Contributing to Arbital

https://arbital.com/p/arbital_contributing

by Eric Bruylant Jun 15 2016 updated Mar 29 2017

Want to help Arbital become awesome?


Arbital hosts a network of explanations written and edited by people like you in order to make humanity's knowledge accessible to everyone. In order to fulfil this idea's potential we need your help, whether that's as simple as letting us know when you want something we're missing, or as in-depth as writing a multi-page explanation of a concept.

[toc:]

Writing and improving pages

Writing new definition and explanation pages about specific subtopics is important to creating the network of knowledge that the rest of Arbital will be based on. See Arbital scope for a detailed overview of the kinds of pages we're looking for.

The home page shows the most linked to pages which don't yet exist, but you are welcome to create a page for any math topic that readers would want to read about. [todo: Great examples of individual pages]

When creating pages, prioritize writing excellent summaries for the preview popup. Put yourself in the mind of someone who wants a quick but accurate idea what the topic is about and check other summaries of the concept to confirm you're covering all the crucial points. Examples of pages with good summaries: Logarithm, Decit, Group theory, Function.

[todo: Quality assessment link/desc]

[todo: Mention #reviews and getting feedback]

[todo: mention arcs/paths once we have a guide for that.]

Create new page!

Where to go next?

The best place to start is right on the home page. It lists pages which could be created and expanded. If you are not sure what kind of content to write, take a look at the exemplar pages pages and write something similar on a math topic you are familiar with.

Other places to find things to help with:

Feedback and content requests

If you like something, give it a thumbs up to brighten the author's day! If you see anything you think could be improved (e.g. typos, style issues, or things which could be explained better) you're encouraged to leave a comment on the page by highlighting the relevant text and clicking the comment symbol that appears on the right %%note:Comment symbol%%. Or, if you have an idea about how to improve it yourself, propose an edit. Dive right in, you won't break anything!

If you're trying to learn something and find a page is pitched for a different audience, you can use the blue "Go faster" %%note:Go faster button%% and "Say what?" %%note:Say what? button%% menus to request alternate versions of the page more appropriate for your background.

Giving feedback on the site

If at any point you notice a bug, something you think could be improved about the site, or something you think is great, let us know! We want to understand how you interact with Arbital as a reader or editor, so we can make it work better for you. You can send feedback via an option in the quick menu (orange + button in the bottom right corner).

Content release

Arbital is [arbital_collaborative_creation fundamentally collaborative]. Your original work will always be saved in [arbital_page_history edit history], but the public page is very likely to be modified by other editors. Author's opinions are always worth hearing but pages you create are not [arbital_page_stewardship yours to control], and you should not expect to have the final say.

Any content you create on Arbital is released under the Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0), and may be widely reused (with attribution).

%%comment:
### Writing guides

If you've got [327 something to explain], creating complete guides we can [Arbital_featured feature] is extremely valuable. This is the most in-depth type of contribution, but it's proportionally rewarding. We'll be putting these in prominent places as a demonstration of how Arbital can help accelerate learning. For examples of these, see [1zq] and [3wj] (though note that both of these are still being polished).
%%

Comments

Alexei Andreev

We want Arbital to become awesome\. For that, we need your help, whether that's as simple as letting us know when something's broken or poorly explained, or as in\-depth as writing a full learning flow to explain a topic\.

"path" is the word we usually use.

Eric Bruylant

(1) Some concepts are "big concepts," in which case the main should give a high-level definition and a sweeping overview that points people towards many other concepts (like group theory and logarithm in the pages linked above). These pages should probably have a number of other lenses on them, some of which are the beginnings of paths.

(2) Some pages are "normal sized concepts," in which case the main page should define the whole concept (in a fairly neutral way that a fairly technical reader can understand), with other lenses that explain the concept to different audiences and provide other stuff like examples and exercises (I tried to do this with associative_operation.html)

(3) Some pages are part of paths, which are sequential posts that spend a whole series introducing a number of different aspects of a big concept; I'm currently putting together a logarithm sequence that demonstrates this. (The main posts are done, but I haven't strung them together yet.)

~ Nate

Alexei Andreev

If you like something, like it\! If you see anything you think could be improved \(e\.g\. typos, style issues, or things which could be explained better\) you're encouraged to propose an edit or leave a comment on the page\. Dive right in, you won't break anything :\)

This is awkward phrasing.

Nate Soares

If you like something, like it\! If you see anything you think could be improved \(e\.g\. typos, style issues, or things which could be explained better\) you're encouraged to propose an edit or leave a comment on the page\. Dive right in, you won't break anything :\)

would add "by highlighting text and using the menu that appears on the margin" (or other text that basically says this and also is consistent with how it works on mobile).
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