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Critique of the 1776 Commission Report/Guide for Contributors

< Critique of the 1776 Commission Report

Who Can Be an Author or Editor

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In the tradition of Wikibooks, anyone can be an author or editor of Critique of the 1776 Commission Report.

You can edit without logging in as a user (your IP address is recorded), or as registered user with a pseudonym (screen name), or as a registered user with your real name. It would be ideal if we had a significant number of well-qualified authors and editors who 1) register with their real names, and 2) agree to have their name listed on an authors/editors page.

Furthermore, we particularly encourage authors who are scholars, teachers, and students of US History, Civics, and related fields. Ideally, we will recruit a reputable core group to guide the project.

The Basics

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General help and links:

Style Guide for this Wikibook

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  • Help page for all Templates specific to this Wikibook

Policies for this Wikibook

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General

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This book will follow all the general Wikibook policies and guidelines.

No Essays or Polemics -- The Importance of 'Neutral Point of View'

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The authors of 1776 Report wove value-based and judgment-based essay in with summaries of history and memories of history. Many critics of 1776 Report will want to write essays or polemics opposing the values and judgments expressed by the authors. We encourage you to do so, but this Wikibook (Critique of the 1776 Commission Report) is not the place for it.

As one of the Wikimedia projects, Wikibooks has a 'Neutral Point of View' policy. This has been debated, revised, and governed from the very start of Wikipedia in the late 1990s. We won't be debating the pros and cons of that policy, nor will we attempt to create a version of our own (a.k.a. a "fork"). Diversity of viewpoints are welcome and identifying 'contested territory' is valued. But this Wikibook is not the place to resolve all the debates and controversies.

One way we hope to cope with diversity of viewpoints and controversies is having multiple categories of analysis and rebuttal (e.g. History Content, Memory Content, Rhetoric, etc.). Hopefully this gives space for each of these modes of analysis.

Finally, if you fundamentally disagree with the 'Neutral Point of View' policy, then this Wikibook project is not well suited to you as an author or editor.

Wiki Structure (Planned)

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Text from the original 1776 Report will be uploaded into "source pages" -- one wiki page per paragraph. (Exception: Appendix I. Declaration of Independence.) These pages will be locked to prevent from further editing or vandalism.

All of the authors and editors will add/modify content on individual pages for each page/column/paragraph number. These are called "Analysis and Rebuttal Pages".

There will be a fixed template for each Analysis and Rebuttal Page:

  • At the top, for reference, will be the original paragraph (transcluded from it's source page.)
  • Below or next to it will be the "summaries" for each category of analysis or rebuttal.
  • These summaries for each category will be automatically generated from the subsection headings, on the page below. Each subsection title must be a sentence, and be sequenced in logical order for the paragraph.
  • The required sections are:
    • History Content
    • Memory Content
    • Rhetoric
    • Viewpoints
    • Authorship
    • Other Content
      • (anything that doesn't fit into the sections above, and also will not appear in the Summaries. Excludes meta-discussions, which belong in the 'Talk' page for each.)
    • Footnotes -- automatically generated from <ref> tags on the page
    • Further Reading
  • The summaries for each category of analysis and each paragraph will be transcluded on to the "side-by-side" pages in the main text.

Creating New Pages

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For the most part, authors will not need to be creating new pages, but instead will be adding/editing text and references on existing pages.


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