Help:Visual help for editors

From Scholarpedia

This is a simplified visual help that describes the main manual tasks of editors. For more information, see the section #references.

The category page and the "gray box"

Figure 1: An example of category page as seen by its own editor.

Each category is automatically associated a category page which lists the category's editors (if any), subcategories, and of all the articles within the category.

For example, the category page for "Quantum and statistical field theory" is located at the Scholarpedia page Category:Quantum and Statistical Field Theory, corresponding to the URL http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Category:Quantum_and_Statistical_Field_Theory. To get your category page URL replace "Quantum_and_statistical_field_theory" with your exact category name (spaces replaced with underscores, case irrelevant). An example of category page as seen by its own editor is shown in figure 1.

By clicking the "edit this article" (blue) link (at the top of the category page) the editor can customize the middle part of the page (and put some information on the topic, the contributors, figures... there), but the header and the indices in the bottom are automatically generated and cannot be manually changed.

An important feature of the category page is the "gray box", containing:

• A link to the template letter for authors' invitation.
• A number of links "Articles with ..." generating an updated list of all articles in each given status before publication, from "no invited authors" to "approved articles having no curator". To save his/her time, and to avoid forgetting unpublished articles, the wise editor will visit those links regularly.

Author invitations

To simplify your life as an editor of Scholarpedia, an automatic invitation, revision, and approval system is provided. If all goes well, an editor need only choose a topic, invite an author, and invite a pair of reviewers. The back and forth between the authors and the reviewers is mediated by the system itself, with no editor interaction required.

While the invitation letters to authors will be generated for you automatically, the invitations will be most effective if the category customizes the letter to the category's topic.

Customize author invitation template

If the author-invitation letter template for category XYZ does not exist, the editor of the category must create and customize it before sending invitations to authors. This is always the case if the editor is the first editor of a category. So, for instance, if you are the editor of the category "Quantum and statistical field theory", the invitation letter for your category would be placed at the Scholarpedia page Scholarpedia:Invitation to Quantum and statistical field theory corresponding to the URL http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Scholarpedia:Invitation_to_Quantum_and_statistical_field_theory (Remark: spaces replaced by underscores; case is irrelevant.)

To create or edit the template, go to the category page (see section #The category page ) and follow the blue link "Customize your invitation letter Scholarpedia:Invitation_to_XYZ", see figure 1. Initially, there will be no text there.

The generic invitation provides a good invitation letter starting point. To use it:

1. follow the link to the default Scholarpedia template for invitation of authors http://www.scholarpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Scholarpedia:Invitation_to_Scholarpedia&action=edit
2. copy the whole text there and click the "Cancel" (blue) link at the page bottom to close that article without modifying it
3. Go to your invitation template (via your category page), or just replace the URL of step 1 "Invitation_to_Scholarpedia" with your category name (spaces replaced by underscores, case is irrelevant) and press ENTER
4. paste the content of the default Scholarpedia template for invitation of authors and customize it.

The invitation letter will be sent as plaintext to the invitee, save for wikimedia commands specifying the author's name, etc. Only plaintext will make it into the final email, however, so do not expect wikitext formatting commands to work.

Make sure you mention names of some of the existing high-profile articles or high-profile authors that are relevant to your category in your invitation template. This will make it easier for your to invite other high-profile authors. As some of the outstanding people join your project, you need to add their names to the invitaion template.

In the default Scholarpedia template for invitation to authors, the strings %NAME%, %URL%, %USERNAME%, %PASSWORD%, are variables (wikimedia commands) that will be replaced dynamically by the server at each invitation with, respectively, the full name of the invited author, the URL the author must follow to accept the invitation, the Scholarpedia username of the author and the corresponding password. Do not delete those strings, otherwise your invitations will lack information essential for the invited author.

Check if an article already exists

Figure 2: The result of writing "EGG" in search form and clicking the "Title" button.

Before inviting an author to write an article, the editor must check if the article (or a similar one) does not already exist in Scholarpedia. To check if an article exists, write the most significant word of the title (e.g. "EGG") in the search form (top of the left menu), then click the "Title" button. The answer of the query for the string "EGG" is shown in figure 2. In this case no page containing the sub-string "EGG" in his title has been found (in the "Main" name-space where articles are stored). If some pages had been found containing the string "EGG", then the corresponding (blue) links would have been shown. Note that the search is over sub-strings of the title matching the searched string, meaning that if you search "chicken egg", the title "Chicken or the egg?" will not match. Note also that the case is irrelevant in the search.

Check if an author already has a username

Figure 3: The result of writing "smith" in search form and clicking the "Title" button.

