system where interested people could request edit access to edit the content directly. The idea was that content is more organized and gets corrected and refined over time. It touches on general concepts rather than being simply a collection of factoids. The intended audience is smaller, basically people who are working or would like to work on the topic rather than just people interested in cool stuff.
Why did we stop using mediawiki?
The reasons are manyfold. The most determining one was that we got hacked once and our site was turned into a spam server. Since then we have slowly started to move away from vulnerable technologies (like wordpress) to more robust, static solutions. The wiki was the last one to go. A mediawiki has much higher system requirements than a static website and given that the edit frequency of the data physicalization wiki was not that high, we decided that it was time to switch also from a wiki to a static website.
Then how can people still contribute content to this website if it’s static?
While the site is static after rendering, all content is stored on github and by editing the source files there, the website can be automatically updated. We will share the exact workflow here once we settled on a concrete procedure. In the meantime, if you would like to update the website, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@dataphys.org to ask for this information to be updated.
What am I allowed to do?
There is no guideline yet, but overall the admins initially created this wiki with the philosophy of Wikipedia in mind. This place is meant to inform rather than advertise people's own work. It is however not hard at all to talk about your work if it's presented as being part of a more general theme. So go ahead, your work is great and you're the best specialist on it, just be a bit careful about how you frame it.
Also, in contrast with Wikipedia, we are very much open to the idea of including original content, especially if it helps clarify terms and concepts, and sort things out.
Who is behind this wiki?
Everyone who's interested. This wiki has been originally created by Yvonne Jansen and Pierre Dragicevic, who are research scientists with initially a computer science background. They are responsible for the initial content. You can help make this Wiki into something closer to what you would like it to be by contributing.
Why don't I have a red asterisk next to my name?
It’s not automatic. Once you have done your first edit, go to the People page and append a red asterisk to your name. Thank you!
I have other questions
If you have any question, use the Guide_for_Contributors page (preferred) or email the wiki admins (Yvonne and Pierre) at info@dataphys.org. If you have both the question and the answer, feel free to edit this page!