Handbook:Handbook

About the Handbook

The Longevity Wiki Handbook is the 'source of truth' for the Wiki organisation. It currently contains our mission and strategy, the roles we are looking for, links to our communication platforms and some editing advice. Like the Wiki itself, it's all publicly accessible and transparent and will likely grow and change over time.

Mission

Longevity Wiki is an open-access project to create the go-to platform for the science of longevity. The wiki was borne from the need for high quality scientific content on aging and longevity to be freely available and accessible. The Wiki ultimately aims to cover the following topics in detail:

Longevity drugs and the evidence supporting them
Personal longevity strategies/advice
Hallmarks of aging/biology of aging
Animal models of aging
Laboratories working in geroscience, and their focus
Longevity biotech (companies, development pipeline)
Biology of aging + diseases of aging connection

More information about us can be found on our About page.

Strategy

Instead of producing as much content as possible, we’re going to focus on creating 5 pillar articles written by experts on the topic. These articles will demonstrate the knowledge and quality of our initiative, and then we will build out the wiki from there. These are the pillar articles:

Epigenetic reprogramming
Aging and Neurodegeneration
Rapamycin
Biomarkers of healthspan
COVID-19 and Aging

In conjunction with these articles, we are going to create a Glossary page of key terms in the longevity space, along with a short (2-3 sentence definition).

Available Roles and Projects for the Wiki

Longevity Wiki is an open access, collaborative project and we invite all volunteers to contribute! The goal of the Wiki is to create a trusted, high quality platform of longevity science content.

This section lists the current projects we are working on, and how you can get involved. If you're interested, please complete our Volunteer Survey Form and we will follow up with you by email.

Marketing manager (paid role)

Minimum requirements: Bachelor's degree, and minimum 5 years' experience in marketing roles.

We are seeking an experienced marketing manager to assist in promoting the Wiki across social media platforms. This is a paid role, and remuneration will be provided in the form of cryptocurrency payments (Stablecoin).

The responsibilities of this role include the following:

Oversee all marketing campaigns for Longevity Wiki
Implement strategy for expanding the scope of the Wiki
Promote the Wiki across multiple social media platforms
Ensure the company is communicating the right messaging to attract prospective customers and retain existing ones
Represent the marketing team to cross-functional groups i
Updating senior leadership on the progress of marketing activities and reporting on the results of campaigns

Pillar article writing

Role: Senior content writer

Minimum requirements: Masters or PhD training, ideally in a relevant field to content being written

We are seeking those with strong scientific backgrounds to help our initial offering of 5 ‘pillar’ articles that will form the initial content on the Wiki.

These articles are designed to be long-form (1.5-2.5k words) articles summarizing the relevant literature as it pertains to aging biology. The style we are aiming for is similar to a literature review, but with a simplified writing style that is accessible to non-specialist readers.

An example is our article on Rapamycin, however, the style and structure of the article may vary by topic.

The following topics have been selected:

Epigenetic reprogramming
Aging and Neurodegeneration
Rapamycin
Biomarkers of healthspan
COVID-19 and Aging

Glossary expansion

Role: Junior content writer

Minimum requirements: High school level biology

We are building a glossary of relevant terminology to expand the scope of the Wiki. The glossary will be accessible from an article through the use of so called ‘hovercards’ which makes it possible to display the meaning of a difficult term without leaving the article page.

The list of glossary terms is being populated based on the pillar articles. A full list of glossary terms can be found here (ADD LINK).

To contribute to the glossary, simply choose a term that has not yet been defined, and write a concise, and scientifically accurate definition.

Some guidelines:

All references should be cited using APA referencing

All links to internal articles should be linked
Definitions should be clear and comprehensible to non-specialist audiences
Definitions can be up to 270 characters in length

An example of a glossary term (ADD LINK).

Life extension tool database

Role: Researcher

Minimum requirements: Undergraduate biology, ability to comprehend the longevity data and research

We are creating a ‘life extension tool’ that provides an up to date overview of the life extension achieved for different animals with different interventions.

A sample of the tool can be viewed on our design platform Zeplin.

In order to populate data for the tool, we require assistance in reviewing the literature to identify the lifespan extension associated with different drugs and species, and the original publication in which this was published.

Our current database: Life Extension Tool Data.

Software engineering support

Role: Engineer

Minimum requirements: Interest in software engineering

As the wiki grows, we need to ensure that the automation and infrastructure develops. We are especially looking for people with the following abilities:

AWS reliability engineering/DevOps (people to manage infrastructure and deploy apps)
PHP
Front-end development
Technical product ownership
A scrum master/iteration manager

Marketing

Role: Based on experience and performance

Minimum requirements: Past experience in marketing, splendid communicator and creative individual who is eager to learn

Our marketing department is expanding. If you are a creative individual who loves communicating, you could get a lot of significant responsibilities.

Graphic design

Role: Illustrator, data visualization

Minimum requirements: Experience with graphic design

We are looking for individuals with graphic design skills to help us create and re-work pictures, scientific diagrams and graphs to communicate information to non-technical audiences. You will work closely with our content writers to produce high-impact, engaging visuals to accompany the written content.

Other roles

Role: Translator

We are looking for individuals with language skills to translate articles into other languages to reach a broader audience - particularly languages spoken commonly around the world. This will be done with the assistance of tools such as DeepL.

Role: UX specialist

We are seeking expertise in user experience (UX) to help us design an intuitive and engaging platform. The goal is to create a satisfying experience for our users. You will work with the Head of UX in this role.

