Skill

An Alekese Skill (capitalized) is a unit of information. By itself, a Skill is simply a name for some abstract quantity of data. But in combination with Links and Trees, Skills become more powerful.

The concept behind Alekese is that our users can add Links to the database that other users can search for. In this way, a Skill is a label for a Link to describe what information can be learned by following the Link and reading the destination site.

Adding a Skill

You can add a Skill to the Alekese database in several ways. First, make sure you are registered and logged in to the Alekese site.

The basic way to add a Skill to the database is by using the skills/add form. All you have to do is type the name of your new Skill into the form and click on the "Save" button.

However, most users find it easier to add Skills to the database as they really need them. Generally, you only need Skills at one of two times: when you're adding a Link, or when you're creating a Tree. If you have Javascript enabled in your browser, Alekese will check the name of the Skills you use with the database automatically, and if the Skill is not found in the database, you are presented with the opportunity to add it at the touch of a button.

(If you don't see the green + button, make sure you have Javascript turned on.)

Skill Names

There is no mandatory naming convention for Skills. However, there are some things you should keep in mind.

• The Skills database is shared among all Alekese user. So if you add a Skill called "Being totally Foo", then I may use that Skill in one of my Trees or as a tag for one of my Links.

• Skill names should be as narrow and descriptive as possible.
  • For example, if you create a Skill called "pedology" for your Link about studying children, I may use that Skill in my Link about studying soil. Therefore, a better name would be something like "pedology (children study)" or "pedology (soil study)".
  • If you are adding a Link about how to fiddle with the equalization settings in iTunes, you might be tempted to use the Skill called "equalization". But I might use that same Skill in my Tree about setting up a radio talk show studio microphone. Our users searching for equalization will not be happy if they find totally irrelevant information like that. Therefore, better names might be "how to adjust the equalization setting in iTunes" or "setting up the equalizer for an Acme Voice Processor".

Because Skills are just labels, there is no internal requirement for how much information they might cover. In fact, Alekese is designed to cover all ranges of possible information. For example, you may have one Skill called "How to get a job" and another Skill called "how to tie a tie". In this case, "How to get a job" is probably the Goal of our Tree. Naturally, it is going to be a very general and broad Skill. There are a lot of aspects to getting a job, which is why you are creating a Tree to guide others through it. One single aspect of getting a job, though, is dressing professionally, of which one aspect is how to tie a tie (at least for men). One Skill is very broad. The other is very narrow. Both are perfectly valid.

Further Reading

• Skills are used in Trees.
• Skills are used to label Links.
• You can search for Skills by name.
• You can mark Skills as "learned".
• You can search for Users by who know a particular Skill.