DVS KB:About

What is the Knowledge Base?

DVS maintains this Knowledge Base as a collection of documentation and resources about DVS as an organization. It contains information on how DVS is run, how to get involved, how our different programs are organized, tutorials on software we use, etc. It is not a collection of data visualization resources, but focused on the DVS organization. As such, we hope that the KB helps new and existing members to get more insight into the organization, find information related to getting involved, and provides useful resources and documentation for DVS volunteers, including board and committee members, and employees.

The Knowledge Base is currently under construction. If you would like to contribute, read the sections below to find out more. If you have more general questions, comments or feedback, you are more than welcome to contact the Knowledge Director.

What topics are covered in the Knowledge Base?

The KB contains anything people in the organization need to know long(ish)-term. Examples of topics that should be covered in the KB are:

Tutorials for software/how we use it (DocuSign, Streamyard, etc.)
How to organize recurring events (e.g. Outlier, Fireside chats)
Recurring tasks (e.g. how to process access requests)
Ongoing programs (e.g. mentoring)
Other processes (e.g. nominations)

Information that is only relevant short-term, or not focused on DVS as an organization, is outside of the scope of the KB. Examples of what should not be covered in the KB are:

Any kind of personal information (e.g., directors should be referred to by function rather than by name)
Documents related to specific iterations of events
Things that change often and/or are hard to keep updated (e.g., no need for a list of Slack channels)
Information on data visualization as a topic, e.g., how to use specific charts – the KB is focused on the DVS organization, not data visualization as a topic.

Contributing to the DVS Knowledge Base

The KB is set up using MediaWiki. This section contains some pointers for those who have not previously contributed to this or other wikis. Any DVS member can contribute to the KB as long as they sign up for an account.

Creating an account

To sign up for a KB account, click the person icon, then "Create Account", in the top right of this page. Please use your full name and the same email address you used for signing up as a DVS member, so that we can verify your membership before granting you basic editing rights. Board members, committee members, and contractors or employees may be given extended editing and viewing rights as needed. Please see #Internal Documentation below for more information.

Creating and editing pages

To create a new page, go to New Page.

To edit a page, navigate to the page you want to edit, then click the "Edit" button. An editor will open where you can make changes to the page. More advanced wiki users may want to edit the page source rather than use the standard visual editor, which you can use the "[[ ]]" button for. Some formatting pointers for editing the page source directly are included below.

When creating a new article, you may find it easier to draft it in a Google Doc at first to revise and get feedback from others easily, then transfer it to the Knowledge Base once it is reasonably complete/finished.

Formatting

An overview of formatting markup is available on the MediaWiki wiki. Here are some more helpful tips and links:

Adding images
Creating tables
To add references at the bottom of the page using the Cite extension, add them inline wrapped in <ref></ref> tags, then add the references list at the bottom of the page by adding a header == References == followed by the <references /> tag.

Internal Documentation

The KB contains information relevant for all DVS members as well as more internal-facing documentation targeted at board members, committee members, and employees. Some of this is hidden in a separate internal section and will not be visible to users who are not logged in, or logged in with an account that does not have the appropriate authorization.

If you believe you should have access to view and edit internal documentation on this KB, sign up for an account (if you haven't already) and request access here.