Our communication platforms

Besides this Handbook we use a few other platforms for communicating and sharing resources. We're committed to being an open-access platform, and as such, we share all information possible, such as meeting minutes.

Non-engineering tasks are organised in Trello for now, use this invitation link to get access to the organisation.

Discord Server

We mostly communicate via the Longevity Wiki Discord Server. It serves as a day-to-day message board, as well as the host of our meetings. Meetings take place every week at 08:30 GMT.

Google Drive

Our Drive folder is used for sharing many useful documents, such as draft ideas, spreadsheets, or useful non-wiki resources.

Organisational monthly meetings

Organisanional task management: Trello Board
Meeting minutes

Monthly meeting on general organisational topics and as a synchronization between engineering and content writing.

Trello process

Future ideas for clearly far in the future (months)
Backlog for tasks to do soon (weeks)
Todo for tasks agreed to be done next, or you want to work on next
Once task is worked on -> Move to In Progress
If you want someone to review -> Move to In Review
If task is done -> Move to Done, can then be shared in the next weekly meeting and archived

Bi-weekly content writer meetings

Organisanional task management: Trello Board
Meeting minutes

Agenda

Introductions by new members (short, 1 min / person):
- Name & where you are based
- Background & interest in longevity
- What topics you want to contribute to
Designate Meeting notes writer
Content writer manager sharing process & technology updates
Going through pillar articles updates (content, reviews, contributions)
Round table: Unblocking writers - suggestions what to write on, asking for reviews etc.

Trello process

The process for tracking article progress with Trello cards is as follows:

Unsassigned for article ideas
Assigned when someone wants to write an article
Once working on a draft: In progress
When finished with a first draft: In Review (merged past columns)
When reviewed by at least one other writer in the group: Completed

General remarks

Articles are never really done, as science progresses, so if you want to add something meaningful - please do so and share your idea both on Trello and this meeting!
Non-structured contributions: Just get started writing on topics that interest you - the Trello board is to synchronise your efforts with the team and share your work!

Engineering Team

Source code: Github
Task management: Jira
Documentation & roadmap: Confluence

How to edit the Wiki

All articles, no matter what categories they are tagged with, are found on the All Pages site.

Let us know first

If you want to edit the wiki, please contact us first, so we can help you get started.

MediaWiki

Longevity Wiki uses the MediaWiki platform - the same as Wikipedia. This is the software that makes it possible to store all content, edit articles, track changes and more.

Create an account

If you want to edit the wiki, it's a good idea to create an account first. That way it's easier to keep track of your work and you get some extra functionality. To create an account, in the menu click the Account icon on the right (the 'little person') and click Create account and follow the instructions. Creating an account is not mandatory however for editing.

Create a page

To create a new article on the wiki, go to the menu and click Contribute and then Create new page. You will then be prompted to select a title for your article. After that, the Edit toolbar appears at the top and you can start writing. The Edit toolbar provides you with standard edit functions like making headings, bold text, insert links, insert images and much more.

The articles are categorized into four kinds, each with an associated category that should be added by using the Categories Option in the menu within the editor. (See "Editor Options Menu")

Pillar Articles: Described in the Strategy section, need expert knowledge equivalent to having a post-grad (MSc, Ph.D., MD) in a related area, currently managed by the core group. (Category: Pillar Articles)
Longevity Articles: All articles about longevity, traditional wiki development and open for everyone to contribute. Should be created as draft first and reviewed by others in the community. (Category: Longevity)
Glossary: Key terms in the longevity space, along with a short 2-3 sentence definition, no draft necessary. (Category: Glossary)
Drafts: Articles that haven't been reviewed yet and finalized to a certain stage. (Category: Drafts)

These articles are all shown on the website on the Articles page.

Drafts

When creating a new page, the Draft Article banner template should be added to beginning of article via {{ Draft-article }} (without spaces), automatically adding a banner and the "Drafts" category.

Drafts will not be actively mantained, but the core team might ask authors sometimes if they are still working on the article. The process for now is simple: Write a draft, have others in the community review it, finalise it and remove the draft banner (Work in Progress).

For the review process we encourage to use our Discord server and write comments with the comments feature of the editor; text that is written in the editor but not shown on the published page.

Edit a page

To edit an existing article, lookup the article, go to the menu and click Contribute and then (under 'This page...') click Edit. Then the Edit toolbar will open at the top, and you can start writing.

The Edit toolbar

Images

Often it's a good idea to include images in your article. Just make sure that if you use an image of someone else, you are not violating any copyright. In general, you are free to use images with a Creative Commons license, but don't forget to use the right attribution. If you need help creating an image yourself, let us know in the Images channel on our Discord Server, and we can help you create a unique and copyright-free image.

Referencing

For referencing to external sources (e.g. a journal article), Longevity Wiki uses the APA referencing style - the same as Wikipedia. To create a reference, click Cite on the Edit toolbar. There are a few useful resources for creating citations, such as Zoterobib.

Writing style

The aim of the Wiki is to create comprehensive, scientifically accurate and accessible content on longevity. The writing style we are aiming for is essentially the same as Wikipedia, in balancing technical and non-technical content. Here is our writing guide to help you get started. More information on Wikipedia's writing style can be found in Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

Translating an existing article

To translate an existing article, create a new page in the language version of the wiki you want to translate the article into. For more guidance, ask us in the multilingual-wiki channel on our Discord Server.

To carry over formatting and references, copy the source code of the original article sections you want to translate into the new page using Source editing view in the toolbar.

Translate the article using our writing guide, aim to preserve the article's meaning and accuracy. The preferred translation tool for a first draft is DeepL.

Contact information

See our Contact page.