Federal Reserve News

Since some people are unfamiliar with how to contribute to an online collaborative book like The Federal Reserve Simplified, let's take a few moments to discuss how the whole process works.

First, by signing up for an account on this website, you become eligible to contribute to the book and its editing. This is both a privilege and an opportunity, but since users with online accounts can all change the contents of the book, there is a potential for chaos. The worst of all worlds would be where individuals start erasing and replacing all of each other's work. Not only would such a state of affairs lead to bad feelings and tend to drive good people away, it would also undermine our overall goal of creating the book for public consumption. Eventually, we may have to place limits on who can contribute and participate, but for now we'll leave it open. This means that each of you is here on the honor system. We're expecting everyone to behave themselves and work toward out common, constructive goal.

Obviously, there needs to be some ground rules for how to go about adding to and editing the book, so that's what this post is all about.

Adding Chapters and Pages

Anyone can add a chapter or a page to the book. Having said that, try to work within the outline of the book that has already been created. Before you add a chapter or a new page, take a look and see if someone has already added something on the same topic of subtopic. Wherever appropriate, simply edit an existing article by adding information to it rather than adding a new article about the same topic. If the material you are providing is truly new and unique and doesn't fit well into an existing page, add your page right after that page in the book.  On the screen where you work with the editing form, you'll also find a subsection entitled Book Outline which has easy controls for placing a page in its appropriate place in the book.

Editing Existing Chapters and Pages

Once you've found an existing chapter or page where you can include the material you are contributing, go ahead and enter it. If you want to change what the previous author wrote, don't just delete the offending text. Instead, highlight it and click the strike-thru icon, which is found in the bottom row of icons, third from the left in the online editor. This will draw a line through that text showing what you are proposing to remove. If you're adding something new, after you've typed it all in, highlight it and change the color of the text to blue. This will make clear what you're proposing to add. The combination of strike-thrus and blue text will help others see what changes are being proposed. Next, save your changes, then add a comment by clicking the Talk tab and explain what changes you made and why. This way, others will be able to understand the rationale behind your changes.

After proposed changes are in place for awhile to give contributors time to discuss them if needed (particularly when text deletions are involved), designated editors will go in to remove strike-thru text and replace original colors on new text that is being kept, thus making the changes more permanent.

Documenting Claims

One of the most critical aspects of any book is documentation. If a claim is made and no attempt occurs to provide documentation showing the basis for that claim, the book will suffer for it. Similarly, if material is referenced from other works and that work is not properly acknowledged, the reputation of this book will suffer for that as well. There are two acceptable ways to document a page. The first is by including the documentation directly in the text where the new material is introduced. Where possible and available, include a link to an existing website that provides evidence backing the claims you make. The second acceptable form of documentation is to include footnotes at the end of the page, using a standard numbering system that also puts the footnote number at the end of the line cited in the article as a superscript. The superscript tool is located in the third row of editor icons, sixth from the right.

Formatting

Try to use the online editor rather than a word processor such as Microsoft Word to do your writing. Word introduces all kinds of nasty and unnecessary hidden codes and characters that can ruin the uniformity of how text is displayed on this website.