FIRSTwiki talk:Style guide
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Page 'Ownership'
That little section has been in the back of my mind for a little while now. It is ment to say that because I say that Jamie Bliss should be written a certain way does not mean it will be. I am on equal footing as the other writers, even with my status as sysop (which has no effect on this). Incidently, this would also be the second benefit of registering (the first is that your edits are signed) --Astronouth7303 14:48, 20 Aug 2004 (EDT)
- I'm assuming the "User page control" is also valid for user subpages? --Goobergunch 14:57, 20 Aug 2004 (EDT)
- Yeah. but the talk pages are a little weird by defination. --Astronouth7303 19:41, 20 Aug 2004 (EDT)
Second-Person
I agree that 1st person should not be used. However, I think there are times where second person makes things much easier to write, and friendlier to read. A howto article is one case where I think second person can be used effectively. Although, I am interested in [User:Maddie|Maddie's] opinion. --Sciencewhiz 19:11, 12 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- It just seems so poor and uneducated to say "you". This is one case where I cannot point to Wikipedia, though: wikipedia:how-to have "you"s galore. --Max 19:37, 12 Jul 2004 (EDT)
Links in Headers
I did not notice this until reading User talk:Snoldak924. Could you explain exactly how it shows up badly, because I always thought it neat and organized when the header was a link. --Max 15:34, 30 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- That part was copied more or less from Wikipedia. I don't know the exaxt preferences or browser configuration, but presumably it's true ;) The issue, for me anyway, is that links in headers seems to me as bad form and doesn't look good. Also, when we have a header it is generally because we want the reader's attention attracted to the text below, but a link naturally attracts the reader to the link and particularly to clicking the link. Intrawiki links aren't so bad, but when they are huge headers, the links can become distracting. Look at the page Designing a FIRST webpage with and without links in headers, and tell me which you prefer. --Mrawls 15:41, 30 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Fair enough. I assume Template:meta page toc is an exception because of space constraints? --Max 17:23, 30 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- err? There aren't any headers on that page. Speaking of which, I'm going to change it slightly to test out a new design. --Mrawls 19:02, 30 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- My mistake, should have looked at that page again. I thought those were <big>ified headings or something. Didn't realize it was just bold. --Max 19:24, 30 Jun 2004 (EDT)
Should categories be plural or not? Sysop vs Sysops, Team Advisor vs Team Advisors. --Max 23:10, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Well, I don't really see the big difference between Categories and the See also: section ... I imagine this will become more clear once we start using them more extensively. Wikipedia didn't offer much help, as this seems to be a new and underused feature there, too. The category People is plural, but that could easily be an exception. Then they give an example of Sport, instead of Sports as a category name. But the categories they actually have do use the plural. We should probably just pick one and go with it ... but for now, let's just use what seems most reasonable, and see how it turns out. We can standardize it once there's something to standardize. --Mrawls 14:11, 15 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I think there are two distinct types of categories:
- Collection of instances, like Teams should be plural. The articles are a type of the category title.
- Collection of related articles, like Programming should be singular. The articles are about the category.
--SilverStar (Advay) 22:00, 15 Jun 2004 (EDT)
I'm not so sure about lumping all external links at the bottom. I always thought that was an annoying practice on Wikipedia's part that was mainly for legal reasons and for totally isolating non-Wikipedia content. I do like the idea of isolating off-server content, but there is a trade-off. Article's are less useful and functional as links get lumped at the bottom, not in the text where they belong. As for legal reasons, I don't think that is even a consideration in our case. --Max 21:51, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I don't believe there's any legal reason for this (free speech and what not). I did mean to add some criteria for including external links in the middle of an article, but it slipped my mind in the slew of other things. Although I prefer including most of the links at the bottom of the page, since the article should describe what the subject is about, and only send readers away as a last resort. Of course, for how-tos and other similar articles, linking to required materials, etc., is acceptable. What does everyone else think? --Mrawls 21:58, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I figure tha if it isn't directly mentioned, but is related, it should go at the bottom. If it is talked about, it can go in the text. --Astronouth7303 13:19, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I agree, the article should stand on its own without the external links. --Sciencewhiz 16:09, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
Wow! That must have taken a long time to write. By all means, replace the original Style guide with your text. Great job! --SilverStar (Advay) 21:21, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Well, as I said, I borrowed liberally from wikipedia's style guide. I'll give it the night to think over any changes, though ... --Mrawls 21:26, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
Does the bit about pages of links apply to stubs? --Astronouth7303
- I would say so. I know there are a few stubs that are just links ... and while I realize the value of stubs, the creator can certainly add a sentence or two of context easily enough (see InnovationFIRST for an adequate example of this). --Mrawls 20:49, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I know a lot of my early stubs were primarily (if not entirely) links. But I think most of that has been rectefied. --Astronouth7303 20:51, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
I think that people should rarely, if ever, link directly to something non-html. If there is any type of html page describing the item, that should be linked to, both as a courtesy to the site who's bandwidth you are using and also so the user can have a second opinion about the item. --Sciencewhiz 21:44, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I tend to agree with this statement. However, for exceptions, I believe that linking to specific documents on IFI's site or Microchip's site is useful (and being businesses with large websites, they don't have much bandwidth concerns). Perhaps more concrete criteria could be created? --Mrawls 21:58, 13 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I think it's more important that we do it for big sites, as those are the ones most likely to be concerned about deep linking (you can google for it, if you haven't heard about it before). The less deep we link, the happier everyone is. It also has the added advantage that most companies won't redirect a link to a file when it moves, but the html page will. --Sciencewhiz 16:09, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- Okay. I added a little something to the article ... though it could probably withstand a few edits. --Mrawls 16:19, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I think it's more important that we do it for big sites, as those are the ones most likely to be concerned about deep linking (you can google for it, if you haven't heard about it before). The less deep we link, the happier everyone is. It also has the added advantage that most companies won't redirect a link to a file when it moves, but the html page will. --Sciencewhiz 16:09, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
For headings, can't we use =Heading= as a level one, or is there a specific reason not to? --Astronouth7303 16:40, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
- I believe that a level one header is what the title of the page displays as. Therefore, subsequent headings should be h2 or below. --Mrawls 18:05, 14 Jun 2004 (EDT)
