How to help

TheatreWiki is a collaborative project, and there is plenty of work to go around. Some of it requires a fair commitment of time and effort; but there are many tasks that can be done with just a few spare minutes. Here are some ways you can lend a hand.

Writing Articles

This is probably the most time-consuming thing we do. Wherever possible, we encourage theatre companies, artists, venues, festivals and other groups and individuals to contribute information first-hand. But if you see a gap in our coverage and feel confident to fill it, go for it! Just make sure to keep it concise and factual. And please note that anything you contribute must be original, in keeping with our Copyrights policies.

Proofreading

A big part of keeping TheatreWiki useful is maintaining high standards. That means reading existing articles to ensure proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. This is also an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the site before taking the leap of writing from scratch. To get started, take a look at the Recent Changes page. There you can see all the most recent pages added to the site—and therefore the ones most in need of a second pair of eyes.

Formatting and Standardization

There’s something very satisfying about tidying up. We’ve suggested a basic format for theatre companies and artists (see our very early examples, Outside the March and Hannah Moscovitch) and we think that format makes sense, at least for now. Lots of people have contributed to the site, however, and each one usually has a slightly different approach. Without being stifling, we do want keep things organized. We’re suggesting, for instance, that featured images — the first image on the page — be 300 pixels across; we'd also like to make sure lists of productions are formatted to be easily readable. Think of it like proofreading, but it’s more about standardizing the visual presentation of pages, so that they’re consistent.

Sorting and Categorizing

This is a quick and easy task: ensuring that all pages are categorized. The Mediawiki software that runs the site automatically makes category pages (e.g., Theatre Companies). By adding a little snippet of text at the end of an article, you can label that page as belonging to that category, and the software does the rest. For example, typing [[Category:Artists]] at the end of Hannah Moscovitch’s entry. You can add multiple categories to a page, too, and you can even make new ones. Just remember that categories have plural names: so it's Category:Artists or Category:Festivals, plural.