Posted by Brett Zamir (12.248.92.43) on September 22, 2003 at 14:02:57:

In Reply to: "Spiritual Strength for Men" Prayer Book posted by anon on September 21, 2003 at 22:33:42:

Hello anon,

To piggy-back on Jonah's response to your comment about your desire for there to be a "list of all the Baha'i Texts (like the Leiden List) linked with official translations and provisionals and sources and such.", you are most welcome to help us try to do just that and build that which you are looking for by visiting the following page (and its subpages) and clicking on "edit" at the bottom left-hand side of any page to edit that page's contents (formatting tips are at the bottom of each edit page, though you may also use the existing code on a page to induce the rules):

http://www.bahai-library.org/wiki/index.php/Writings

For example, if you visit the subpage of Baha'u'llah's Writings at http://www.bahai-library.org/wiki/index.php/The_Hidden_Words_of_Bah%E1%27u%27ll%E1h , you will see that the page is based on an appendix of the Leiden list (http://bahai-library.org/resources/leiden.list/appendixes.html#2 ), but which is now open for you and others to add your own references and resources concerning the Hidden Words to become immediately available (by again, clicking on "edit" at the bottom left-hand side of the page, editing the page, and then clicking on "save").

An example of an editable page already in a tabular format is at http://www.bahai-library.org/wiki/index.php/Proclamation%20of%20Bah%E1%27u%27ll%E1h (some formatting needs to be worked out and the latter is not the most readable code, but it can be edited as is). For tabularly formatted pages such as these though, I imagine we may be able to find some better solution to make it more straightforward to edit, but it may require some more programming for Jonah (et al).

I've copied the code for the Leiden list to a collaborative (wiki) page at http://www.bahai-library.org/wiki/index.php/Leiden_List but there are a few formatting bugs. Nevertheless, you can still edit that page as is now or visit the link at the top to its discussion page to add your comments there.

As I understand it, the approach Jonah mentioned in connection with a database, and the wiki pages referred to above (also onsite), may be complementary approaches. The "wiki" site offers a more wild-west approach which may be more flexible in terms of say allowing the visitor to easily add links, references, and comments, even if they are not uploading a categorized document (and also being able to edit others' contributions and reorganize pages), while the database Jonah has mentioned may, I am guessing, be more automated and structured, as well as involve verification before new categories or comments are added.

As to the collaborative site, you can also visit the main collaborative page at http://www.bahai-library.org/wiki/ and help edit its subpages which are organized by subject, and other categorization schemes.

Although this may be a little confusing if you are new to wiki, it is really not that complicated if you have just a little time to spend to see how it works. I think the short amount of time required (maybe a half an hour to an evening) should be well worth it.

best wishes,
Brett

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