Art of compiling

I'm talkin' about bringing info together so that enlightenment — spreading knowledge which results in understanding — can be achieved! (Not to be confused with compiling the viewer.)

Why is compiling so important?

Because connecting help resources makes them more useful, you get the answers you want/need, and you walk away with greater satisfaction. You may even be well-prepared to teach someone else.

Simple example: you're on a webpage that you learned the basics of building in Second Life from. Now, you want to find out some tools to do sculpted prims with. Problem: there's no link to there! You try searching, but you aren't very adept at it, and you give up. DEAD END. FAIL.

The very lack of a hyperlink or sentence of explanatory text can make/break your further pursuit of a subject. While we don't want you to drown in links, especially on this wiki and other hypermedia, it's so important to have the choice to be curious. And compilation pages are a foremost example.

Another reason: giving someone too much to read at once is ineffectual. Benefit them with some main points, and after that, they can link onwards and self-educate at their own pace.

Why call it compiling?

The name fits the game. Think of a "Greatest Hits Compilation" of music, where all your favorite songs are conveniently accessible on a single CD, or iPod. Similar principle with a compilation page: lots of relevant links in a single place. While compilation pages aren't strictly called out on the wiki (yet... that may change) and other compilations are listed as "Related resources" or "See also" at the end of a page, they're always there to help guide your way.