Hello new editor and welcome!
This page is meant to help you get started on ProleWiki as quickly as possible, so please read it all the way through!
Socialise with the team
We recommend that you join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/ZQTBNRU9v5
Since you have an approved account on the wiki, when opening a ticket on the Discord just give us your account name from the Wiki and you'll get in. The Discord is where most of the communication happens, including between editors.
We also have a Matrix space if you prefer that, but while we check it, it's rarely used: https://matrix.to/#/%23prolewiki:matrix.org
We also have other channels you can follow where we sometimes post announcements and other interesting things:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/prolewiki
- Lemmygrad: https://lemmygrad.ml/c/prolewiki
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@prolewiki
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@prolewiki
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/prolewiki
Currently, the administrators of ProleWiki are CriticalResist and Forte.
Understanding "Trusted" editors
When your account is approved on the wiki (and you've received the email linking you to this page), you have no specific role aside from being a vetted user.
As a new editor to ProleWiki, you have the following permissions:
- Editing existing pages
- Creating new topics in the Talk pages and replying to them
As you make edits (either in quality or quantity), the administration (CriticalResist and Forte) will give you the Trusted role, which will allow you to create new pages as well as upload images.
If you feel that you've participated enough, you can freely ask the admins to review your account and grant you the Trusted role. We are sometimes overloaded with work and forget who has not received their Trusted role. If you feel we've forgotten about you, please shoot us a message!
The Trusted role will also let you propose new policies for ProleWiki and vote on them with the other editors (usually in the Discord).
Essentially, the trusted role makes you a full-fledged editor of ProleWiki and the permissions before that are sort of a trial period (don't worry, you can't fail this "trial period").
This period also lets you explore and discover ProleWiki and our many (more than 2500!) pages. It helps cut down on duplicate pages and helps us see who remains active with ProleWiki.
In the meantime and until you get your Trusted status, you can ask the administration or other editors to create a page for you as needed; either on the Matrix or the Discord would be easiest.
On the Discord, which is where most of our off-site activity happens, you will get the Member role when you join. Then, at the same time we'll give you the Trusted role on the wiki, we will give you the Trusted Editor role on the Discord which will give you access to the editor channels (otherwise, you'll only have access to the "public" channels).
This role will also allow you to vote on new account requests which we often post on the Discord, and it will allow you to help decide what we do with our donations excess (if anything).
Until you have these permissions...
Until you get the Trusted permissions, we recommend that you edit existing pages to add content or even rewrite paragraphs to help the flow of reading. You can also add categories to our pages, add sources to claims, and correct typos and proofread.
Remember that as a proletarian encyclopedia, we strive to make our content easily accessible in all ways possible.
If you need to find sources for your editing, see the following pages:
- ProleWiki:How to contribute/Sources (books)
- Category:Anti-imperialist news outlets (articles)
- Category:Socialist media outlets (articles)
- Special:WantedPages (pages which are linked on the wiki but do not exist yet)
Before you start writing...
Please familiarize yourself with our Guidelines: ProleWiki:Editorial guidelines so as to help retain a cohesive look to the encyclopedia.
Generally, you will start to internalize our editorial feel from reading the encyclopedia and seeing how it's usually written.
While we got some inspiration from Wikipedia in some areas, we don't entirely rely on them and it's not possible to translate Wikipedia's guidelines and conventions 1:1 on ProleWiki. Wikipedia is an anti-communist encyclopedia with its own share of problems, and while we took inspiration from what worked (as they've had two decades to refine their editorial conventions), it doesn't go further than that.
Likewise, when you start writing, please do not copy content straight from outside sources—we don't need to plagiarize!
Talk pages are unique to MediaWiki. For example, here you have the page: Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and here you have the talk page: Talk:Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. These talk/discussion pages are available on every page on the wiki, including editor pages, articles, essays, library works, etc. There you can ask any questions before making an edit if you're unsure about something.
