Introducing ReCom Wiki

[youngyew]

http://www.recom.org/forum/recomwikiannounce.gif
(http://www.recom.org/forum/showthread.php?t=8552)
The ReCom team is glad to present to you a momentous development in ReCom: the ReCom Wiki (http://recom.org/wiki/), a Malaysian Education (http://www.recom.org/wiki/Education_in_Malaysia) encyclopedia that anyone can edit (http://www.recom.org/wiki/ReCom_Wiki:Introduction).

As we all know, ReCom is a great resource for education and scholarships. Our forum is frequented by helpful contributors who consist of current students, scholarship applicants, experienced seniors and even university graduates throughout the world. While we have always been enthusiastic in sharing our experience, there remains an issue: Year after year, a new batch of people visit the forum, and instead of searching through the rich information in existing threads, they post a question which has been answered for 257 times in the forum's history.

A Wiki is what we propose to be the solution to this problem. "What is a wiki?" You may ask. A wiki is a collaborative website whose content can be edited by anyone who has access to it. Put simply, we are building an encyclopaedia for Malaysian education and scholarships. We invite everyone to build this wiki together, and make it the ultimate one-stop destination for every information-seeker who visits the website.

So how do you contribute in this wiki? Just visit http://recom.org/wiki/ (or easier, http://wiki.recom.org). On the home page we have already set up a few pages for you guys to have a look. For example, clicking on Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (http://www.recom.org/wiki/Sijil_Pelajaran_Malaysia) will lead you to a page about SPM which we happily copied off Wikipedia (*Read the footnote about copying information from external website). Just click on "edit" on the top of each page, and you will be able to edit the content of that particular page. What if you want to set up a page about University of Nottingham and there isn't an existing page yet? Just type in "University of Nottingham" in the search form on the sidebar, if it doesn't exist yet you will then have the option of creating a new article about it.

Yes it is that easy.

For more information, you can read up on the Tutorial page (http://www.recom.org/wiki/ReCom_Wiki:Tutorial) of the wiki. To get a feel of what we hope to achieve, visit The Students Room Wiki (http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/TSR_Wiki), for example, the article on University of Oxford (http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/University_of_Oxford). If you have any doubt, don't worry, just put in the information first, the rest of us will guide you along the way. :) Make sure you follow the wiki guideline below, and together we shall make ReCom Wiki a success. Now, go and have fun writing your first encyclopaedia article. :)

*****

Footnote: Please do not copy and paste paragraphs verbatim from a copyrighted source as it constitutes a violation of copyright. Always paraphrase and synthesize before you copy a piece of information, and more importantly, always include the citation for reference purposes. Wikipedia article can be copied because they are licensed under Creative Common license.

*****
ReCom Wiki Guideline

1. This wiki is intended as an encyclopaedia for information regarding education for Malaysian students. Irrelevant articles e.g. "Great White Shark" or "Harry Potter" will be removed without notice.

2. As with all encyclopaedias, all articles are to be written based on facts instead of opinions, as far as possible. The neutrality of the article is important to any encyclopedia to preserve it's integrity. As such, there should not be any tinge of bias in whatever that you are writing. For example, when comparing one scholarship to another one should list down the good and bad points for everyone to evaluate and not lean to any side.

3. All statements should be cited from either reliable websites or ReCom posts. Citations should be noted and listed at the bottom of the page itself. Please refer to "help: citation" for more information.

4. The administrators reserve the right to remove, edit or censor posts that violate the rules above.

5. Usage of proper English is required here in our wiki to enhance readability. Usage of non-standard Manglish words and phrases are not encouraged since it may result in misunderstanding of the contents.

6. In event of extensive misuse/vandalism, the pages may be locked down by the administrators. Further changes to the article shall be carefully screened via the discussions page for that particular article

7. Article of the Day (Month)
Should an article reach a certain level of standard in regard to its contents and language, you may nominate the article to be included in the pool of articles to be considered as article of the day. Requirements to be considered includes helpfulness to a good number of people as well, absense of unverified claims, and usage of proper English language.

8. Please make sure that you verify the source of information before entering it in the wiki. We understand that despite best efforts it's possible to make errors via inaccurate source or misquotation, hence errors of such nature is acceptable. However, blatant vandalism, intentionally misleading statement, incendious sentences and other inappropriate behaviours are considered an offense in this wiki. We will give warnings for the first two offense, and the third offense will result in a permanent ban in the wiki.

