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. The "Title" of the tracks not yet worked on should be the title David Kohan wrote down in Yiddish, but many mistakes crept in while deciphering the handwritten Yiddish which was done by a colleague. By now, it is not clear what Kohan really wrote and which are mistakes slipped in later.

In case something written above the "Title" in the old trackpages, this is a short note by me (Janina Wurbs) after (partly) listening the recording. It is intended to help with the titling.

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 the following commands at the end of a page below "Links". If none of the following categories appears in the track page, the recording has not yet been worked on.

• In process (write: "[[Category: 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 (write: "[[Category: 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“. (This category does not yet have any entries.)
  
• Problematic (write: "[[Category: 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.

Yiddish transliteration

Please refer to the YIVO standard in the first instance, for sure for track titles, first lines and lyrics.
As for the lyrics, 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.
To have the Yiddish letters running right to left, just insert <div dir="rtl"> before the lyrics you enter and </div dir="rtl"> after the Yiddish lyrics entered.
Inserting two blank lines between the verses of a song (instead of only one) makes transcriptions of song texts more comfortable to read.

Arguable, however, is the standard for artist's names. The probably easiest way would be to also use the YIVO standard, as Freedman Catalogue usually does (with mistakes). To be able to find information of the artists in libraries, the standard of the Library of Congress (LOC) is the most widespread standard, and therefore the option currently regarded as the best one. LOC's transliteration method involves diacritical signs that can simply be copied into the wiki page - no html is required to insert them. Nevertheless, to use LOC's standard, one should really know how the names are written in Yiddish.
Therefore, the suggestion for now would be: please enter all names in YIVO transcription, and their spellings according to the LOC-standard should then be added as redirections by someone who is able to do that correctly.

Do not hesitate to make suggestions and improve the general format and everything else!

who is able to use LOC, please do so. all others, please adhere to the YIVO standard and I will try to create redirects from LOC

LOC romanization chart:

• a) short version (basically 1 page)
  

Here are the letters that are usually not used in latin script but needed for LOC romanization:
One does not need the code but may copy the letter as it is here, and copy to where it is needed. It should work inside of the Kohan Wiki.

Ḥ, ḥ (to see Unicode click on edit Ḥ ḥ )
Ḳ, ḳ (to see Unicode click on edit Ḳ ḳ )
Ṭ, ṭ (to see Unicode click on edit Ṭ ṭ )
Ṿ, ṿ (to see Unicode click on edit Ṿ ṿ )

Ś, ś (to see Unicode click on edit Ś ś )

(`S, `s - not yet correct!; no Unicode exists)

• b) long version, prepared by Paul Maher (64 pages)

Browser

Everything was checked and running with Mozilla Firefox 3, Minefield 3.7a1pre, Google Chrome 3, Opera 10, and Safari 4.
One problem, however, sometimes occurred using Internet Explorer 8. Latin letters with a dot below (ḥ, ḳ, ṭ, ṿ) are not shown as such but as a rectangle. This problem can be solved by going to the Tools menu, selecting Internet Options; on the General tab, select the Fonts button; under Webpage Font, choose "Arial Unicode MS" on the left (German: Extras/Internetoptionen/Allgemein/Schriftarten/Schriftart für Webseiten: Arial Unicode MS). Click on OK, Apply and OK.
Also, if this same is done within Firefox, the letters with a dot are shown like all other letters (whereas in another font like Times New Roman, those letters will appear a bit thicker than the others).

What if I change from Firefox to Mindfield and afterwards real player does not play the recordings anymore?
Just reinstall Real Player (In the beginning, Mindfield might have a problem with the plugins).

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!

A list (in process) of all names already entered and a biographical article started in the David Kohan Jewish Music Archive Wiki can be seen in the category artist. This list, unfortunately, are not created automatically, but a name is only added when the biographical article is tagged with that category ((write: "[[Category: Artist]]").

Redirect pages

A redirect simply takes you to another page. In case several spellings of names are widely used, it is desired to have redirections from those pages with possible different spellings of the name to the one main biographical article whose spelling adheres to the standard of the Library of Congress.
See for example Henekh Kon (which redirects to Henech Kon).

• How to redirect: insert #REDIRECT [[name of the target page]] on the page that should be redirected to the target page (for further elaboration, please refer to the redirection page).
  

A list of all existing redirections can be seen under the Special Pages on the left and there choose List redirects.

• How to insert an internal link: [[Link title]] (for further possibilities with the wikilink syntax, see this table).

• How to insert an external link:

a) target: http://meta.wikimedia.org/ is rendered as http://meta.wikimedia.org/
b) [ target label ], with a blank space in between: [http://www.example.com link title], another example: [http://meta.wikimedia.org/ wikimedia] gives wikimedia (see also Piped link)
c) [ target ] - these are automatically labelled with serial numbers 1, 2, 3, ...: [http://meta.wikimedia.org/] gives [1]

The target is a URL which can start with "http://".
Further information.

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.

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.

Copyright Issues

Everything is still a question. You may mark recordings with the [[Category:Copyrighted]].
Currently more important (but maybe not to be found), is a list with recordings that are free of copyright - please tag those tracks with the [[Category:Not Copyrighted]]. Out of those recordings, a new website will be created that will function as the generally open public page.

(vgl page status - not copyrighted evtl grün markieren?) span... etc...

Field Recordings

In search of all recordings without any copyright, a category "pres field rec" (presumably field recording) has been created:

• [[Category:PresFieldRec]]. Please use it to label all recordings you think should be included.
  

For those recordings that are for sure field recordings, please tag them with "field rec" (field recording) like this:

• [[Category:FieldRec]].