UK Wiki Lulu (new threads)

Snap Shots

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:05:09 +0000

Have added the Snap Shots code to the side menu so that by hovering over any external links on the wiki you will get a preview of the page linked to. Try it on the books-fiction page or the links-page. As it's in the side menu the code doesn't need to be added to every page as the side menu appears on all pages so the code will therefore work on all pages. So any new external links added will automatically become previewable, though if Snap.com don't have the actual page linked to in cache it will need to go and fetch it and this can take a few minutes, but once it's in the cache it will thereafter appear straight away. Hope you all like it.

Why buy a Lulu book?

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:11:56 +0000

Wanting to move away for the other thread perhaps we can use this one to discuss those loosely related topics that were aired.
Peter asks "Why buy a Lulu book?" and Simon states "I then realised they are completely invisible to non-members of Lulu who are browsing the site."
This prompts me to ask how many non Lulu'ers, i.e. those who don't write or publish books actually browse lulu.com to look for titles?
What would prompt just book readers and buyers, excluding those who may have already purchased a Lulu printed book, to come to the Lulu site?
In fact what proportion of book buyers buy from the web?
For those who do is not more likely that they find books of interest listed on the main retail channel sites of Amazon and the like?
A quick search for books on 'Cornish History' gave me ten pages of Google search with not a mention of Lulu. However changing the search to 'Cornish History Chris Bond' did bring Lulu and Wiki up straight away.
So perhaps not 'Why a Lulu book' but 'Who buys Lulu books and how?'

UK Web Archiving Consortium

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:14:17 +0000

I have been thinking about whether we ought to ask the UK Web Archiving Consortium if they would like to archive this wiki. As an example of a site relating to self-publishing and print-on-demand I figure that it is the sort of site which they might well be interested in; it's also an example of a Web 2.0 site, which they are also keen on archiving. This would ensure that the site would be archived on a regular basis and that the archived versions would be accessible to the public for decades, or even centuries, to come. As we are at the forefront of what is undoubtedly to be a publishing revolution it would seem like a good idea. I would, though, need the consent of all of the members here who actually have any content on their own wiki pages. I can add a note to the disclaimer message stating that the wiki is so archived and then it would be covered for any new members joining. I'll try to send personal messages to those members with actual page content here individually to see if this is ok. The content would remain the copyright of the individual creators but would obviously be given some form of immortality. I was contacted just over a year ago by the British Library (one of the UKWAC partners) who wanted to archive my own site for the future, so I am familiar with the process. I feel that it's worth considering, so let me know what you think. Of course they may not choose to accept the wiki for archiving but it would be worth a try. I may also need permission from Wikidot, but that bridge will be crossed if and when the members here approve. I shouldn't imagine that that would be a problem.

Responsibility v censorship

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:30:49 +0000

One or two comments have been aired recently regarding the nature of content available on this Wiki and I feel it ought to be open to general debate by any members who are either interested or concerned.
Bearing in mind that children's books are published on Lulu and therefore young people might visit these pages and that our own pages might contain links to other sites I think it might be wise to open a debate on the relative merits of personal responsibility and the dreaded censor.

New Private UK Wiki Lulu

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 23:41:58 +0000

I have created a new Private UK Wiki Lulu for the reasons stated by Susan in her post on the Search Engines thread in this Help Forum. This new site contains a forum, as requested, and I also thought that private member's pages where we can try out new ideas for pages and content without having them open to public scrutiny before deciding whether or not to copy them to the full UK Wiki Lulu would be a useful tool. All present members of the UK Wiki Lulu have been invited to join, and Peter, Susan and Taff will be added as Administrators with full rights, including the ability to invite other members to become either Moderators or Administrators, as soon as they accept the invitation to join. Please don't invite people who are not members of the UK Wiki Lulu to join this private site, for obvious reasons.

It seems that, contrary to my statement in my reply to Susan's post on the Search Engines thread, it is not possible to make specific parts of any Wikidot site private. So the only way to do this was to create a whole new site which was, by default, viewable by members only. Obviously this one doesn't need to be as comprehensive or technical as the UK Wiki Lulu, but you are welcome to tweak it as you see fit. I will create a link to this new site on the Members Pages page of the UK Wiki Lulu. Only logged-in members of this private site will be able to see it and everyone else will see a page stating that the site is private, as also should search engines.

Please note that we are, at present, limited to 50 members for private Wikidot sites. This can be raised by contacting the Wikidot admin, but there's a possibility that this may cost, though I'm not certain of this. If we reach the point where more are needed then I'll look into it. As the UK Wiki Lulu probably has more members than the vast majority of Wikidot sites, at least more than any I've yet seen, they may be more amenable to us.

If you are a recent or new member of the UK Wiki Lulu and you find that you haven't been invited please contact one of the Moderators or Administrators of the UK Wiki Lulu who will be able to send you an invitation to join. As you will already be members of Wikidot it should be a very quick process to join the new site.

