CZ:Userinfo System
User infoboxes are (proposed) boxes containing information about users, their plans, accomplishments, and so forth. Once fully developed, they'll allow you to see at a glance both your own "work roadmap" for CZ (example)--where you've been, where you're going--and overall views of work by everyone on CZ (example), or in a particular workgroup, or on a particular initiative. All you have to do is fill in some blanks, and the data is distributed to different points around the wiki.
It's a way for the whole project to come together and get organized!
Examples
An example of central aggregation of user data can be found here: CZ Talk:Organization
See User:Larry Sanger/Userplan for an example of a user infobox.
The data for that page is stored in two places:
Template:User/Larry Sangerfor general info.Template:User/Larry Sanger/Philosophyfor some workgroup-specific info.
The data is structured by two templates: Template:Userplan-all and Template:Userplan-all-workgroup.
How the system is planned to work
Ideally, all active Citizens would start their own data pages, like Template:User/Larry Sanger. They then fill in a lot of information: their short- and long-term CZ plans, their recent and most important CZ achievements, top articles they're working on, and their roles in the system, as well as some notes. (We can add new data types later.) In addition, Citizens fill in similar sorts of information with regard to the workgroups in which they are most active, like Template:User/Larry Sanger/Philosophy. For instance, you might list out your goals for your work in the Biology Workgroup in the next week.
Once this data is filled in, we collect it and display it in various ways. First, of course, you can display all of your own data in one place, like User:Larry Sanger/Userplan does. But just as importantly, we can produce other kinds of tables, which we place on various workgroup pages (like CZ:Chemistry Workgroup), or initiative pages (like CZ:Recruitment). From a single place, you can see
- Who the active contributors are in a given workgroup/initiative.
- What they're working on; so, who to contact for help with a certain effort.
- Whether there is a workgroup/initiative need that is unmet.
This will, in turn, allow us to "get organized" in a way we haven't been. But it's all done bottom-up!
How to get started
Getting started with the user infobox system is moderately difficult: it should be pretty easy for technical people, but for most people, it might be challenging. If you take it step-by-step and ask for help (try the talk page) when you need it, it shouldn't be too painful.
(This should get easier with time. The following instructions are for people who want to do "alpha testing.")
Step 1
Get familiar with the system. Study the description above.
Step 2
Start a general information page using this little box:
Be sure to replace YOUR_USER_NAME with your user name. Leave the rest there. For example, Larry Sanger might write in the box: Template:User/Larry Sanger Then press the button.
Step 3
When you arrive at your user info page, you should see a bunch of code in the text box. You could fill in the blanks after the = signs at this point, but don't bother. For now, just look at the first twenty lines of code, or so. There are three sections there: "last updated," "Location of userplan," and "Name_with_underlines." Fill those out now. You'll be putting a date, a wiki page location, and your username with_underlines. Look for special lines with one equals sign on them (=). Those are the lines you add your info to. For example, Larry might write:
... | updated = Jan. 13 ... | userplan-page = User:Larry Sanger/Userplan ... | name-ul = Larry_Sanger ...
Don't add or touch anything except to the right of the equals signs. When finished adding these three bits of data, press Save page.
Step 4
Next, go to your user page, or a subpage of your user page--wherever you want to see your userbox. Wherever you want your user box to appear, paste this: {{Userplan-all|User Name}} Replace "User Name" with your precise user name (exact capitalization, punctuation, and spelling are all required). For example, Larry would write: {{Userplan-all|Larry Sanger}} In fact, if you go here, you'll see that that's all Larry had to put in, in order to generate that whole table.
When you're done writing that one line, press Save page. A big, empty infobox should pop up.
Step 5
Edit your info! On that page, you'll see a lot of fairly self-explanatory headers, and next to the headers, you should see little "edit" links. Go ahead and press them. You'll be presented with some code, interspersed with lines that look like this, for example:
| plans-wk-1 =
If you look above those lines, for the text that follows <!--, you'll see: "Plans for this week (please update regularly)..." So, if you've got any general plans for the week on CZ, put 'em in across from the = signs. You write what you want after the equals signs, as long as you don't hit the enter key; generally, don't touch anything else on the page, or you could mess up the presentation of your table. One item per line, five lines per list.
Go through the whole list, if you like, but be sure you Save page after each section. You can edit the whole thing at once by following the "edit" link at the very top of the whole table. That is also where to edit "last updated" (at the top of the page, the line that reads | updated =
Step 6 (optional)
If you do a lot of work in a particular workgroup or initiative, then you can create another, more specialized user info box, with your plans and doings just for that workgroup or initiative. You can create these for as many workgroups and initiatives as you do work in, and all the info will show up in your "master infobox" you created above.
All you have to do create new data pages, one for each workgroup or initiative. The data structure for workgroup info is (at present) almost exactly the same as for general info; so, you can fill out the same sorts of plans, lists of accomplishments, articles, etc., but for the workgroup "level."
Be sure to replace YOUR_USER_NAME with your user name, and then replace WORKGROUP with one (only one!) of the workgroup codes below. (If you want to create information for another workgroup, you'll have to create a separate info page for it.) Leave the rest there. For example, Larry Sanger might write in the box: Template:User/Larry Sanger/Philosophy Then press the button.
Here's a list of workgroup codes. It's important that you use these precisely, including capitalization but without the comma. Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth-sci, Mathematics, Physics, Anthropology, Archaeology, Economics, Education, Geography, Law, Linguistics, Politics, Psychology, Sociology, Classics, History, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Architecture, Music, Theater, Visual-arts, Agriculture, Business, Computers, Engineering, Healing-arts, Health-sci, Journalism, Info-sci, Media, Military, Games, Hobbies, Sports
Here's a list of initiative codes. Use these precisely, including capitalization. (Initiatives coming soon.)
Step 7
Add your exact username to this list, (the result can be viewed at CZ Talk:Organization), then Save page and observe the results.