Please remember that people will associate your edits with ProleWiki itself! As such, please refrain from editing personal opinions or beliefs inside pages. While we don't have a "No Point-of-view" or "no original research" policy as difficult as Wikipedia, remember that people who read ProleWiki will associate your (personal) edits as something the encyclopedia (i.e. all of us) says.
How to create a new page
Once you've received the permissions to create a new page, you will likely wonder how to do this. It's a bit cumbersome, and there's a few different ways, none of them intuitive.
The easiest way to create a new page is to search for it: you can use the magnifying glass icon on the left sidebar or just find it here: https://en.prolewiki.org/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=page. Search for the page you want to create (please remember ProleWiki is case-sensitive!) and it will tell you, near the top of the page:
- Create the page "page" on this wiki! See also the search results found.
Then, you can simply click on the red link that the search page shows you to start editing this new page you want to create. Don't forget to save your edit even if you haven't added much!
What we mean by case-sensitivity is that Michael Parenti is not the same as Michael parenti! You can see the first one is blue (i.e. the page exists) and the second is a redlink, the page doesn't exist. This is a problem inherent to MediaWiki.
To get around this, it's necessary to create redirections, which we won't get into in this onboarding page.
We recommend using the visual editor if you are new to MediaWiki; it will open by default when you click on "edit" on a page.
We have more than just encyclopedic pages!
We have a space for free-form Essays and you can write whatever you want in those pages (within reason), our guidelines don't apply.
We also have a Library of texts where you can add Marxist and non-marxist (but socialist) texts.
Finally, we have started a Quotes space where you can post quotes from Marxist theorists. We don't use it a lot, but we've identified that this is something people look for online and so it's interesting to have it on the wiki. It is also useful to have quotes to pull from when writing pages sometimes.
All of these spaces you can edit in and add or correct pages in them.
How to add an essay
MediaWiki, the software which we use to power ProleWiki, can be confusing. We've covered how to create a new page (once you have the Trusted role), but adding an essay, while similar, requires an extra step. Nothing too difficult though!
First, you have to create your essay in the same way we created a page earlier. However, you have to preface the title of your page with Essay:
It will look like Essay:Problems with Maoism, for example.
You can use the search function like we did before to create this page, as long as you use the Essay: prefix (or namespace in MediaWiki terms).
Then, write your essay and save your edit. Once your essay is completed, you need to add it to our Essays page. To do that, open that page and edit it. Add your name in the table (in alphabetical order) and, on the next row, type in your Essay's title and link to it (ctrl+k on the visual editor). To link it, you can just paste the URL or look for it in the link field by typing Essay:name (you have to type the namespace for the field to find it).
Then just save your edit.
It's a bit involved, but once you've done it a couple times, it'll come naturally.
In case of conflicts with edits or editors
Please note that ProleWiki is a collaborative encyclopedia and as such we all volunteer here to promote a proletarian education. Therefore, please don't take it personally if another editor edits a page you made.
If you have any issues with another editor, please use either the Discord (if they are on it) or the talk pages; e.g. the editor's talk page or the page's talk topics. Please remember to be polite and assume good faith from the editor you are having an issue with.
Administrators are here to facilitate discourse and conflict resolution if you have any issues.
Join our work groups!
Once you become a trusted editor, you can propose or join our various work groups! Work groups are a system we've been trying out since early 2023, and it has worked with great success.
For example, one of our editor has started a book club on the Discord which you can absolutely join and participate in (as well as help manage). We also have an agitprop group which is responsible for social media creations and posting.
For transparency, we have an internal security group which cannot be joined; the administrators pick trustworthy members to fit in this group. The internal security group is responsible for defending against threats (hacking, spam waves, infiltration...) as well as monitor our reputation online. It is not a group meant to spy or keep tabs on our editors.
As a trusted editor, you will be able to join or suggest new groups which the administration will help you set up. With this system, you can then work on things other than pure copywriting and get involved in things that interest you!
If you have any questions
Again, we cannot emphasize enough that you should join the Discord! It will allow you to talk to the other editors and ask your questions as needed. However, if you have questions, you can ask on our Hub or, if needed, directly on our Administrators' talk pages if there's anything you don't understand or would like to know.