How to Help

Quick Guide to Contributing to The-Moon

Thanks for your interest in contributing to this site! Every single addition makes the Moon-Wiki more valuable!

There are a number of things you can do, but the basic tasks are adding pages and then adding content to them. Here is how.

How to Add info to Existing Pages

1. Select "Edit this Page" at the top.
2. Type in - or cut and paste in - new information. Please don't plagiarize and add a source for any info that is not yours.
3. To sign an entry, add three tildes ("~") -- they will be replaced by your screen name; or four tildes for your name and date.
4. Click "Preview" and make any corrections if necessary.
5. Click "Save". Thanks!

How to Add Pages

Pages for all the official IAU-named lunar features already exist, if you would like to add a page for a new feature, here's how:

1. Click on a letter in the navigation index to the left.
2. To add a feature to the list, click the "Edit This Page" button at the top left.
3. Type in the name of the feature you want to add in its correct alphabetic position. You can add as many names at a time as you wish within this letter page. Each name must be in double-square brackets (example: [[New Page]] ) for it to be treated as a link to a new page (it may be convenient to use the Text Editor mode to see how the other links were created).
4. Click "Save" at top right.
5. Click on the name you just added and a new page opens - select the template option "craters1".
6. You now have a blank template page for adding info to.
7. Always click "Save" when finished!

Note: new pages do not have to originate in the alphabetical index. You can create a new page anywhere simply by placing double-square brackets around any word (or combination of words) in the Wiki text. After saving the page with the newly highlighted term, clicking on the highlighted term will invite you to create a new page with that name in the manner described above.

How to Add a Photo

There are three ways to make photos appear in the-Moon wiki - by uploading them directly to this wiki, by linking to where the image is available elsewhere, or by inserting instructions requesting a web server to provide a dynamically created image. The second way has the strength that it doesn't overload the wiki with files, but the availability of the image depends on its continued existence on the external website. A particularly good source of external images is the LPOD Photo Gallery. Also, if you have original images and add them to the LPOD Photo Gallery and link to that site from the Wiki, an additional advantage is that your photos will appear in the LPOD Photo Gallery Search whether they are used on the Wiki pages or not. The third method is very easy, but it creates images that are usually a bit slower to display (since they have to be re-generated on the server), and dependent on the server continuing to understand the instructions you supply.

Adding an image your hard drive

Please only add images that you have the right to post online - these are mostly your own images or ones from a NASA website.
 

1. Click the blue "Manage Space" button at top left.
2. Choose the "List and Upload Files" option in the window that opens.
3. On the "Files" page that opens scroll to the bottom and click "Chose File" and select the image file on your hard drive.
4. Choose the file and then back on the "Files" page click "Send File."
5. A new page opens with the uploaded image. Scroll to the top and select and copy the phrase that begins and ends with two square brackets and says the image info - it looks like this: [[file:franklin_2006_04_16.jpg]].
6. Click the navigation letter and then the crater name to reach the page where you want to place an image.
7. Click "Edit this page" and paste the copied double bracketed text where the template says "[[image: |image :". The pasted text actually says [[file:xxxx]] and you must replace the word "file:" with "image:"
8. Click "preview" and check that the image appears.
9. If all is OK, click "save" and admire your work!
10. One more thing to do. Add the image source info to the line below, between the double set of slashes to make it italics. And "save".
11. Thanks!

Adding an image from the LPOD Photo Gallery or an external site

Please only add images that you have the right to post online - those in the LPOD Photo Gallery are all OK to use.
 

1. Within the page that you want to add an image - for this example I am using "Maclear" - click on the "LPOD Photo Gallery" images link.
2. If there are any available images click the best one, which opens up a new window.
3. In the new window scroll down to "Filename" under File Information. Select and copy the filename. In the example it is: Maclear-LO4-085-h2.jpg
4. Go back to the Maclear edit page on the wiki (hint: I open two adjacent tabs on the browser to go back and forth) and paste the file name in where the xxxx.jpg appears in the the code that says: [[image:http://www.lpod.org/coppermine/albums/userpics/normal_xxxx.jpg width="300"]]. After pasting in the filename it looks like this: [[image:http://www.lpod.org/coppermine/albums/userpics/normal_Maclear-LO4-085-h2.jpg width="300"]]
5. One more step - to be able to display the image at its full size add this code at the end: link="file name" so for the Maclear example: [[image:http://www.lpod.org/coppermine/albums/userpics/normal_Maclear-LO4-085-h2.jpg width="300" link="http://www.lpod.org/coppermine/albums/userpics/Maclear-LO4-085-h2.jpg"]]
6. Almost done! Now to add the source info which appears in the next line on the edit page as: image source
7. Go back to the Maclear page in the LPOD Photo Gallery and copy the URL fron near the bottom of the page - it is http://lpod.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?pos=-1556
8. Back to the Maclear edit page on the wiki and type/paste in this: [[http://lpod.org/coppermine/displayimage.php?pos=-1556|LO4-085-h2]] The http is the URL from step 7, and the info after the pipe symbol (|) is from the photographer name from the LPOD Photo Gallery: LO4-085-h2. Note - I had to use one bracket instead of the required two to make the line visible!
9. Click "Preview" and check it out. I almost always forget to have two [ around lines, and sometime I accidentally use { instead of [.
10. When it looks OK, click "Save" and test to make sure it works. If not send me an email and I'll help!
11. Repeat these steps to add another image to another page! Whew!
12. THANKS!

• PS - There can be no blank spaces within any double bracketed term. Sometimes a file name may have spaces - if so replace each space with "%20". For example, an image called Copernicus LO 123 h1 needs to appear as Copernicus%20L0%20123%20h1 - its a pain and easy to forget, but easy to fix!

Adding a dynamic image

1. Dynamic images are just like the fixed JPEG's mentioned above and are inserted in basically the same way; but the server, instead of retrieving a stored image, creates and returns an entirely new image based on the instructions you send to it.
2. The instructions required to create a dynamic image are typically rather lengthy, and difficult to code correctly by hand. The easiest way is to use the MapMaker Link Generator web tool in the Wiki files area. When you click on the preceding link you will probably see a dialog asking if you want to Open or Save the file. The file is a JavaScript webpage, and because it may be updated from time to time you want to select Open to run the current version. Your browser may also ask for permission to run the scripts. If asked, you want to say "yes" (otherwise the buttons on the page will not function).
3. After completing the previous step, you should have opened a web page that generates image-creating instructions understood by the USGS MapMapker Web Map Service. You may select several textures and projections. You also need to copy in the lunar latitude, longitude and diameter of the feature you want to plot. Clicking Generate URL allows you to preview the image at the bottom of the MapMaker Link Generator page, in a new browser window or both. The initial image will span 1.5 times the diameter you enter. You may need to experiment with the centering, diameter and image size to get the result you wnt.
4. When satisfied, follow the directions on the page for copying the text in either the URL or the WikiText box. The text in the URL box can be treated just the same as the URL to any other on-line JPEG image. Paste it into a page anywhere you want an image to display. A typical insertion would look like: [[image:URL]] (where URL is the pasted text). The text in the WikiText box contains the same URL, but embeds it in the WikiText needed to generate a complete clickable captioned image for use at the top of a typical the-Moon feature page. You simply delete the place-holder image and caption text, and paste in the new text from the box on the MapMaker Link Generator page. The automatically-generated caption will identify the texture and projection you used, as well as providing a link to a list of all IAU-named features whose centers fall within the image area. The URL itself is embedded in text that makes it possible to click on the displayed image. When you click on the image, it will open a very similar image in the USGS Map-a-Planet service, which is based on the same MapMaker technology, but permits the user to interactively pan, zoom, change textures, identify features, etc.

Some Specific Things You Can Do to Help

Here are some specific things you can be do to make this Wiki better:

Adding Images

1. Do a web search for images of a particular feature. If you find an exceptional example -- perhaps one better than the current Wiki illustration -- place a link to it in the Images section of the appropriate page.
2. Look through other lunar image collections on the web. For example, many fine amateur images, organized by feature name, can be found on the Italian Astronomical Union pages at Planet Moon. And there are professional images, for example, at the SMART-1 website. It would be helpful to go through these systematically adding links to them from the Images section of the appropriate Wiki pages.
3. Using the Images Needed page as a guide, add images for the farside features. This can be very easily done by anyone with a relatively fast PC who wants to learn to use the LTVT software and follows the directions on that website for downloading a high-resolution PDS Clementine background texture. If the texture is downloaded at 64 pixels-per-degree, you can generate off-line views as good as those from the PDS site itself. Alternatively, you can download a small section of any PDS texture at still higher resolution and re-map it to an orthographic view with LTVT. The advantage of using the LTVT software is you don't need to have any previous knowledge of the lunar names: you can interactively Go To any IAU named feature anywhere on the Moon and the software can be used to automatically identify and label all the IAU-named features in the resulting field of view. Alternatively, you can manually locate the feature directly in the PDS system using the IAU coordinates given on the Wiki pages, and create images that way, as Paolo Amoroso has been doing. The Clementine images are most effective for features in the mid-latitudes where the illumination is at a moderate sun angle (near the equator the sun angle is very high and most features look washed out). Ideally, your screenshots should be uploaded to the LPOD Photo Gallery, and then linked to from the Wiki pages, using the directions given above. If necessary, feel free to contact - Jim Mosher for further details of how to use LTVT for this purpose.

