Gardeners Page

Issues and Tasks for CTSpedia's adminstrators - updated 3/14/08

Julia, David, and Michael had a brief check-in and decided to move ahead with these actions:

• Julia & David will develop a few alternative logos as part of our effort to create a new look and feel (see below). They will post them on a page in the Sandbox so that we can all have a look and react.
• David will contact TWiki support to request help with "re-skinning" the site. In general we'd like a scheme that combines the color scheme of the UCSF CTSI pages with the simple, clean, compact approach of the Vanderbilt biostats TWiki.
• If we don't get the tagging function soon from TWiki support, we'll start considering the use of the Category function in order to provide browse-able lists of content organized by topic area. For an explanation, see the attached e-mail from Peter Thoeny.

Here are some continuing issues to consider and discuss. Please chime in.

Proposed New Structure: Working with a scheme suggested by MarkPletcher, we've set up a proposed new high-level organization based on types of content (rather than subject categories such as biostatistics, ethics, etc.) It's reflected on WebHome. Please have a look, and drill down especially into the Articles page. At that level, you'll see that Michael felt the need to carve things up by subject categories again, and the usual suspects seemed to the appropriate ones to choose. Please review this scheme and the subject categories on the Articles pages and contribute your reactions and suggestions right on those pages--or right here.

Style Guide for contributors: As gardeners we should all follow and encourage the same basic style. Please have a look at these guidelines and think about tweaks and additions. Add your comments here or right on the StyleGuide page.

How to guide the wiki's growth:

• We've created a Where to Contribute page so that we can ask users to create or flesh out specific articles. Please review and comment on it, too. As Gardeners, we should be using this page listing and linking to the areas in need of contributions.
• Are we using that long lists of terms-to-be-defined as a way to ask potential contributors to create some content? If so, are brief, dictionary-style definitions a high priority? Or should we be trying to invite fuller articles, explanations, and explorations, which may be more appropriate to this sort of knowledge base. Thoughts?

Organizational confusion:

• How does Peter's short list of terms, which is titled General Biostatistical Terms and now "lives in" CTSpedia, relate to that large placeholder list of epidemiological terms, which is titled Epidemiology Terms and lives within Design? We should straighten this out. See Mark's comments in the Gardeners Forum.
  • I have merged the two lists. -David
  • And I renamed the big list to ResearchTerms. But it needs a little more tidying up (duplicate entries, some out of alphabetical order). -Michael
  • And what about OtherTerms? Shouldn't they be merged into the comprehensive ResearchTerms list, too?
    

Gardening routines: As the content grows, we'll have to edit, add extra layers of launch pages, reorganize, add links, and prune (similar to what we did recently in going from the first-draft Biostats overview page to the second generation). We need a routine for carving up the turf, making regular rounds, and making sure to tend areas that need tending. When he's healthy, it would be good to get Phil Miller's advice, based on his gardening at sascommunity.org. Meanwhile, here's a suggested basic routine for all gardeners (please add your reactions & thoughts in our Gardeners Forum):

• click on Notifications to get a daily e-mail report of changes from day to day, or check the Changes page once a day; wade into and fix any problem areas that surface, and send the "offender" a polite e-mail to let them know you've tidied up.
• "stroll" through selected areas of the wiki once every few days to keep an eye out for redundancies, poor organization, or spurts of growth that may need tidying up.
• check the Gardeners Page and the Gardeners Forum a few times a week to see what your fellow gardeners may be highlighting as important issues and to add ideas of your own
• meet as a group once a week to discuss new developments and agree on actions to take

Orphans: The Data Management and Directory of Programs areas are conspicuously empty and inactive. Are these valid high-level categories for this wiki or should the material, whenever it is generated, be housed within some other area/heading?

Use the wiki instead of e-mail: Outside of our Friday Gardeners meetings, we can track the above issues here on the Gardeners Page and we can discuss them in our Gardeners Forum. Let's make regular visits and contributions to both areas--and avoid the messy, fragmentary discussions of group e-mail. (It's the wiki way.)

Feel free to hash over these and other issues here and/or in the Gardeners Forum.

Questions for TWiki support

Julian recently answered a bunch of our questions. Go to Questions for Julian.

List of Gardeners

Please add your contact info:

• Mary Banach: mary.banach@ucsfmedctr.org
  
• JuliaStGeorge: julia.st.george@ucsfmedctr.org
• DavidBui: ctsibread@ucsfmedctr.org
• MarkPletcher:
• PeterBacchetti: peter@biostat.ucsf.edu
• ClayJohnston: clay.johnston@ucsfmedctr.org
• MichaelGold: michael@westgoldeditorial.com
• PhilMiller:
• MichaelGriswold: