Halifax Rainbow Encyclopedia: History Project Procedures

This page documents standard procedures for contributing to the History Project.

General Style

This system is only a temporary storage receptacle for the History Project; it will move around over the years and parts of it will be put on paper. At some point the BumpyText will go away and links will look like they do in the Wikipedia.
People's names are important. you may have to be a bit pushy to get them. It is not helpful for someone to refer coyly to "John M." because if who that is isn't forgotten by now, it will be in another ten years.
When you're writing, crosslink as much as possible. Use the FindPage link (it will open a new window) to get the names of the linked pages right
when you see something interesting that should have future research, make a page for it, write the references - where you saw the interesting thing - and mark it as HistoryProjectTodoList. You will find yourself spending about 25% of your time only doing this but it is worth it. Then in the future, you or someone else can then cherry-pick these to-do items.
Graphics and pictures make the encyclopedia much more fun. Always try to get a picture of the person, place, thing or event.

Trying to get people to tell their own stories is difficult because of:
- closetedness - many of these are older people who have been in the closet a lot of their lives before becoming activists (and a few have returned!!)
- modesty; they don't want to brag about their accomplisments
- busyness - writing an autobiographical encyclopedia entry is a lot of work and many of these people are still busy with their own projects
- maybe they think this is a wingnut project and don't want to be associated with it. Anything that you can do to lend credibility to your project will help.
You can interview people according to HistoryProjectInterview.