Get Involved

The project is an ever evolving content repository, maintained by its members. Without contribution from everyone in the community it will not be a successful, so if you would like to help out with the Open Homelab project, we would love you to do so!

Getting Started

1. First things first, you need to register or login here before you can create or edit any content.
   • This is purely to reduce the likelihood of spam from the site. Your email will not be used for anything other than registering and admin comms from the site!
   • Once your account is created, you can optionally fill in a wee bio about yourself, for an example see here
2. If you have never edited any Wiki content before, it is really VERY simple. You can find a handy introduction guide to all the basics here:
   • Beginners Guide to Wiki Editing
3. Then choose a topic or two from the brainstorming section, mark your name against them and start creating content
   • This is only until we have a decent quantity of site content created, after which we will be removing this page
   • If someone already has their name against a topic and you have some great ideas for content in the pre-alpha and alpha period, then don't be afraid to ping them a message and suggest you collaborate on a page! Once we go to beta stage, things are likely to become more of a free-for-all.
   • If you have an idea for something which isnt listed, then great! Add it to the list and get writing, or even just add it to the list for someone to do later. We want to capture as many ideas as possible!
4. Even better, simply do a search for article stubs (i.e. articles which either don't exist or are only partially complete), and start adding entirely new content to broaden the scope of the site!
5. Feel free to follow us on Twitter and DM @OpenHomelab or @AlexGalbraith with your email address if you would like an invitation to the Slack channel

Spreading the Word

Please spread the word to people who you think would be keen to get involved in getting the site up and running, writing content, etc.

Also feel free to share the main twitter handle for the site @OpenHomelab.

The only thing we would prefer not to publicise at the moment is the address of the actual site, until we have sufficient content to go live with an Alpha release. Until then if people visit the site and see the lack of content, they may not be keen to return!

On go-live day (Date TBC) it would also be awesome if anybody wanted to post a short blog on their own blog sites, to help get people interested.

Formatting, Layout and Content of Articles

The aim of the project is for most of the articles to follow the same format. This is still to be confirmed, but once we have a few done, we can start to pick out the best layout / template and rationalise the look and feel of the articles. The initial version of this can be found here:

• Article Template

When you have completed writing an article, please make sure you add it to the relevant index page, such as Building a Homelab or Homelab Decision Trees, which will make it easier for users and crawlers to find your awesome content! :)

It is perfectly acceptable to link to external content such as blog posts, wikipedia articles, etc, as long as that content is relevant, reasonably up to date, and is not purely for generating backlinks / SEO to your own site! Any spam will be removed at our earliest convenience.

If you work for a vendor you may be the best person to write or edit content or advice on your product (and that's great!), but please remember THIS IS A COMMUNITY SITE, not an advertising platform! You should not even consider editing any content relating to any competitor of yours! Anything which looks like bias, advertising or spam will be immediately removed and you will be in danger of having your account disabled, so play nice! :)

Lastly, remember this is a community site, not a stuffy wikipedia site with ultra-strict editors / mods, so if you want to include humour, images, memes, etc in your articles, then that is perfectly acceptable! We care about decent content, not precisely how it is published! Of course also bear in mind that it is a wiki, so don't take offence if someone edits your post for layout, format, spelling, grammar, etc, as this is simply to try to keep the look and feel of the site consistent where possible. Hopefully we can collaborate to create an awesome source of information for the homelab community! :)

Legal - IMPORTANT!

Please note that we are aware that while most people in the industry use legitimate licenses, license keys, and software, there are other methods to achieve a "licensed" solution.

This site is not to be used for detailing any such methods, and only legally licensed software and methods should be included. To do anything else risks the long term future of the site.

Many thanks for your understanding! :)

The site Disclaimer is available here.