Before an invitation, the editor must check if the author is already registered as a Scholarpedia user, and, in this case, recover the corresponding username that will be needed in the invitation process. A way to check if, say, "Dr. John Smith" is already registered as a Scholapedia user, is to type the surname "Smith" in the search form, and then to click the "Title" button. The answer of the query "smith" is shown in figure 3. If the username "smith" exists, then there is a line "See User:Smith" containing the (blue) link to the user whose full username is "smith". In addition, the page always contains the line "See all users with names/affiliations containing smith", where "smith" is a (blue) link. It is safer to click on the latter link: then the list of (blue links to) the users whose full name or affiliation contain the sub-string "smith" is shown. By clicking on the good "Smith" the author will be redirected to his/her user-page, where the full username is shown (on the top).

Invite an author not registered in Scholarpedia

Figure 4: The editor section in the left menu of each page (below "Scholarpedia", "Encyclopedia of ...", "For readers", "For authors" sections)

Figure 5: The invitation form for an author not registered in Scholarpedia

After having checked that the author is not registered in Scholarpedia (as explained in section #Check if an author already has a username), the editor can proceed with the invitation by clicking the "Invite (new)" blue link in the editor section of the left menu, see figure 4. Then a page containing an invitation form is shown, analogous to the one in figure 5. The editor should carefully fill-in all the fields: "Username" (in the form name.surname), "Email" (this email will be used by the server for sending all communications to the author, including the invitation: check it carefully), "Full name", "Affiliation", and "Invite for article" (containing the exact title: remember that space matters in titles, but case does not). After clicking on the "Create new account" button, the new user account is created and a page containing the default invitation letter for the editor's category is shown, ready to be modified and sent, see figure 6. Checking the option "Just create an account and notify the user" in the invitation form of figure 5 results in the creation of the new user's account, with no invitation to author an article. The "Suggested by" field shown in figure 6 may contain the username of an eventual user who suggested the invitation: this way the Scholarpedia index of the user will be increased, and the user acknowledged on the bottom of the article page. If you fill-in the "Suggested by" field, click the "View(reset)" button (below the article's title, near the "Send" button) to check that you like the few lines that are automatically added in this case.

As shown in figure 6, the invitation must contain two automatically generated URL that the author should follow with his/her browser to agree/disagree the invitation. If the invitation does not contain those URLs there is a problem in the default invitation letter (ask help to help@scholarpedia.org).

When the invitation is ready, click the "Send" button to send the email: you will automatically receive a copy of the invitation (we advise you to keep that copy for your invitations' archive).

Figure 6: Editing the invitation email

Invite an author already registered in Scholarpedia

Figure 7: The invitation form for an author already registered in Scholarpedia

If the author is already registered in Scholarpedia, the editor must click the "Invite (registered)" blue link in the editor section of the left menu, see figure 4. Then a simplified invitation form appears, as shown in figure 7. The editor should fill-in the "Username" field with the username of the author (obtained as explained in section #Check if an author already has a username), and the "Article title" field (containing the exact title: remember that space matters in titles, but case does not). After clicking the "View(reset)" button, the default invitation letter for the editor's category is shown, ready to be modified and sent, as explained in section #Invite an author not registered in Scholarpedia.

Co-authors's invitation

The invitation of co-authors proceeds exactly in the same way as explained in previous sections for the invitation of the first author: the editor should just be careful to put the same exact title (same spaces, case irrelevant) for all the authors.

Reviewers' invitation

Figure 8: The pink-box for a submitted article, as seen for any editor whose category contains the article title.

After that the authors have officially submitted their article via the appropriate Scholarpedia page, one of the editors whose category contains the article, should start the review process, inviting at least two reviewers. Reviewers' invitation proceeds in an analogous way as for #Authors' invitation. The only main difference is that the reviewers' invitation buttons are placed in the peer-review-status box described below. If it is the first time the editor invites reviewers, the invitation should be preceded by the customization of the reviewers-invitation letter.

The peer-review-status box

After that the authors have officially submitted their article via the appropriate Scholarpedia page, all editors whose category contains the article title will see a pink rectangular box (titled "Peer review status") on the top of the article, as shown in figure 8. The peer-review-status box will contain all commands/information relevant for the review process.

If an editor does not see the peer-review-status box on the top of the article, that should be caused by one of the following reasons:

• The editor is not logged-in on the server (in this case his username is not shown on the top right of each page.)
• The authors did not yet formally submit the paper, as explained in Help:Authors. (See also Help:Visual help for authors.)
• If the code [[Category:XYZ]] is not in the present version of the article (it might have been canceled), the editor of category XYZ will not see the peer-review-status box, even if he/she should be reasonably supposed to do that. (Check the source of the article and add the appropriate piece of code if necessary.)