Adding Index Map Links

1. Features on the Moon's nearside are identified in the title line by the Rükl map page on which they are plotted. Since the pages were first written, a graphic index to the Rükl sections has been added. Turning the Rükl designations into hyperlinks to the relevant map pages requires nothing more than opening the page for Editing, deleting the colon between "Rükl" and the map number, and then surrounding the two items with double square brackets. E.g., "Rükl: 34" --> "[[Rükl 34]]". Andrew Martin has corrected most of these, but there are still a number that need editing in this way.

Adding Special Features Lists

1. Go through the Wiki pages and compile lists of features with similar morphologies (shapes), but quite possibly very different sizes. Craters, for example, have a variety of "floor plans", but within any given design, many closely resemble one another. Add your lists to the Special Features Lists page.

Documenting Nomenclature History

1. Go through the IAU Transactions and, when a particular feature is mentioned, add a link from the Nomenclature section of the appropriate Wiki page and describe how the name was affected.
2. Read Researching Nomenclature Histories for further ideas on determining how a modern name originated.

Adding Info on Who a Feature is Named for

1. Research the person or person for whom a feature was named. A starting point is the Wikipedia link, which will, in turn, provide a link to the basic biographical information. See if you can find out more (in particular if the person had any lunar connection). If the person was a modern astronomer, the History of Astronomy Obituary List will often turn up articles giving details not found in the Wikipedia. Remember, whenever possible, to stress what a person did that relates to the Moon. For those with access to a good library, Thomas Hockey's two-volume Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers is another indispensable resource for information about persons with an astronomical connection (it is partially available on-line). It provides carefully researched details (with references) about the lives, careers, and accomplishments of more than 1,500 astronomers.

Adding Links to Outside Resources

1. Read a printed book, like Chuck Wood's Modern Moon, place a description of it in the Bibliography (Arbus Driver's description of Chuck's book is an excellent prototype for what a bibliographic entry should look like), and where something interesting is mentioned about a particular feature, add an annotation linked to it on the appropriate Wiki feature page.
2. Add additional LPOD links. When the feature pages were first created LPOD links were automatically added using Kurt Fisher's LPOD Index. The list used included only LPOD articles through June, 2007. Many LPOD's have appeared since then, and links to them need to be added to the Wiki pages for the features them comment on. At the same time, many older LPOD's described features not included in Kurt's list, so links to those LPOD's need to be added as well. And of course, things of interest regarding the Moon are also sometimes mentioned on other sites, such as the Astronomy Picture of the Day.
3. Research a lunar feature in the NASA Astronomical Data Service system, or in Google Scholar. A relatively small number of lunar features have been studied in detail by scientists. If their results are interesting and understandable, summarize the on-line information you uncover and add links to it in the Bibliography section of the appropriate page.
4. Add links from the Lunar Image of the Week page to (1) the external page, and (2) to appropriate Moon-Wiki pages about the features shown. This has been done (as of March 28, 2009) for the first few entries in 2009.
5. Add links to LPOD pages that describe the feature. This has been partially done, but many LPOD links are missing.
6. Add links from the abstracts of the Lunar & Planetary Science Conferences (most recent one) that describe named features or areas.

Adding New Pages

1. Create pages for lettered craters. Some of the "satellite" features are as interesting, in their own right, as the "primary" features for which they were named (example: Aratus CA). Feel feel to create illustrated pages for these, which can be link to from the primary feature page.
2. Create pages for non-IAU named features. Some features that were once named by the IAU are no longer named, and it is useful to document what the discontinued names represented (example: Schneckenberg and Arago Domes). Also many features of historic or scientific interest have never had IAU names (example: Valentine Dome), and deserve pages to document what they are.

Writing Descriptions

1. For the ambitious, try to add a meaningful Description for a feature of your choice. The original motivation of this Wiki was to serve as repository for such Descriptions -- which hopefully go beyond the Wikipedia entries (largely confined to describing in words the appearance of the photographs) -- and Additional Information. But very few Descriptions have been written yet.

Updating Pages

1. Like all knowledge, the Wiki pages gradually grow out of date, and also the preferred formatting can change. The Wiki Updater provides an automated way to bring feature pages up to date, including updating location and dimension data, and linking named feature pages to the IAU site. If you are editing pages on a Windows PC, consider using it when you add content to a feature page -- or simply running it on pages that need updating.

These are only suggestions. Please use your imagination and follow your own interests to add links and information to make the feature pages more useful and interesting.