References and Tools

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:32:51 +0000

Chris

I see that you have added some References and Tools :)

Something else worth knowing (and I haven't seen it publicised recently) is the free online access to Oxford University and other books through local libraries. There is information about the national agreement (running until about March 2008) here
http://www.oup.co.uk/news/mla

By using the membership number from my local library I now have access at home and free to the OED, DNB, the Times from 1785 to 1985 and lots more. Check the website of your local library for 'online resources' or similar to see what you can get access to.

Best wishes

Susan

Statistics

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:58:39 +0000

Hello

Looking at the wikidot statistics at first I thought I had a fan in the US; then I noticed that the said fan was mirroring my activity. Then the penny (or cent) dropped. I sometimes look at the wikidot at lunchtime in the office. Our office IT has been outsourced to a firm that I now find is based in the US. So I am one the large blobs in the the US!

I wonder how many other visitors produce 'blobs' at some distance from their own physical presence?

Best wishes

Susan

Er - Shameless Promotion

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:50:59 +0000

I know that this whole site is dedicated to shamelss promotion of one sort or another, but I decided to shamelessly promote the page on motherhood that I uploaded today. It's to do with my Lulu books, of course (or at least two of them) and its there because I've got a kind of guilty feeling that the most horrible people in my books tend to be mothers. I've no idea where it's come from, though I do try and come up with a few possible explanations on the above-mentioned page. Find it just here.

Peter

Search Engines

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 12:42:10 +0000

Does anyone know if this Wiki gets trawled at all?
Be nice if it does as that would help us all.

Non Lulu UK SPIAs

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:37:26 +0000

I am in contact with a number of other UK based SPIAs that are non-Lulu.
Would you like me to invite them to join us here or do you want to keep this for Lulu SPIAs only (yep I know you let me in).
Of course the danger of having others in is that you will begin to discuss other options to Lulu and hence may lose that Lulu feel.

I won't invite anyone unless the consensus is the 'more the merrier'.

taffybach

Buttons at the bottom of each page

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:19:22 +0000

A word about some of the buttons available at the bottom of each page and what they actually do.

The discussion button will create a forum thread for the individual page that you are on when you click on it. These threads are attached to the actual pages (known as a per-page discussion) and will not feature in the forum proper, though they will show up in the recent posts etc. If you click on the discussion button when it shows (0) a forum thread for that page will be started automatically, whether or not you decide to post to it, so try not to click on it when there's a (0) unless you want to post otherwise we end up with masses of empty threads. Once active (ie showing more than 0) the per-page discussions can be reached via the same discussion button at the bottom of each page and these threads are useful places to discuss the content of any particular page.

The content of any particular page can also be rated via the rate button. Useful for letting us all know what works and what doesn't, and which pages are popular, though this feature will probably become more useful when many more pages are added.

Finally, the tags button can be used to assign certain keywords to your page, much like the keywords on your Lulu content pages. When created these tags will show up in the tag cloud on the side menu. The tags in this cloud (and those at the bottom of each tagged page) can be clicked on so that all pages with that particular tag will be listed next to the cloud. The more pages each tag is used on, the darker and larger the tag in the cloud becomes, so the cloud should be a good indicator of overall content on the site. Steppenfreak has used these tags to particularly good effect so take a look at her pages to see how they work. Please note that tags with more than one word, such as 'short stories', need to be written as short-stories, otherwise you'll get one tag for short and one tag for stories. Also, please don't try adding tags to any of the forum pages as a tag added to any of these will automatically appear on all of the forum pages and this would obviously not be good.

I'll add info for the other buttons at a later date, though if you have any questions about any of the buttons, post a reply here and I'll do my best to help.

Changes to Titles of Member's Pages

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 19:30:08 +0000

I have changed most of the titles of the Member's Pages to give your real name rather than your user name. The user name is still given in the url for these. I haven't done this for Steppenfreak as I have a hunch that she would rather it stay as it is.

If anyone would rather have them back the way they were I can easily do this, so let me know if you them reverted.

Helping each other

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:35:46 +0000

It has long been held obvious that if a load of similar items appear together in most fields of human endeavour they assist each other. Thus if a farmers market with one stall sells £x worth of good, if that stall is joined by another then the first farmer will notice that he sells £x+y of goods. (This is not, of course, true if one of the stalls is a Tesco superstore!) So the more members who place their fiction on this site, the more future sales there may be.

Peter

Welcome to the Wiki

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 22:06:39 +0000

I've now set up a basic structure for the wiki, hope that you all like it. Let me know here if you would like anything added or changed, what pages you'd like to see, and I'll do my best to help. If you click the 'options' button at the bottom of any page, then on 'view source', you can see how the coding of any page has been done. Images can be uploaded by clicking on the 'files' button on the bottom of each page, but if you want the image on a different page from the one you uploaded it to you will need to put the page name within the image code on the other page(s) you want it included on; e.g. /page-name/example.jpg. You can always host an image on your own site, or a site such as Flickr, and then just link to the image whenever you want it to show. You can start a forum relating to any particular page just by clicking on the 'discuss' button on each page. The 'Latest UK Items on Lulu' feed on the side menu will show the last 10 items added to Lulu by UK members and will automatically update itself.