Customize your reviewers-invitation letter

If the reviewers-invitation letter for the category XYZ (located at the URL http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Scholarpedia:Invitereviewer/XYZ, with spaces in XYZ replaced by underscores _) does not yet exists, the editor of the category should create and customize it by following the blue link "Copy from generic invitation" that is shown in the peer-review-status box (see figure 8). If this link is followed, the contents of the reviewers-invitation letter are reset to the default Scholarpedia reviewers-invitation letter. The editor of category XYZ can modify an existing reviewers-invitation letter by clicking the blue link "Customize the invitation letter: Scholarpedia/inviteReviewerXYZ" in the peer-review-status box (see figure 8).

Check if a reviewer already has a username

Proceed as done in section #Check if an author already has a username to check if the reviewer is already registered in Scholarpedia, and, in this case, to recover his/her username.

Invite a reviewer not registered in Scholarpedia

After having checked that the author is not registered in Scholarpedia, the editor can proceed with the invitation by clicking the "Invite (new) reviewer" blue link in the peer-review-status box (see figure 8). An invitation form is shown, like the one in figure 5: the editor should proceed in the same way as explained in section #Invite an author not registered in Scholarpedia, being careful to put the exact article title (same spaces, case irrelevant) in the title field.

Invite a reviewer already registered in Scholarpedia

If the reviewer is not registered in Scholarpedia, the editor can proceed with the invitation by clicking the "Invite (registered) reviewer" blue link in the peer-review-status box (see figure 8). A simplified invitation form is shown, like the one in figure 7. The editor should proceed as explained in section #Invite an author already registered in Scholarpedia, being careful to put the exact article title (same spaces, case irrelevant) in the title field.

Review process

Figure 9: Typical appearance of a peer-review-status box.

The peer-review-status box shows information on the status of the review process. Figure 9 shows the typical appearance of a peer-review-status box after the phase of reviewers' invitation.

The top of the peer-review-status box lists two (or more) status-lines for Reviewer X, with X=A,B,... each of which can be in one of the following situations:

• WANTED: A line like "Reviewer A: Wanted since 2009-11-07" is shown, meaning that the slot is empty, no reviewer agreed this invitation.
• AGREED: A line like "Reviewer A: (User:Some.User), [Dismiss], [Accept], Due in 20 days. Agreed to review on 2009-11-08" is shown, meaning that the user "Some.User" agreed the invitation as a reviewer.
• AWAITS: A line like "Reviewer A: (User:Some.User), [Dismiss], [Accept], [Alert reviewer] Awaits author's response (last modifications by author - 36 days ago)" is shown, meaning that the reviewer "Some.User" is waiting for author's answer.
• APPROVED: A line like "Reviewer A: (User:Some.User) Approved on 2009-11-23" is shown, meaning that the reviewer "Some.User" approved the article.
• APPROVED+: A line like "Reviewer A: (User:Some.User) Modified and approved on 2009-11-23" is shown, meaning that the reviewer "Some.User" modified and approved the article.

Among the various links present on the peer-review-status box there are:

• The (blue) link "Dismiss" in the Reviewer X line dismisses the reviewer, freeing the slot.
• The (blue) link "Accept" in the Reviewer X line allows the editor to accept the paper on behalf of the reviewer.
• The (red) link "Alert reviewer" in the Reviewer X line allows the editor to send an email to the reviewer.
• The (blue) link "Contact author" and the (red) link "Alert author" allows the editor to send an email to the author.

The section History of invitations lists the reviewers' invitations for which there is no answer. For each entry two (blue) links are proposed: "remove" (to cancel the invitation) and "remind" (to force the server to send a follow up in addition to the default periodic follow-ups).

The top-of-the-article links

Figure 10: The links at the top at each article page

Figure 10 illustrates the links that the editor will find at the top of each article page.

• article links to the main article page.
• reviews links to the reviews page, where reviewers reports are to be copied. This link is red if the page is empty. After publication this page is renamed discussions.
• edit this article to edit the article.
• revisions, to see the history of revisions of the article.
• rename, to rename the article's title. The page with the old title is cleared and will contain a redirection to the page with the new article, where the article's content is moved.

The reviews page

Figure 11: A typical reviews page

All reviewers observations and author replies should be copied in the reviews page of the article, accessible from the main page via the top link reviews (see section #The top-of-the-article links).

Figure 11 shows a typical reviews page.

Log in as a user

Figure 12: The "log in as this user" button in each user page.

In many cases the users (authors/reviewers) will ask the editor to perform in their behalf some tedious task. The editor can log-in as the user having username John.Smith by going to the its user page (http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/User:John.Smith) and by clicking the log in as this user button (see figure 12). After finishing the task the editor should remember to log out from the user session and to log in with his/her own identity (password needed).

References

• Help:Editor's_quick_start -- Quick start-guide for impatient editors.
• Help:Editors -- Main help page for editors.
• Help:Editor FAQ -- Questions frequently asked by editors.
• Help:Instructions_for_authors_(Physics) -- An advanced authors' help