Slackerpedia Galactica
From Slackerpedia Galactica
Slackerpedia Galactica is a new community-based multimedia project about astronomy assembled by two members of the Slacker Astronomy podcast and three of their friends.
It consists of an audio podcast, video podcast, collaborative blog, webcomic, discussion forums and a wikipedia-style online encyclopedia. All elements revolve around the world of astronomy told through silliness and humor, while respecting the intelligence of the audience. All of the pieces come together at slackerpedia.org, a redirect from and home to the archives from slackerastronomy.org.
The Slackerpedia Galactica posse include:
+ Michael Koppelman, BS (Cand.) Astronomy, University of Minnesota + Aaron Price, BS Astronomy, Ph.D (Cand.) Science Education, Tufts University + Travis Searle, BA Broadcast Journalism + Rebekah Turner, BS Physics and professional actor + Dr. Doug Welch, Professor of Astronomy, McMaster University
However, it is run by a wider community. The audience contributes clips for the podcast, leads discussions in the forums and contributes to the wiki. This is by and for everyone.
The Slackerpedia Galactica podcast revolves around a monthly show that runs approximately 1 hour. In it, the crew perform SA-style skits based on recent astronomical news, read listener mail, conduct interviews with astronomers, and more. In between the monthly shows, individual crew members record and publish their own mini-shows on whatever topics strike their fancy. For example, it could be a rant about a recent news event, an explanation of a paper they are about to publish or a sound-seeing tour from an observing run in the field.
In addition, a video podcast is produced every month or so and is posted to the feed and a YouTube channel. The first one was a tutorial about supernovae explained using Lite Brite diagrams.
The blog on the web site is a place where all contributors can post their comments on a recent news event in astronomy. Discussion of the posts occur in the member forums, along with discussion of other astronomical topics.
Dr. Deranged brings, well, a deranged sense of humor to his comic Stellar Worlds, updated roughly weekly.
Finally, it all comes together with the online Slackerpedia Galactica, a version of Wikipedia that is dedicated to astronomical topics told in true slacker style. Contributors write entries that are factually correct, yet not necessarily politically correct.
We would like the entire Slackerpedia Galactica endevour to be equal parts us, and equal parts the community. We want to scale the walls of media and create a place where the right technology is used for the right content. We won't be forcing web pages into podcasts and vice versa.
Everyone is invited to participate in the Slackerpedia Galactica!
