New T2W Traderpedia

[Sharky]

Today, I'm very pleased to unveil the latest addition to T2W - called the Traderpedia.

As it's name suggest, this new section of the site aims to be an Encyclopedia of Trading Knowledge with one big difference - every page is created and can be edited by any member of T2W. So potentially nearly 40,000 traders will be able to contribute to this endeavour and everyone can benefit from the open sharing of knowledge.

The Traderpedia is now live here:
http://www.trade2win.com/traderpedia

It can also be accessed from the front page, the menu bar in the header and from the www.traderpedia.com domain.

1. Where to Start

If you go to the Traderpedia, you'll see there are many ways to find your way around. Whilst the quickest method is simple to use the search box, we've also provided shortcuts to the major trading topics on the Traderpedia front page, or you can browse a list of categories or view all current articles together.

2. How to Contribute

It's easier than it looks - your best starting point is to go to the help page here:
http://www.trade2win.com/traderpedia/Help:Contents

Don't be afraid to edit pages on Traderpedia: remember, anyone can edit any page and we encourage you to be bold! Find something that can be improved, either in content, grammar or formatting, then fix it. If you think an article is biased, try and make it more neutral. Or create a brand new article on a subject with which you are familiar, whether it be the smallest technical indicator or a rigorous critique of efficient market theory. If you have an article in mind it is worth using the search box on the left to see if anyone has written it first. There's also a list of all the articles here. Worried about breaking Traderpedia? Don't be: it can always be fixed or improved later, as a record of all changes to a page is kept and old pages can be restored if necessary.

3. Practice Here

You can practice your editing skills here, in our Traderpedia Sandpit:
http://www.trade2win.com/traderpedia/Traderpedia:Sandpit

4. What's New

You can monitor the progress of the Traderpedia live here:
http://www.trade2win.com/traderpedia/Special:Recentchanges

5. Feedback

We've created this forum specifically to discuss the Traderpedia: http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=162

Please do post your feedback and questions you might have that aren't answered in the help page or FAQ here: http://www.trade2win.com/traderpedia/Help:FAQ

6. And Finally...

Finally, I'd like to thank all those involved in the preparations for this launch - we wanted to create a solid framework and sufficient content to get the project up and running, and thanks to a number of people we've done just that and already have over 200 traderpedia articles live. I'd like to think ALL the T2W Team who have spent much of their time over the past weeks on this - particularly Frugi, Rhody Trader and Iskandar, but also Rossored and EK1, and our volunteer beta testers, in particular JillyB who did a wonderful job in assisting us.

 

[danfreek]

I've just had a look around and I think that this will be a very valuable resource in addition to the forum. I look forward to reading, posting and editing.

Three cheers for the T2W team!

 

[danfreek]

hooray!

 

[FetteredChinos]

Hip-hip......

you don't stip...

 

[Rhody Trader]

Don't forget to let us know if you have any issues or other feedback.

 

[Sharky]

As this is the first week of the Traderpedia we'll be keeping a close eye on any new pages added or updates - so don't worry about making a mistake or not following the right conventions, we're more concerned about getting as many members involved as possible.

Starting next week, we'll be having themed weeks on different topics of trading when we'll be asking members to assist our efforts in improving those topics.

 

[Sharky]

Although it's early days, and despite some complementary comments, the response so far has been muted.

The success of the traderpedia really depends on getting a good level of participation from everyone. So do tell us what you think of it, what would make you want to contribute, what puts you off from contributing - anything that can give us some clues as to how to get more people involved.

 

[danfreek]

I haven't contributed yet because I don't feel that I am enough of an authority on the general articles. Personally I'm waiting for more specialised brances to appear such as Rivalland swing trading, methods of Jesse Livermore etc, then hopefully I'll have some knowlege to contribute. Also it'll take me afew days to get an article together and written propperly so that it makes sense

 

[Sharky]

Thanks for the initial feedback danfreek - it's useful to know what people are thinking. If I may respond to some of the points you've raised..

