IF Archive volunteers wanted

General IF Community Resources
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From another thread:

> How long does it usually take to get a game file confirmed by the IFArchive?

Depends on when the volunteers log in and approve the files. Can take a while sometimes…

This goes back to the discussion a few months ago about improving the IF Archive workflow.

I am happy to announce the first step in this project: we’re looking for volunteers to help with IF Archive metadata editing.

Read about IF Archive organization and metadata here.

This doesn’t address the problem of “moving files out of unprocessed!” Yet. This is a new workflow and I want to introduce it once step at a time.

Background: the basic problem is that we never had any editing infrastructure for the IF Archive. A volunteer needed a login account on the server and also root access so they could move files around. Therefore, we were extremely conservative about the volunteer list. For the past many years, it’s just been David Kinder and Doug Orleans.

I have now set up a web service which allows people to log in (in the web-browser sense, not ssh) and perform specific actions. The actions are grouped by role. Ultimately the roles will be:

  • (1) Move files from the upload directory to unprocessed.
  • (2) Move files from unprocessed to their final destination.
  • (3) Edit the descriptions, IFDB links, and IFWiki links of files.

For the present, (1) and (2) are still limited to David and Doug. What we’re looking for today is volunteers for (3). Once the system has been hammered on for a while, and we’ve better documented our unwritten organizational rules, we’ll expand that.

Note: I’m not currently planning to open this up completely. On IFDB or IFWiki, anybody can create an account and immediately start editing the whole site. I don’t think this is the right way to go for the IF Archive. We’ll have a list of volunteers with edit access.

But you should ask if you’re interested! [EDIT: by sending email; see post below.] I’ll set up an account for anybody reading this. (Unless, like, you created your forum account yesterday.)

(Read the above doc page first though.)

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This is great – I’d be interested in helping! I read the doc page and think I mostly understand it, though would want to spend a little more time looking at examples before beginning to muck about.

(Dunno if you were looking for PMs or just replies, but I figure replies might help create more visibility so…)

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Perhaps student volunteers might be of help? Here in Ontario, highschoolers have to perform 40 hours of community service in order to graduate, and since the IFTF is a non-profit, it’d be fairly easy to sign off for them (most students helped teachers, fundraising events from charities, or at retirement homes, with a little spreadsheet they had to get a signature on and write down the date/tasks performed.)

Even if it isn’t a graduation requirement in other areas, it might look good when it comes to college applications or as a volunteer activity on their resume. We have a few educators on the forums, so it might be worth considering reaching out to them and seeing if any of their students would be interested. (Plus, newblood for IF…!)

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I think that I could be useful becouse of my Diógenes syndrome in relación with software.

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I enjoy the IF Archive experience. It is very creative.

I would like to volunteer to help.

Jeff

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I guess I should have put down a formal application process!

Okay, here it is: please send email to tech@ifarchive.org and let me know what username you want to use. I will set up an account.

I will also send you a Slack invitation for the IFTF Slack, where we do a lot of our volunteer coordination. (If you’re already on there, just let me know your Slack userid. If you want to use a different email address for your Slack account vs your regular email, tell me that and I’ll use whichever you want.)

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