Help:Contents

A recording seems to be missing

To play a recording, please install the Real-PlayerPlugin into your browser.
There is also a Real Player Alternative which is downloadable for free from the official website.

How to start

Two ways to get to the recordings:

1. Go to the list of CD's to choose one. Then choose a track to listen to.

2. Click on "Random page" in "Navigation" on the left side.

Track pages

There are two kinds of track pages: old ones and new ones.
The old pages look like that. Those recordings have not yet been listened to or worked on.
Please start changing every old page using this TEMPLATE. Find an example for the template with information inserted.
Copy the template, adapt the CD number and you are ready to start adding all the information you know.
Do not forget to add the adequate page status afterwards (see below).

Just be sure to keep any existing information filed under the old "Title" and transfer it to the new "Title of Collector".
Add the most commonly used title(s) of the song or instrumental piece under "Title", regardless of whether it differs from the "Title of collector" or not.

Basic text formatting in a Wiki

For example:

What it looks like	What you type
You can italicize text by putting 2 apostrophes on each side. 3 apostrophes will bold the text.	You can ''italicize text'' by putting 2 apostrophes on each side. 3 apostrophes will '''bold the text'''.
You can break lines without a new paragraph.	You can break lines<br/> without a new paragraph.<br/>

For further basic formatting rules, please refer to Wikitext examples, Wikipedia: How to edit a page and Mediawiki Help.

Song texts

Song texts may be easier to read when using two empty lines between verses (instead of only one).

Repetition

To show a repetition of the lyrics, one may use the usual musical signs:
||: = beginning of repeated phrase or line
and :|| = end of repeated phrase or line

Page status

Please categorize a track page accordingly after you worked on it and inserted or validated background information.
Just put one of those those commands (you will see by going to "edit" here) at the end of a page below "Links".

If none of the following categories appears, the recording has not really been worked on.

These are the categories currently in use:

• In process means listened to and edited by one (or more) contributor(s), but often information on performer, author, composer is still missing. Existing information needs to be validated.
  
• Proofread means checked back by a contributor with a valuable source, for example an actual recording s/he owns or a printed encyclopedia like the „Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur“.
  
• Problematic means listened to but even basic information like the title or first line was not found in a first quick search.
  

Besides, there is a list of wanted pages. Those pages do not yet exist, but information is wished. In most cases, short biographies of performers, authors and composers are needed.

How to create a tracklist of a CD

• as a list (easier to create; find a template here).

• as a table (nicer; find a template here).

General Mediawiki Help

For technical issues how Mediawikis work, please go to the Mediawiki Help page.

Naming Conventions

It is necessary to have ONE short biographical article about one person (author/composer…) instead of several articles floating around because of the different spelling possibilities of the names.
Previously, spellings of the data of the first 20 CDs were mainly taken according to the Freedman Catalogue. This catalogue, however, seems to adhere to the standard to transliterate names according to YIVO albeit the authors and composers might not be found with those spellings in libraries. Also, the catalog data include several mistakes.
Thus, the decision has been made to adhere to the standard of the Library of Congress, although these spellings might seem „daytsh“ to some. (Many names of the first 20 CDs have yet to be checked and redirected.) The most important fact should be to be able to find other works in libraries by those authors and composers listed in the David Kohan Wiki.

Please, to avoid any doubling, before you enter author’s and composer’s names in the David Kohan Wiki, check their spellings in the Library of Congress Catalogue!

Redirect pages

In the case several spellings of names are widely used, it is possible to place a redirect link to the one main article that adheres to the standard of the Library of Congress.

Short Biographies

The current state of all biographies is merely that of a placeholder. The links to Wikipedia and other websites are not to be seen as definitive information, just to point to a beginning. Often, the start is only shown by having the article page set up with the dates of birth and death.

Yiddish transliteration

Please refer to the YIVO standard.
So far the dialectal variants to be heard in the recordings have roughly been kept in the transliteration of the song texts.
Of course, feel free to write the Yiddish texts in (standard) Yiddish, not only transliterated. Find an example here.
Inserting two blank lines between the verses of a song (instead of only one) makes transcriptions of song texts more comfortable to read.
However, do not hesitate to improve the general format and everything else.