* Being an expert or authority is definitely not required. The hope is to marriage members personal educational development with the traderpedia, so having learnt new topics and methods, there is an opportunity to share some of those things with others - and likewise others will share with you. Say for example you're reading up on TICK and TRIN, or MACD - you head to the Traderpedia to see what's there, but this time there's nothing as yet, or perhaps there's just a 'stub' article that needs further comment - adding a few lines of description having researched it would possibly help you to better understand and remember what you've learned, and at the same time be to the benefit of others who have contributed themselves to other terms you've learnt from.

* I think the terminology of 'articles' that we've used to describe the pages of the traderpedia are somewhat misleading. These pages aren't complete articles in the common sense, of having a start/middle and end - there works in progress, a patchwork of contributions (nuggets of information) that bind together and grow to become more comprehensive and cohesive.

* Rather than waiting for someone else to create a specialised branch, there's nothing to stop you from linking through to a new topic or sub-topic from an existing page, and then creating just a 'stub' article (a couple of para's describing what it is, but marking it with {{stub}} to the effect it needs further work).

* The Traderpedia is very different to the Knowledge Lab in that we don't want members to write complete articles (although we certainly are not going to complain if you do!). We want them to dip in and out - make some small updates, create a new term here or there (anything which is a red link is a term that isn't defined). I can understand people's hesitation about editing or adding to someone else's work - but don't be hesitant, think of it more as a continual refining process.

* Finally, I should say - as it's been mentioned previously - that although anyone can edit any page, records are kept of every change made to a page, and anyone can revert back to an earlier version. So if you're worried about someone coming along and deleting your work - don't, first of all the T2W team monitor updates themselves, and secondly someone 'vandalising' the content in this way would potentially be banned from the site.

 

[blackcab]

Sharky - I think wikis can be excellent and I intend to contribute what I can. My main problem is lack of time; I have no more than an hour of personal time a day, into which I need to fit all my trading preparation and research, so for now I'll be limited to the odd minor correction, rather than contributing anything significant.

IMHO this is one of the best developments on T2W - I hope it takes off.

 

[Sharky]

All good - getting any sort of feedback at this stage is very welcome. In principle your in favour of the idea and that's important. Completely understand most people don't have time to contribute in any significant way - but if we manage to involve enough, all those minor edits add up to a worthwhile contribution.

Over the coming weeks, we'll be more tightly integrating the traderpedia with the rest of the site. One idea is to automatically link terms within the forums and klab to the traderpedia along with tool-tip style pop-up definintion, so newbies (and more experienced members) can easily find out more about them.

Also, we'll be running themed weeks so everyone can direct their energies to a particular area of the traderpedia - it will take time to evolve, but we think it will be worth the effort!

 

[pcj]

just had a quick look and seems a great addition to the site :cheesy:

 

[blackcab]

Like ADVFN and TMF turning words in people's posts into links? Horrible practice imho, even if it's for the site wiki rather than advertising.

 

[Sharky]

Glad you think so pcj. We've had a busy first week with the Traderpedia, and the number of articles currently being worked on has increased to 259. These are largely due to the efforts of the T2W Team (thanks go to Rhody Trader + Frugi in particular), but we're hoping to get some more assistance from the members soon and that will really speed progress up and our target of 1000+ articles before the end of the year.

The articles most in need of creating are those on the Wanted List - these show a list of all articles that have been linked to from another article, but don't currently exist, and ordered by the number of links. So currently, Reversal is the most wanted term that needs an explanation.

Next week, we'll be pooling together our efforts on particular Collaborations of the week. Frugi will explain more on Monday.

If you're completely lost about the whole concept of the Traderpedia (as a wiki - a system that lets you freely create and edit web page content) - then try it for yourself in the Sandpit. It's as simple as creating a post on the forums, but rather than create a new post to an existing thread - you either create the first post (or article as we refer to it), or edit the first post (article). That way the content evolves, and a history of all changes is kept so we can easily prevent valuable contributions from being removed.

