Gospel Translations:How to help

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<div style="float:right;">__TOC__</div>Thank you for taking the time to learn how you can help us! This website is the sum of many efforts, and God has used people from all walks of life to help. Chances are if you have the desire to contribute, you can.
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__NOTOC__
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===Helping Gospel Translations===
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There are numerous roles other than translator that a volunteer can fill to help Gospel Translations. Browse the info below and if you find something that interests you, visit our '''[[GospelTranslations:Enrollment_form|Enrollment Page]]''' to sign-up. Thanks for considering it!
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We've listed some of the current volunteer opportunities below, organized by skill sets:
 
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* General help (no special skills needed)
 
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* Programming
 
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* Web design
 
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* Graphic design
 
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'''If you have any questions''', please do not hesitate to conact us using the [[Project:Contact|contact page]]. The project descriptions below are not comprehensive and we're eager to help you get started.
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==Volunteer Roles==
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<table width="99%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="10" style=" font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">
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<tr valign="top">
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  <td width="40%" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #EEEEEE; padding: 7px 10px 7px 7px"><div style="padding: 5px 10px; border: 2px solid #333; background-color:#EAEAEA; text-align: center; margin: 5px 7px 18px 0;"><strong>Administrative Help</strong></div>
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====Content Loading====
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Sometimes translators have difficulty using the wiki, or an organization will send us translations to use but we have to format them for the web ourselves. The workload for this area varies by season, but if you're interested in helping, signup and we will send you projects as they come.
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====Formatting/Layout====
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To make translations as usable as possible, we use a [[GospelTranslations:Formatting|formatting style guide]] to keep things consistent. Volunteers are needed in this area to
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* review articles and "sign off" on them as well-formatted
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* further develop our style guide where needed
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</td>
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<td width="40%" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #EEEEEE; padding: 7px 7px 7px 10px"><div style="padding: 5px 10px; border: 2px solid #333; background-color:#EAEAEA; text-align: center; margin: 5px 7px 18px 0;"><strong>Technical Help</strong></div>
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====Web Developers====
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Please go to our [[Project:Technology|technology section]] to see what kind of projects we need help on presently.
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== General Help==
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====Web Designers====
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<div class="volunteer_button" style="margin: 0 10px">[[Project:Contact|Volunteer Now!]]</div>
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There are a number of pages that we would be happy to see improved. To learn how, you'll want to first familiarize yourself with MediaWiki:
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*[[:mediawikiwiki:Help:Templates|Templates]]
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*[[:mediawikiwiki:Help:Categories|Categories]]
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*[[:mediawikiwiki:Help:Formatting|Formatting]]
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=== Post English content to the wiki ===
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'''Pages for Improvement'''
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One of the biggest challenges we face is loading articles and books onto the wiki. It doesn't require any special skills, just diligence and time. As of this writing, we are waiting to load:
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Use the test page provided if you are going to suggest changes.
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*[[GospelTranslations:Enrollment|Translator enrollment page]] ([[GospelTranslations talk:Enrollment|page for test designs]])
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*[[GospelTranslations:Contact|Contact]] page ([[GospelTranslations talk:Enrollment|page for test designs]])
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**Currently used for translator sign-up, other volunteer sign-up, and anything else contact-related. More distinction would be useful between those categories, so people feel like they're sending a message that will be answered.
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* the book ''Why Small Groups?''
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  </td>
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* the book ''How Can I Change?''
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</tr>
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* the book ''Disciplines for Life''
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* many articles from the [http://www.desiringgod.org Desiring God] website
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* the booklet ''Missiology: Entering the Field of the Lord''
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* the booklet ''Polity: Leading and Serving in the Local Church''
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* the booklet ''Am I Called? Discerning the Summons to Ministry''
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* the booklet ''Sovereign Grace and the Glorious Mystery of Election''
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* the booklet ''9 Marks of a Healthy Church''
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=== Post translated content to the wiki ===
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</table>
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Similar to the above, except that you'll be loading content you don't necessarily understand. However the copy-and-paste operation is the same as with English, so it is doable even if you don't understand the language. Things that have been translated, but aren't available on the website yet, include:
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* the book ''How Can I Change?'' (Spanish)
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* the book ''This Great Salvation'' (Spanish)
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* the book ''A Display of God's Glory'' (Japanese)