[chenchow]

Great to see the launch of ReCom Wiki! Hope that ReComers will help to grow ReCom Wiki, and make it really beneficial to Malaysians!

[nickvl]

Great idea...i've checked it out...but the words are kinda squashed making it wee bit difficult to read especially long articles which doesn't help ADD ppl like me...

Overall, very nice

[yanno_yamster]

Nice, I've always liked wiki... But you can improve on the layout colour I guess. Hopefully the site will expand even more and provide lots more good info for everyone!

[vseehua]

Nice, I've always liked wiki... But you can improve on the layout colour I guess. Hopefully the site will expand even more and provide lots more good info for everyone!
suggestions on the colours?

[cuppycake]

oh so this is the one you talked about in chatbox? i see. great idea. nice work!

[nickvl]

The colour's fine already ...it's look neat and professional...don't change it...

hey, it looks like wikipedia hehe

[yanno_yamster]

suggestions on the colours?

It's a little dull, but then after looking at it a few times it looks alright. It does resemble the Recom site anyway. :)

[Boyz_Zoo]

Is the studying tips has not fully developed? Can't be accessed it?

[youngyew]

Basically most pages are still empty and awaiting construction. :)

[vseehua]

It's a little dull, but then after looking at it a few times it looks alright. It does resemble the Recom site anyway. :)Well, the site isn't completely ready yet due to the limited time we have to code the site. The main page will likely be overhauled in the future when i finally have the time to edit it

Is the studying tips has not fully developed? Can't be accessed it?It's not done yet. But feel free to write that section =)

[chenchow]

Essentially, most of it is empty, and really hope that ReComers would start writing and summarize those useful info in ReCom.org there.

[DoomScythe]

Well, we can actually cut and paste a few things from this forum into the wiki. That should get things started. Great idea to have this wiki, btw. :)

[dennisssj]

New new new! I like new things. Haha... Keep up with the good work. Still not so used with it. Haha...

[Boyz_Zoo]

How do I create a new page in the Scholarships Portal?

[eve88]

Have a *very* rough skeleton on the JPA scholarship section up, anyone care to collaborate on the editing?

edit : boyz is collaborating with me on this, check back in, say, 2 hours to see it up =D

[youngyew]

Whenever you guys have any doubt about format or content, have a look at the TSR Wiki, it's an excellent model to emulate:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/TSR_Wiki

(I haven't found any scholarship article there though, scholarship isn't really a popular thing in UK I think)

Anyway, some tips for wiki for you guys:

For lists, use *. (Refer to this page (http://recom.org/wiki/Universities_in_Malaysia))
For numbered lists, use # (Refer to this page (http://recom.org/w/index.php?title=English_literature))

For first level heading, use ==heading==
For second level heading, use ===heading===
For third level heading, use ====heading====

Using the heading makes it easier for people to navigate, and best of all the wiki automatically generates a table of content at the top of the page. :)

[luke]

Added two message box templates for flagging articles, just like in Wikipedia.

http://www.recom.org/wiki/Template:Citation
http://www.recom.org/wiki/Template:Cleanup

Let me know if you need more message box templates.

[youngyew]

I tried to do the typical "citation needed" inline superscript template but failed miserably.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Citation_needed)

Would you mind to help? I think that tag is the most important one ever (though most annoying too :P)

[youngyew]

If you use Firefox, there is an absolutely fantastic greasemonkey script you could install to help with editing wiki:

wikEd for Greasemonkey (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12529)

It makes wiki editing so much easier.

[luke]

"ReCom Wiki Latest Additions and Changes" module added to the portal page under Recent Threads :) :) :)

Now you can link to article on Wikipedia by using the following tag in ReCom Wiki article:

[[wikipedia:Article Name|Hyperlinked Text]]

Example:

[[wikipedia:Universiti Teknologi Petronas|Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP)]] will give: Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universiti_Teknologi_Petronas)

So, instead of copy-pasting a whole article from Wikipedia, you can just leave the article on Wikipedia and link to that article instead. If, however, you still want to copy-paste the article into ReCom Wiki, remember to prefix 'wikipedia:' to all internal link tags so that the links will resolve to existing articles on Wikipedia.