Why not have a try, and tell us what you think.

Blackcab: I agree if done badly, it can be horrible - but however we do it will be in consultation with you guys, and you'll be able to turn it on/off as you prefer.

 

[frugi]

Collaborations of the Week

Each week, we nominate two topics in need of content to become the ''collaborations of the week''. The aim is to produce comprehensive, detailed articles, through widespread cooperative editing by members. This project aims to fill holes in Traderpedia in an efficient, organised manner and focus the expertise available in the community.

This week's chosen articles are Trading for a Firm and Swing trading.

Any member with knowledge of the above and a few spare moments is warmly invited to contribute.

Please do not be daunted by the term "article" or the vast white space that represents one yet to be started. A sentence or two is often sufficient to provide another vital grain of information, so do not be shy of adding yours, even if you think it may look a little small or out of place on the page! As the articles grow these small contributions can be further integrated into the whole.

The Traderpedia is specifically designed to undergo an organic, ongoing process of improvement so naturally some articles start out a little jumbled and vague, but as the various contributions start coming in, the structure will take shape. Your editors on the T2W staff strive to keep things neat and tidy, ensure the process of natural selection is to everyone's advantage and of course to prevent abuse.

So with the above in mind, remember that you can write about any aspect of this week's topics, for instance perhaps by:

• Describing an inverview you might have had for a trading firm. What sort of questions did they ask you? How did your skills match their requirements? What does the firm do, exactly?
  
  or
  
• Describing a simple swing trading strategy that you might have used. Did it work? What were its advantages and disadvantages? What variables and techniques did it employ and why (e.g Fibonacci, price only, news announcements)?

Just two examples of an infinite number.

However please remember that the Traderpedia is designed as an unbiased information reference resource not a collection of personal views and opinions.

The articles are structured in such a way that different sections can be completed, edited, improved or enlarged by different members without spoiling the overall flow and sense of the topic. Please respect the contributions of fellow members - unconstructive "edit wars" are not welcome and members who needlessly defile the contributions of others will be banned.

Guidelines for structure are provided here and some of the more complete articles also give an idea of what is intended.

In order to help kick start the momentum a little, there will be some tempting prizes available for our most assiduous contributors. More on those and how you might win one later...

Meanwhile, thanks very much to those members that have already contributed articles during their spare time. It is reassuring to see the spirit of the Traderpedia - "by everyone ... for everyone"- becoming accepted and respected.

 

[blackcab]

In the stylesheet, can visited and unvisited links be coloured differently? In the monobook stylesheet at least they're both #002bb8. Personally I find it confusing when visited links are not coloured differently, especially where there are many links as in the traderpedia.

 

[Sharky]

Certainly blackcab - that makes a lot of sense, I'll change it now.

BTW check out my fancy maths on the Relative Strength Index - takes a bit of trial and error, but finally pulled it off with the following:

<math>RSI(N) = 100-\left[ \frac{100}{\left(1+p\right)} \right]</math>

 

[Sharky]

I've now coloured visited links grey - if it's difficult to read or you can think of a better colour - just let me know which hex to use.

 

[Sharky]

Okay on second thoughts - lets go with a traditional purple.

 

[ale]

I am finding Traderpedia a great resource so far.
Layout works well and the various links are coming along nicely.
Very comprehensive also - it's either there or there is a note to say what is needed.
Hopefully those gaps will be filled soon. User editing is a great idea (assuming that it's protected from the hackers / wreckers)
One comment so far is searching - I tried to search for ADX (not knowing what it was) but it drew a blank.
I couldn't do a text search since I had no idea what it was. Had to search elsewhere and then come back. How does one edit some text to make it searchable if it's not automatic?
(I tried to put this comment on the FAQ section but couldn't see how to do it - am I missing something obvious or is something obvious missing?)
Ale