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* the book ''9 Marks of a Healthy Church'' (Spanish)
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* the book ''9 Marks of a Healthy Church'' (Simplified and Traditional Chinese)
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* the book ''The Deliberate Church'' (Spanish)
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== Programming ==
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<div class="volunteer_button">[[Project:Contact|Volunteer Now!]]</div>
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=== Maintenance Bots ===
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Mediawiki (the software the runs this website) supports the use of automated bots for all sorts of tasks. They can be extremely useful for monitoring, updating, and general housekeeping around the entire website. Moreover, other developers have already written very helpful frameworks for bot programming in Python, Perl, PHP, .NET, Java, and Ruby ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Creating_a_bot more from Wikipedia]).
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<div style="padding-left: 14px">
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==== TransclusionBot ====
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Copies data from this wiki (gospeltranslations.org) over to other members of the Gospel Translations wiki family (eventually es.gospeltranslations.org for Spanish content, de.gospeltranslations.org for German content, and so forth). This allows all of the translation development work to be done on this site, and our language-specific wikis can focus solely on presenting content to readers.
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==== ProtectionBot ====
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Will scan for articles that should be protected, and will lock them down if they aren't already.
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==== TemplateFixBot ====
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Will scan for articles that use certain important templates (<code><nowiki>{{MasterHeader}}, {{Stub}},</nowiki></code> etc) and make sure that they have all the necessary variables assigned, and will list locations of templates that need to be corrected.
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==== CategoryAddBot ====
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Maintains category pages.
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==== FormattingBot ====
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Checks across the site for formatting problems (we will need to identify how to find them) and corrects them. This relieves the burden on our content uploaders, as they won't have to fix complex formatting problems for themselves (such as citations inside of call-out boxes).
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</div>
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== Web Design ==
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<div class="volunteer_button" style="margin: 0 10px">[[Project:Contact|Volunteer Now!]]</div>If you're interested in helping with web design, it'd be useful if you read the Mediawiki manual some to learn about using [[mediawikiwiki:Help:Templates|templates]], [[mediawikiwiki:Help:Categories|categories]], and [[mediawikiwiki:Help:Formatting|formatting with wikitext]].
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=== Improve high-profile pages ===
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Several of our most prominent pages could use spiffier designs. If you have ideas on how to improve any of these, give it a try! (Just make sure you text your ideas on the "talk" page, not the live one.)
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* [[Main Page]] ([[Talk:Main Page|page for test designs]])
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** We want to start including information about the # of translators, translations, languages, etc
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** Any suggestion that makes the page more inviting and easy-to-use is welcome
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** We need a template that will randomly include an article from a category
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* [[Project:Enrollment|Translator enrollment page]] ([[GospelTranslations_talk:Enrollment|page for test designs]])
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* [[Project:Contact|Contact]] page ([[GospelTranslations_talk:Enrollment|page for test designs]])
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** Currently used for translator sign-up, other volunteer sign-up, and anything else contact-related. More distinction would be useful between those categories, so people feel like they're sending a message that will be answered.
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== Graphic Design ==
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<div class="volunteer_button" style="margin: 0 10px">[[Project:Contact|Volunteer Now!]]</div>'''Please note:''' submitting an idea for these projects does not guarantee that it will be used. We appreciate all attempts, but practically cannot use them all.
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=== Business cards ===
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The staff at Open Source Mission/Gospel Translations need to have business cards printed to present at conferences and churches. Contact us to get logo files and text if you're interested in helping.
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=== Brochure ===
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An informational brochure for distribution at churches, conferences, and other meetings with potential partners. Logos and text will be provided if you contact us.
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=== Newsletter template ===
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We are going to launch a newsletter this Spring to keep all of our translators, partners, and other friends of the ministry up-to-date on our progress. This template would not need to be complex--it just needs to be readable, elegant, and use our logo.
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Current revision as of 15:12, 18 September 2008

Helping Gospel Translations

There are numerous roles other than translator that a volunteer can fill to help Gospel Translations. Browse the info below and if you find something that interests you, visit our Enrollment Page to sign-up. Thanks for considering it!


Volunteer Roles

Administrative Help

Content Loading

Sometimes translators have difficulty using the wiki, or an organization will send us translations to use but we have to format them for the web ourselves. The workload for this area varies by season, but if you're interested in helping, signup and we will send you projects as they come.

Formatting/Layout

To make translations as usable as possible, we use a formatting style guide to keep things consistent. Volunteers are needed in this area to

  • review articles and "sign off" on them as well-formatted
  • further develop our style guide where needed
Technical Help

Web Developers

Please go to our technology section to see what kind of projects we need help on presently.

Web Designers

There are a number of pages that we would be happy to see improved. To learn how, you'll want to first familiarize yourself with MediaWiki:

Pages for Improvement Use the test page provided if you are going to suggest changes.

Navigation
Volunteer Tools
Other Wikis
Toolbox