Jason Pearce

MediaWiki is a free application, registered under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is used to run Wikipedia, the World’s largest online encyclopedia, as well as many other wikis.

Fratman is a minimalist skin for MediaWiki-driven websites. Originally developed by Jason Pearce, users began making enhancements and fixing bugs. To better facilitate community-driven development of this popular skin, the project has moved to Google code. If you would like to participate, please in further developing this skin, please send me your Google username. So far, there’s nothing there, so if you want to help get things started, I’d appreciate it.

• FratMan skin (v1.4) by Pearce (fraternitymanuals.com)
• FraternalRelief skin (v1.4) by Pearce
• FratMan skin (v1.4) by Castley
• FratMan skin (v1.5) by Castley
• FratMan skin (v1.7) by Anand

Previous posts about this skin within my website can be found here.

I received a call from the Wikimedia Foundation today. They were trying to track down the owner/creator of a German website that I’ve never heard of, but I immediately knew why they called me.

In April 2005 I developed a MediaWiki Skin and released another in October 2005. At the bottom of this skin is a link that says “developed (by Jason Pearce of Lambda Chi Alpha).”

While I developed the MediaWiki skin and freely share it to the world, I don’t deserve (or want) the credit for the hundreds of sites that use my skin.

Once I explained this to Wikimedia, they quickly understood. More so, they thanked me for participating in their project. I told them I appreciate their code and all of the things they have offered me and millions of others.

The electronic versions of the Cross & Crescent magazine were launched less than 24-hours ago and one chapter has already added its RSS feed to the front page of their website.

Ending all print production distribution of the magazine will reduce the accessibility of our content for some members, this I am sadly sure of. But at the same time, its new electronic formats will increase accessibility and exposure for others.

The RSS feed is a clear example. With only a few lines of code, the Shippensburg chapter webmaster was able to add the magazine’s table of contents to his website. Not only that, his website will automatically receive the next table of contents when we publish the next issue on December 2. He doesn’t have to do anything, it will just show up.

We also produced two PDF versions of the magazine: one low-resolution for screen and one higher-resolution for print. The PDFs package the same content into a finished 16-page publication members can print and read offline. Sadly, it takes a lot of extra work to create the PDFs — there is little I can do to automate that process.

Lastly the web-based XHTML version of the magazine is the big accessibility winner. Nearly any web-enabled device can now obtain the magazine’s content. This includes computers, cell phones, and even screen readers for the visually impaired. I know a visually impaired Lambda Chi would will certainly benefit from this change.

So there you have it. Some members are going to no longer get the magazine at all because they don’t have access to the web. Many others, however, now have greater access and more options on how they receive this publication.

Robert Castley, Mambo project director from 2002 to October 2004, dropped in to thank me for the MediaWiki skins I created and to offer a few enhancements of his own.

• Original FratMan skin (v1.4) by Pearce (fraternitymanuals.com)
• Original FraternalRelief skin (v1.4) by Pearce (fraternalrelief.org)
• Enhanced skin (v1.4) by Castley
• Enhanced skin (v1.5) by Castley

Thanks for sharing your enhancements Robert. More so, thanks for all you have contributed to the open source community. I’ll need to create 1,000 skins or more to repay the dept I and others owe to you.