For example if you copy-paste the following article source code excerpt:
The new academic complex was designed by [[Foster and Partners]], and the first-phase construction was completed in 2004. The design received an [[Aga Khan Award for Architecture]] in 2007. The overall layout of the new academic complex is in the shape of a 5-pointed star made up by 5 semi-circles. The new academic complex was officially opened by the former chairman of Petronas and ITPSB Board, Y. Bhg. Tan Sri Azizan Zainul Abidin. Currently, almost all of the academic activities have been shifted to the new campus... remember to prefix 'wikipedia:' to [[Foster and Partners]] and [[Aga Khan Award for Architecture]], so that the source code becomes:
The new academic complex was designed by [[wikipedia:Foster and Partners|Foster and Partners]], and the first-phase construction was completed in 2004. The design received an [[wikipedia:Aga Khan Award for Architecture|Aga Khan Award for Architecture]] in 2007. The overall layout of the new academic complex is in the shape of a 5-pointed star made up by 5 semi-circles. The new academic complex was officially opened by the former chairman of Petronas and ITPSB Board, Y. Bhg. Tan Sri Azizan Zainul Abidin. Currently, almost all of the academic activities have been shifted to the new campus.Yup, you have to repeat the word/phrase/clause two times because if you don't the hyperlink text will have 'wikipedia:' in front of it -- will look weird.

[kid]

arh, i wanna edit uia page, but it says the page not existed, different from um page., i dunno how to edit la

[luke]

Err .. it says "page does not exist" and it gives you an edit box, does it not? Just edit the article using the edit box la ..

[kid]

but i must first make it like UM page rite? i mean, with all the history, academia, event, restaurant, banks, things like dat la, dat part im very weak, haha, noob in computer thingy, haha

[youngyew]

Haha no, you don't have to make it like that. It was just a framework that I copied from another wiki site. Just write whatever you like in the UiA article. It's the content that is the most important, the format, style, framework etc we can work on as we go. :)

If you do have to make it similar to UM, it's easy too. Just go to the UM page, and click on "edit", then just copy the whole code you see there. :)

[eve88]

Just wondering ... would it be a good idea to put up a "general advice" page or something that anyone can add to -- and not need to reference it? like interview tips/studying techniques and so on...

[Keiko123]

I wish I could contribute in ReCom Wiki, but sadly, I'm stupid in doing or editing these things. :( How to do it actually? I'm pretty scared that my facts aren't supportive.


Btw, are the red coloured words=information that hasn't been edited?

[luke]

Just wondering ... would it be a good idea to put up a "general advice" page or something that anyone can add to -- and not need to reference it? like interview tips/studying techniques and so on...
Implemented.

Just add "{{Opinion}}" at the top of such pages. Example @<hidden> http://www.recom.org/wiki/Portal:Studying_Tips

[kid]

luke, dat portal studying tips, y cant i edit it?

[vseehua]

luke, dat portal studying tips, y cant i edit it?
The Portal's pages are usually reserved for admins to edit only, so to prevent vandalism, as portals are important links to other pages...

I'll set up a set of links within the portals page so that you can edit the single pages

[kid]

I'll set up a set of links within the portals page so that you can edit the single pages

thanks......

[luke]

"Studying Tips" or "Study Tips"? English expert anyone?

Oh btw guys (and girls too), please be scrupulous in choosing the most suitable title for articles. If the article is about the English paper in PMR, choose something like 'English (PMR)' instead of just 'English'. If the article is about studying in Germany, choose something like 'Studying in Germany' instead of just 'Germany'. This advice is especially for those who often set up pages that contain links to articles; remember that the links you define will eventually end up as articles pages, so write those links as scrupulously as if you are to choose the titles for the articles.

[Keiko123]

Of course is "Studying Tips". Anyone?

[vseehua]

"Studying Tips" or "Study Tips"? English expert anyone?Both are correct actually.

...

...

..

Think of it again, I am dumb... Studying tips = studying the tips

Study tips = tips on studying

[luke]

"Studying Tips" is more like you are learning about tips themselves. Just like if you say "I am studying English" means you study English; saying "Studying Tips" is like you study tips. You do not study tips, you use the tips to study. So, I prefer "Study tips". If you google "Studying tips" you will find more "study tips" than "studying tips".

But strangely, it's "Cooking tips", not "Cook tips". English is weird.

