OK, I did the first three lines for this and it took a lot longer than I would have liked. I found the editing to be pretty painful. There's no left justify button so the only way I could do so what to edit the html directly. Am I missing something? I also don't have anyway to type the tonal marks so I just copied and pasted the tones from other documents. Not fun! :-(

I'm not sure why the left justify button was missing, it should be fixed now.

As for the pinyin, I have yet to include this in my FAQ but the fastest way to convert the characters to pinyin is to paste them into the MDBG Annotate tool. After you submit the first time, you may have to select the correct pinyin option:

I am going to see if I can incorporate some sort of pinyin translation tool right here on the page.

One thing is for sure - whatever you can add is appreciated, it's certainly not an all-or-nothing deal.  If you only feel like adding the chinese text, or the translation, or just a few lines, every little bit helps.  Thanks! 

i found the editing a little hard as well. I couldn't get below the grey box it would just create a new box if i hit enter. maybe im missing something. i ended up just copying the html text and editing that.

Yeah, that is actually a quirk in the editor program I use - what you actually have to do is use the "indent left" button to bring that line back out of the gray box. This confused me at first as well and it takes some getting used to.  I'll see if I can figure out a workaround.

In other news, I've finished that pinyin translation function and am working on getting it incorporated as we speak.

ive noticed people have been using the fourth tone for 不 such as bùshì. 不 by itself is fourth tone but in speech such as when saying 不要 and 不是 its usually said as 2nd tone. these variations in tone rules apply for many other words as you guys probably know. so how do you think we should write the tones in such instances. i know a lot of dictionaries may have it written the formal way but i think the way its spoken is more important here...

I agree, it would be more helpful to learners if the tones for characters like 不 were written as spoken in that particular sentence.  I'll leave that up to the project originators in each case, but I think it's a good idea and will suggest that they do so in the Getting Started/FAQ page.

The other question is how to deal with tonal inconsistencies between Taiwan and the Mainland.  When they exist, I suppose a footnote in that sentence block would work well.

yeah im not sure about the inconsistencies either. i guess whoever knows will have to add it because i dont know the taiwan differences. ive worked out how to handle the box with the indent button but now i still have a problem hitting enter within the box. it just creates a new box. how do i go down one line? (what the enter button usually does)

That's also very confusing. You press shift-enter to only go down one line, and to stay in the same box. That needs to go in the FAQ as one of the first questions. And maybe I can figure out a way to fix that as well.  It's not intuitive at all the way it is.

What do you think is better?

1) A dot point and box for every line (subtitle line).

2) A dot point and box for every sentence.

3) A dot point and box for every monologue - as in everything one person is said is written in one point until the next person in the video speaks.

Does it really matter? i ask because i seems most people have taken the first approach. 

At this point I'm not going to mandate exactly how to do this, as I think it depends on the sentence length and a few other factors.  For the most part, however, I think each sentence having it's own block (as you say, a dot point and box) is best for readability.

I knew this was going to happen eventually -- are we going with traditional or simplified characters? Or a random mix? Or an auto translator like they have in Wikipedia?

People are welcome to start projects in either traditional or simplified, but it should be consistently one or the other on a given project. A mix of traditional/chinese characters on the same page is far too confusing.

awww... i was trying to force simplified on to you guys! well i changed all my simplified to traditional. Dr. Insano, maybe you can have a simplified section and a traditional section under the 'Active' and 'Completed Projects' label??

OR we could write (traditional) or (simplified) in the title of each project. If that makes the title too long we could just add (T) or (S) to the end of the title like i have done with this one... you can write up what it means in the FAQ. what do you think?

That's exactly what I'm going to do - I'll add the traditional/simplified info somewhere to the page where it is more visible.

I have to reiterate though that any content is better than no content, so if you only know one script and want to contribute, by all means add your text and someone can easily use a simplified-traditional converter (or the other way around).

Beware of converters. They don't do a 100% correct job. Best to double check the conversion manually afterwards. Case in point -- the "guan1xi" above should be 關係, not 關系. Also, "mian4bao1" should be 麵包, not 面包.

ah yeah.. well since i dont know traditional i dont pick those mistakes up.. but you should edit it! thanks

Hello Dr. Insano,

I like the points system coz it certainly motivates us... but i've caught on to it already i think. you just submit anything and you get points even for no changes! How do you distinguish in points if someone submits heaps in one go?

THough to be honest it doesnt really bother me because I'm not in it for rewards!

I'm actually figuring that our right now. I'm going to put in a few protection mechanisms in place, and if anyone is just amassing points without really doing anything their points will be reset to 0.

This will be in the FAQ, but here is the current points system:

Making additions or changes to a project: 5 points

Adding a new project: 100 points!

Making a comment: 1 point

I can also, in my varying degrees of insanity, award special points from time to time.  For instance, I am going to award you and sjcma 50 extra points for being the first two users to try editing a page. :)

What points system? Was it discussed off line?

No, no discussion offline - I just put it together today in order to give credit to those who give their time for the benefit of all chinese learners.  I'm also going to be building a "top contributors" section into the site soon.  First I've got to get the FAQ up and publicize this site further so people actually know it's here. :)