Welcome to theinternetisgod.org. Our website's goal is to serve as a platform for the collaborative effort of writing a community-developed book. As a starting point we have chosen the essay "The Internet is God" by Frank Den. We welcome everyone to read and rate other people's contributions, as well as contribute their own insights and collaborate with each other in order to determine the course of this experiment, which hopefully will lead to a well-written book, created in an exciting new way. If the corresponding section of the help doesn't answer your question, feel free to contact us with any question you may have.
This project is in your hands, so do not feel inhibited from entering your thoughts here, whatever your background and attitude to the theme. We are hoping that our subject will interest a wide range of individuals. Your perspective is as valuable as that of anyone else.
Whilst expertise in any field is welcome, you should not hold back from contributing if you are not an expert. History is littered with advances in thought and understanding initiated by amateurs! There is also a sense in which we are all beginners when it comes to matters of belief!
Another reason for not contributing can be a wish for perfection. First attempts are rarely perfect but this should never deter you from making a start. The reason for our community is that things can usually be improved on by combined reflection on a subject. Wikipedia is a good example of how this works. Articles may be rough around the edges to start with but they can then only improve. Some people find it helps to speak their thoughts first and then write them down. Whatever method you use, this community does not expect faultlessness. We are looking for your ideas that may then be improved on.
Please write in English but if English is not your first language, please do not be deterred from contributing. There will be others who may be able to improve the construction of your words but no one else with exactly the same ideas as you.
Never enter other people's ideas as if these are yours. Please note all sources. The editors will assume that everything entered on this site is your own work, unless you acknowledge someone else as the source of the idea. So please don't try to pass off someone else's work as your own.
Now and then, a complex idea may require a complex use of language. But usually simple language is more effective, even for difficult ideas. So as a general guide, keep sentences short and avoid flowery language.
The editors welcome robust opinions and ideas but not words that are disrespectful or intolerant of others. In matters of belief, it is almost inevitable that you will disagree with someone else and it is out of such differences that progress is sometimes made. Do not hesitate to declare your belief provided that it does not include bigotry, hatred or intolerance towards those who do not share it. The editors set no boundaries to your ideas here but please do not fight for them as if they are the only truth!
Voting buttons are displayed next to each article, in order to determine its popularity. For simplicity's sake the voting system is an up/down one, so either you vote an article up, or down.
There is no specific guideline on the criteria involved in your decision, and you can always change your vote later on a specific article.
Voting on an article rewards you with 1 User Point.
There are actually a few criteria we like to keep separate from votes. Those are Offensive/Defaced content (the "Mark as offensive" links at the bottom of articles) and Spelling/Grammatical errors (the "Mark for proofreading" ones). If you spot any of those mark it with the corresponding flag and a moderator or their author will be attending to them.
Flagging content is also considered very helpful and will reward you with 2 user points when the issue is addressed.
User points are used to keep track of user involvement on the community.
You get:
User points may also be awarded on other occasions, as well as manually by a moderator.
Here are a few guidelines for writing your article in theinternetisgod.org. Please make sure to read through those, as well as the working with others page.
By submitting your article, you are agreeing to theinternetisgod.org's terms of service.
Newly created articles have to be manually approved by a moderator before they are publicly displayed.
theinternetisgod.org uses the FCKEditor for article submissions. More information on the function of each of the buttons is can be found on FCKEditor's quick reference page.
The allowed html tags are listed just below the editor window, and you may wish to also view the page's source code before you save it, for maximum control over how it will look.
It is possible to enter footnotes[1], by writing [-# footnote text-] (without the dashes), where the # will be substituted by a number assigned automatically for the footnotes on each displayed page.
We generally recommend only pasting plain text in the editor and formatting it here, but if you absolutely must paste from word, please do so by using the "paste from word" button on the editor toolbar instead of pasting directly into the page.
Categories and Tags are used to provide information about each article's perspective.
When submitting your article, you may choose categories from the category tree. In order to keep things as specific as possible, it might be best to choose from different branches of the tree. You may choose as many as you wish, although we suggest you choose around three.
You may fill in any additional tags you see fit. The tag field will autocomplete what you're starting to write, so you might want to wait and see if your tag already exists.
The status of an article has to do with how open or closed it is to contributions from the community. You can find out more about the different status options in the working with others page.
Depending on how many people are collaborating on an article, it may be wise to put a brief summary of the changes you've done on an article in the revision information box. This will allow other authors to identify your changes, as well as make it easier to track down and roll back unwanted changes.
fn1. this is an example footnoteEach article on this site has a status, which indicates how open it is to collaboration. You may also sort articles by their status in most views, which can allow you to easily spot open projects you could contribute to.
The initial author of the article sets the status and may change it at any time. An article's author may transfer author status to another user by contacting a moderator.
Keep in mind that in its essence, theinternetisgod is a collaborative project, and we encourage setting your article's status to as loose as you're comfortable with.
Setting your article's status to Free for All will allow any seasoned user (that has enough user points to be able to write articles in the first place) to edit that article.
A version control system is in place, so the author still maintains the right to roll back any specific changes.
Setting your article's status to "Personal Project" or "Open to Talk page suggestions" will only give edit access to the users you choose. You may allow specific users access to the article through the "Grant" tab, on the top of your article.
If an article is set to Open to Talk page suggestions, the talk page can be used to ask for access to the article, usually by stating the changes you intend to make.
By setting an article to Personal Project, you declare that no collaboration requests should be done to the article's talk page. Comments can still be posted.