[youngyew]

I wish I could contribute in ReCom Wiki, but sadly, I'm stupid in doing or editing these things. :( How to do it actually? I'm pretty scared that my facts aren't supportive.


Btw, are the red coloured words=information that hasn't been edited?
Haha Keiko don't be afraid of making mistake or thinking that you don't contribute well enough in the wiki. The most important thing for us now is to get content into the wiki, the other things we can gradually polish and improve as we go.

As for your specific questions:
1. If you want to write something on a topic that already exists in the wiki (e.g. JPA scholarship), just go to that particular page, and then click on the word "edit" on the top.

2. If you want to write about something that has not been written yet, what you can do is, type in the title of the page you want to write about at the search box on the left --> a page will show up telling you that the topic you searched for doesn't exist, and asking whether you want to write a new page about it. Just click "write new page" (or whatever word that means the same thing) and you will be off writing the page!

3. When you are writing an article, you can create a link to other articles in the wiki by bracketing the words with double square brackets. For example, if you want to link to JPA scholarship, just write [[JPA Scholarship]] and a link will be made automatically.

So what about those red links? What happens is, sometimes when you are writing an article, you sort of write about some topic that you think should have an article by itself. For example, if I am writing about UKM and I think there should be a link to, say, "Eatery in Bangi". However, it turns out that "Eatery in Bangi" doesn't have an existing article yet. So what I do is, I write [[Eatery in Bangi]] in my UKM article, and the link "Eatery in Bangi" will show up in your UKM article with a red colour font. When the next person comes along and clicks on the Eatery in Bangi link, they will be brought to a page where they can start writing on the topic.

Hope that answered your question. :)

[chenchow]

Great to see more and more ReComers starting to contribute to the wiki! Really hope to see more and more of you contributing! Lets build together a wealth of information!

For those of you who would like to contribute to gather information to put into wiki, do share the info here (http://www.recom.org/forum/showthread.php?p=247071). This would especially for those of you, who haven't learned how to update wiki, but would like to help to gather information.

And for those of you, who can help to update it into wiki (http://wiki.recom.org), do grab the info from that thread and update into wiki.

In this way, we can work together towards a common goal of building a more comprehensive wiki for the betterment of Malaysian Education and Scholarships.

[danielhong93]

Nice...totally awesome!!!

[chenchow]

Hope to see more ReComers work together to build up the wiki and help the younger generation.

For those of you who have gone through PMR/SPM, do share on your study tips for PMR/SPM!

Start now at Wiki@<hidden> (http://wiki.recom.org).

[eve88]

Shift Life in Colleges to Life in Colleges Portal?

[youngyew]

I am amazed by you guys' dedication in adding content in the ReCom Wiki! Thank you so much for your efforts, and keep up the effort! Remember, though you don't get immediate reward for your effort, what you are doing will benefit many other people including the coming generations of students. :)

[Keiko123]

You're welcome youngyew! :)

Btw, now I'm trying to edit something, but it takes so long time. Would it disturb wiki?

[youngyew]

No it won't. Take your time. :)

[Keiko123]

Ok. But don't know if it's suitable or not. Hahaha. Nevermind, try my best.

[youngyew]

By the way I did some googling and found that:

"studying tips" - Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22studying%20tips%22&sourceid=firefox): 41600 results
"study tips" - Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22study%20tips%22&sourceid=firefox): 48100 results

So "study tips" is more commonly used. Perhaps we should change the article titles.

[chenchow]

Guess either one is fine, since the differentiation is not too big. :)

[youngyew]

Ooooops huge mistake.

"study tips" should be 481000 (one more zero at the end). I made a typo.

So it's actually 10 times more common.

[youngyew]

I noticed that there have been some cases of our contributors changing UK spelling to US spelling, e.g. organise to organize, minimise to minimize etc.

Do you think we should keep the UK spelling in our fourm (which is what is taught in our school if I'm not mistaken), or use the US spelling instead (which is the more prevalent version in the Internet)?

[vseehua]

Since we are taught British spelling I would say we keep using it. UK-English sounds more elegant to me anyways :P

[Keiko123]

Opps! I just realized I always use US spelling. :P Well-organized...
Have to used to it, since I will be heading to somewhere that is relative... :laugh

[henry_yew]

Opps! I just realized I always use US spelling. :P Well-organized...
Have to used to it, since I will be heading to somewhere that is relative... :laugh

No wonder... and I keep changing the US spellings to UK ones... I have become more like a grammar-checker in the wiki. But I'm still in the office so I can't do thorough checking...

