Transcribing videos

Enable editing. Before you can start transcribing, you'll need to create an account. Click "Register" at the top of the page to get started, it'll just take a second.

Find a video you'd like to transcribe.
Go to the Transcribe page to easily find a video that needs to be transcribed. This page gives you a list of high priority videos without transcripts, and lets you filter by channel. By default it'll show you full videos that need to be transcribed. If you like to work in small chunks, though, check out the Collaborative tab. This shows videos that are split into 2-minute chunks, to make transcribing longer videos more manageable.

Begin transcribing.
Once you're on a video page, click "Edit" to access the editor. You can type the transcript there, or copy-and-paste it if you transcribed the video elsewhere. Click the "Tips" button view some helpful info for transcribing, including information on keyboard shortcuts that make things much easier.

Don't worry about formatting.
We'd prefer volunteers focus on simply getting a video transcribed rather than worrying about getting formatting perfect. Just try to keep paragraphs on the shorter side. You can click the "AF" (Auto Format) button to automatically break a transcript into 3-sentence paragraphs.

Flag points you're unsure about.
If you can't tell what the speaker in a video is saying, or you don't know how to spell it, you should flag that part of the transcript. Type (?) or click the question mark on the toolbar to insert a flag. This makes it easier for other users to tell which parts of a transcript still need work.

Mark the transcript as complete.
When you're done transcribing, remember to hit Save. If you finished the transcript, mark it Complete. Otherwise, keep it listed as Incomplete so other users know it still needs work. "Complete" doesn't have to mean 100% done, though. If there are a few words here and there, or it has some formatting issues, you can still mark it Complete.

Proofreading transcripts

Before you can start transcribing, you'll need to create an account. Click "Register" at the top of the page to get started, it'll just take a second.

There are many videos whose transcript can be improved with minor formatting and spelling changes. There isn't yet a list of videos that need their transcript cleaned up, so you'll have to do some searching. You may want to choose a block of videos (e.g. all "Crash Course World History" or "May 2010 vlogbrothers" videos) and check the transcripts of those videos. As a tip, if you're going through a block of videos and not seeing any changes that should be made, you may want to choose a different block.

When copy editing a transcript, there are a number of guidelines to watch for:

• Make sure the transcript is easy to read. You can join lots of short sentences into a paragraph, or break a giant paragraph into smaller ones.
• If a video is long or has distinct parts (e.g. Crash Course has an introduction, credits, open letter, etc.), consider breaking it into sections. Use section headers, and include the timestamps in the section header. See this videoas an example.
• A transcript can contain "ums," stutters, or other speech that's difficult to follow either. Try to keep these to a minimum, and emphasize readability over pure accuracy. Sometimes an "um" can be important, for example, saying "Umm... No" has a different meaning than just saying "No." So feel free to use your own judgment for whether ums and stutters are worth including.
• Make sure spelling and grammar is correct. However, if the speaker did not use correct grammer or used the wrong word, the transcript should probably have that as well. Use your judgment here, though. For example, if a Crash Course video has John saying a complicated name or foreign phrase slightly incorrectly, transcribe it with the correct spelling. However, if Emily mentioned an animal and got its genus wrong, use what she said.
• If a movie, TV show, book, or other title is mentioned, it should be italicized.
• If a website URL is mentioned, type it as a URL and link it. So if Hank was mentioning VidCon's website and said "go to v-i-d-c-o-n dot com," it should be transcribed as http://vidcon.com and made into a hyperlink.

Translating transcripts

Before you can start transcribing, you'll need to create an account. Click "Register" at the top of the page to get started, it'll just take a second.

The wiki used to support non-English transcripts, where users could translate a transcript into any of a number of other languages.

In 2014, YouTube introduced a new feature allowing users to translate captions directly on YouTube. Because this worked a little better than the wiki, and the result was a little more useful, translations are no longer supported on the wiki. The YouTube feature is being rolled out to channels gradually. For channels that support this feature, please refer to this guide explaining how it works.

Wiki articles

Before you can start transcribing, you'll need to create an account. Click "Register" at the top of the page to get started, it'll just take a second.

• This is the Nerdfighteria Wiki, so try to keep all articles related to nerdfighteria. If in doubt, ask on the discussion page.
• Try to use proper spelling and grammar. Keep articles professional-sounding where possible, even if the topic is something like the Poopy Nintendo Saga.
• There are many subjects that can fall under multiple categories. For example, John's wife Sarah is a prominent person in nerdfighteria, but her nickname "The Yeti" is important to explain as a dictionary term. The best thing to do here is figure out where the subject is mostappropriate (e.g. it's more important that Sarah is a person and the wife of John than the fact that she's called The Yeti) and put the article there. In this case, her article would go under the People category. If the subject is notable enough in other categories, you can make a separate article there, as well. However, instead of writing a new article, select the main article using the "use content from another article" dropdown.
• If an article is about a specific channel or video category on the wiki, use the appropriate dropdown to "link" the two. When an article is linked to a channel or video category, that article will appear on the channel/category's page.
• Link to other websites where appropriate. For example, for an article about a person that has their own website and is active on Twitter, you can link to both the website and their Twitter profile. You can add an "External links" section at the bottom of the article to organize them if you'd like.

Nerdfighter groups

Before you can start transcribing, you'll need to create an account. Click "Register" at the top of the page to get started, it'll just take a second.

Along with articles and transcripts, the wiki also collects & organizes information on nerdfighter sub-communities. These are often Facebook groups for nerdfighters of a particular interest (e.g. adult nerdfighters) or of a particular area (e.g. Australian Nerdfighters).

You can help by adding any groups that we're missing. Just make sure the groups you add are specifically for nerdfighters. While it's great that there are so many Facebook groups for general nerdy things, make sure the only groups on the wiki are the nerdfighter ones.

You can also help organize the groups. You can add categories on the Groups Browse page. On a group's page, click Edit and you can manage which categories a group is listed under. A group can be listed under multiple categories, and can have multiple locations, so use this to make sure the group can be found under the categories people may look for it under.

On the Group Edit page, you can also rename the group, edit its description, edit its external links, or add/remove tags. The name, description, and tags are used for searching, so feel free to add certain keywords as tags to make a group easier to find.