Portal:The Science Behind Parkinson's/Project Development

This is a subpage for discussing how the project should develop. Please keep the Site map up to date

Where are we up to in setting up the project?
Quite a lot of material is already in Section 1 and the Magazine section of the project.

The project was actively 'opened up to the world' on 7th September 2012 and continues to be advertised to organisations and individuals globally. Please tell others about it.

Launch Log: /Launch Log

Since then Section 2 has been started because there seems to be a strong call for it. An evolutionary approach is being taken to this and contributors are needed.

Looking for contributors
This wiki will only be a success if people contribute to it. Parkinson's research is always moving on and we want to keep up with it and make sense of it.

We need to attract people (lay or professional in the Parkinson's field) who are able to write about science in an understandable way. There are lot's of people out there who can do just that - and some who can and don't realise it. Maybe you can. Have you tried? Do you know someone who can?

What needs to be done?
Basically to add material to Section 1 and to the Magazine Section and to complete Section 2 Introduction to Parkinson's Science.

The Magazine section may be the best place to start because this is where issues and ideas can be raised and discussed. It is the place for discussing the significance of new research developments and for setting them in context. As they are elaborated they can be linked to more systematic pieces in Section 1.

Section 1, Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research, is the major resource of the project but will never be complete because new research results are coming out all the time. There are number of red links in the Topics table of Section 1 which indicate that we have not even started to write about these aspects of Parkinson's. If you can research these topics by looking at papers and reviews in the scientific literature, you could start these pages. This is a wiki so you can make your contribution piecemeal. Others may like to help you out. You can appeal to others to fill in the gaps.

There is always the need also to update all the existing pages because the state of knowledge never stands still. There is a handy search tool on a lot of the pages which automatically submits the relevant search terms to PubMed and PubMed Central databases as well as Google Scholar and will list all the latest papers. It then needs someone (like you!) to assess the new information and add it to the topic. Pretty straightforward really and a way to ease yourself in.

Section 2, Introduction to Parkinson's Science? Has been started and an overall design for it has been produced: Introduction to Parkinson's Science/Site Map. This is meant to lead people who are new to Parkinson's through it in a step-wise fashion. A page design has been evolved so that it link to all the basic material on such things as cells, proteins and genetics which will be found in Wikipedia and elsewhere. Do you know anyone with the necessary background to volunteer for continuing the development of this section?

Ad hoc steering group
This learning project was started by half a dozen people who formed an ad hoc steering group. A number of other individuals are interested in the project and plan to contribute to it in the future. But we could look forward to establishing a 'Task Group' to nurture its development.

Some members of the ad hoc steering group are listed here and you should feel free to contact them with questions on their talk pages:
 * Droflet (talk)
 * HAPE3512 (talk)
 * dicknick2645 (talk)

Droflet (talk) 15:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Topics and sub-topics
Begin a new topic by giving it a Level 2 heading. e.g. the above topic will be typed in as ==Conventions for this discussion page==.

Give sub-topics a Level 3 heading e.g. === Topics, threads and responses ===.

Responses
A comment on a topic or sub-topic should be indented. This is done by placing a colon before the text:



To comment on a comment, i.e. to continue a discussion, add another colon:



Thus a dialogue (and this is a real one) will appear as:

Improvement of Portal page
 I think the intro page needs to be simplified and navigation to different sections made easier. the less time readers spend here but are able to efficiently find something that interests them, the more likely they are to explore and read - dr jonny
 *  Yes, you are right. The Portal page has gone through several evolutionary stages and it is due for another.  I'll take note of your emailed suggestions. Droflet (discuss • contribs) 10:58, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * 

Page Conventions

 * There should be a summary giving the significant points of the page as the first paragraph and it should not have a heading so that it appears above the Contents box.
 * A set of standard sections is recommended (we need to decide that this is the best order):
 * Background
 * Research
 * Further Reading
 * Summary and or Discussion
 * Related Pages (which would be imported from a template giving the links to the other related pages in this area of the wiki)
 * References

Under Further Reading it is a good idea to set up a link to PubMed that will do a search using the topic of the page. E.g. the link http://pubmed.gov?term=Parkinsons_disease%20LRRK2 will give a list of papers in the PubMed database on LRRK2 starting with the most recent.

There is a template for doing that: Template:PDLitSearch

There are some Navigational templates that could be useful.

Categories
A list of categories should be put at the bottom of every page. This is done using a link for each relevant category e.g.

.

Every page should be categorised at least with.

The Top level page, Portal:The_Science_Behind_Parkinson's, should also be put into the Category of Learning projects by putting at the bottom of the page. This will mean that it appears in the list of Wikipedia learning projects.

Droflet (talk) 10:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Schools and Departments
Eventually links to this project should be put in the Wikipedia lists of Schools and Departments (and the top level page should be put in the category of 'Learning projects'). The project should also be listed under the appropriate Portal.

Droflet (talk) 11:20, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Project Map
There should be a 'Site Map' for the project. This could be a separate PD Project Map page which gives the page and subpage hierarchy (or network for cases where a page has more than one parent - e.g. Hot Topics).

Every page should have a link to this Map page. Alternatively there could be a template to be included at the top of every page which gives the link to this page plus other information and links that should be standard on every page. This could display the project logo too, when we have one!

--Droflet (talk) 09:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Images and diagrams.
We should find some images to make all page more attractive. Droflet (talk) 13:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The syntax (for the example image on the front (Portal) page) is  This image is in Wikimedia Commons and can be accessed directly by wikiversity. --

You can search for images by simply typing the search term in the search box on the Wikimedia Commons Main page. E.g try searching for 'neuron': http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/?search=Neuron

Droflet (talk) 10:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)