By the way, I see that the PETRONAS Sponsorship is being listed as a Pre-University scholarship. It should also be listed as an Undergraduate Studies scholarship because students with STPM qualifications may apply for the scholarship and be directly admitted into, say, UTP for the Undergraduate studies, bypassing the requirement to do Foundation studies.

Edit: Oh wait... when you say Pre-University, you also mean that the scholarship lasts till the completion of undergraduate studies, right?

[Boyz_Zoo]

Edit: Oh wait... when you say Pre-University, you also mean that the scholarship lasts till the completion of undergraduate studies, right?
yup, correct correct correct

[henry_yew]

By the way, PETRONAS does not offer scholarships, so using the term "scholarship", I believe, is a misnomer. It should be "PETRONAS Convertible Loan". At its simplest form, "PETRONAS Sponsorship" is a more accurate term than "PETRONAS Scholarship".


5. Usage of proper English is required here in our wiki to enhance readability. Usage of non-standard Manglish words and phrases are not encouraged since it may result in misunderstanding of the contents.


:nod:nod

Lots of grammar, spelling and sentence structures need to be corrected in the wiki. Anybody willing to lend assistance as editors?

[youngyew]

I would love to spend a lot of time in the wiki (it's my baby after all :P) but I will have to wait until I finish my exams in two weeks time. :)

[vseehua]

By the way, PETRONAS does not offer scholarships, so using the term "scholarship", I believe, is a misnomer. It should be "PETRONAS Convertible Loan". At its simplest form, "PETRONAS Sponsorship" is a more accurate term than "PETRONAS Scholarship".well, we will need people to help correct things. There is no way that the admins will be able to correct and check for everything

Lots of grammar, spelling and sentence structures need to be corrected in the wiki. Anybody willing to lend assistance as editors?Please do help ;)

I would love to spend a lot of time in the wiki (it's my baby after all :P) but I will have to wait until I finish my exams in two weeks time. :)i'll have to wait a while as well... examinations coming in 3 weeks time

[eve88]

*peeks out*

im actually very very free right now... but im lazy =p

*goes back into hiding*

[Pcheung]

How can a person create a new portal. I am now building a list of short courses offered in Malaysia.

Besides, legitimate degrees, I believe short courses can help Malaysians, from all walks of life, broaden their skill set and obtain qualifications.

I've started it in the community portal.

[youngyew]

^BUMP

Guys, in case you haven't noticed, we actually have a wiki encyclopedia on Malaysian education. We aim to collect up-to-date information on everything Malaysian students could possibly be interested in, be it the lifestyle in Cemara and Akasia (JPA pre-U course students' accommodation) or the engineering courses in Germany. You can read them, and you can help improve them by editing them! It's easy - just click on edit on any page and you can edit the whole page!

So what are you still waiting for? Let's go explore this little hidden gem of ReCom and learn and share together! :) Just click on the "wiki" logo at the top right of each page in ReCom.

[BattleBoyz]

I just found out some of the topics in recom wiki are empty. :omg Thanks youngyew for bumping, I'll start working on what i know now!! :))

[youngyew]

Anyone? :D

[henry_yew]

Bump! Xon had suggested that I come up with a page for Graduate School admission procedures and/or requirements for US universities into the wiki. I also suggested that he could come up with the same for undergraduate admission into US universities.

However, much to our surprise, we couldn't find the "create new page" button or link. So....

How do we create a new page?

[yanno_yamster]

See here! http://www.recom.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page

[vseehua]

Bump! Xon had suggested that I come up with a page for Graduate School admission procedures and/or requirements for US universities into the wiki. I also suggested that he could come up with the same for undergraduate admission into US universities.

However, much to our surprise, we couldn't find the "create new page" button or link. So....

How do we create a new page?You can create a new page in the wiki by going typing in the address of a new page directly:
For example:
http://recom.org/wiki/Ujian_Penilaian_Sekolah_Rendah
You can replace the "Ujian_Penilaian_Sekolah_Rendah" part with the title of your article, replacing spaces with underscores.

Otherwise, type in the title of the page into the search box to the left of the wiki, and the wiki will give you an error page. In that error page there will be a link to create it as well.