Wikipedia:VideoWiki/Tutorial

General notes

Please go through this tutorial completely at least once before proceeding to create an article. That will help you to have a better understanding of the overall process.
Keep saving the article i.e. hit "Publish changes" after you added a some content or media. This will prevent loss of session data in case of any unforeseen technical interruptions.

Step 1: Starting an article

The first step of creating a VideoWik video (hereinafter article) is to create a respective new page for the VideoWiki script on Wikipedia. The page on Wikipedia should be titled as "Wikipedia:Videowiki/EXAMPLENAME" (refer to Fig #1). Please replace EXAMPLENAME with the required article title. Kindly note that since VideoWiki is not a full fledged project by itself, VideoWiki scripts should not be created in the mainspace -- so do not forget to prefix "Wikipedia:Videowiki/"

Start an article

Please use the following input box to start an article, having all the required templates preloaded.

Step 2:VideoWiki template

When you start an article using input box from the above section, all the required templates and tags will automatically be placed into the article. In any other case, please make sure to add the templates as mentioned in this section, and the following sections. The template, {{Videowiki}}, should be placed at the beginning of the article. To do this, type the word Videowiki, surrounded by pairs of matching curly brackets.

Step 3: Adding content

The below outlined procedure is for first time users, if you are experienced with this, you need to follow the below steps, and may proceed in your own easiest way. Also, to add content you can do it from the scratch, by citing reliable sources wherever needed or take content from the respective mainspace article (hereinafter the original article). For example, the content for VideoWiki/A. P. J. Abdul Kalam has been taken from A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

Creating sections

You are first advised to create Level 2 headers (sections), similar to the original article (refer to Fig #2, an example for biography article).

Populating sections

After creating the initial sections, please add content to the introductory section, often taken from the first couples of lines of the original article.

You can now proceed to the body of the article. While adding content to sections you can summarize the content from respective sections in the original article, and also add Level 3 headers to speak about the specifics. What content to kept and what it is to be removed is all dependent upon decisions of editors -- we do not have any strict guidelines on that matter for now. For better understanding, please refer the Points to ponder section below.

After adding content under sections, do not forget to add inline citations for the respective text. As these scripts are the base for final videos -- if the videos are to be perceived as trustworthy source of information, inline citations in the scripts are crucial.

Points to ponder

We suggest you make liberal use of commas, brackets, and periods, to control text speed. For example, when the tool reads "John R. Rutherford", it takes a long pause at R, which doesn't sound right. Please try to avoid such slips.
- ReadShow template: In case something is absolutely necessary, please use the {{ReadShow}} template.
  The syntax is {{ReadShow |read= |show= }} -- with the help of this template, you have the punctuation, but instruct the tool to read in an another way. For the above example, it works as {{ReadShow |read= John R Rutherford |show= John R. Rutherford}}

Step 4: Adding media

(refer to Fig #3) After adding content to all sections, and making sure that everything is in tact, you can start adding media files (generally images and videos) each section. Please note that each section is considered as a slide, so each slide should be having at least one media file supporting the text.

The media that you add to the sections doesn't necessary need to be about article's subject itself. For instance, if a sections talks about education of a person, you can add images of the institutes the person attended. It is up to the editor to decide on what media best suits the text in the section, depending on the availability. Though it may be obvious, it is worth mentioning that media files from Wikimedia Commons are only acceptable.

Syntax (single file)

When you are adding only one file for a section, follow the below syntax:

[[File:EXAMPLE.jpg|100px|left|]]
{{clear}}

Syntax (multiple files)

When you are adding multiple files under one section, follow the below syntax:

[[File:EXAMPLE.jpg|100px|left|]]
[[File:EXAMPLE.webm|100px|left|]]
[[File:EXAMPLE.jpg|100px|left|]]
{{clear}}

You can add a combination of images and videos, if scope exists.
Please note that {{clear}} template indicates end of a section i.e. end of a slide. It is a technical requirement to add this template, if not, the tool fails to render the video successfully.

Step 5: Previewing the video

After the all content and relevant images have been added, and the changes are published, it is time to preview the first cut of the video. Git, "Preview my changes" (refer to Fig #4) to see preview of the video on the Videowiki tool. You can make changes, and refresh the VideoWiki preview as often as necessary.

If you would like to make changes to the timing of media files in case of multiple files under one section, you can do so during the preview, by selecting the editor more (refer to Fig #5). When go you to the editor mode, and slide down, if there are multiple images, the tool shows a timing slides which you can more left or right, depending on if you want to decrease or increase the display duration of a specific file.

Step 6: Upload to Commons

Once you're happy with the preview and making sure everything is in tact, hit the "Upload to Commons" link (refer to Fig #6), back on the script, and fill in any necessary details. For English, there is no need to add voice over, so you can select to "Skip" when the tool asks you. Rendering the video generally takes long, however, you need to wait until. Once the article is added to the queue, you can close the tab, and feel proud of your contributions to the free knowledge movement.

Experiment