LQWiki talk:Manual of Style

Create or Die
OK, that's a little extreme, but... We need more than exists here. Someone must come up with guidelines for this page, and it must be featured prominently somewhere! I reccomend importing one based on Wikipedia's Manual of Style, or something to that effect. (stuff like Explain Jargon, sensible article naming conventions... stuff to that effect. - Fennec 22:46, Mar 6, 2004 (EST)

Well?! *cries*

EvilSporkMan 21:58, Mar 6, 2004 (EST)

The style manual is definitely a top priority. I am looking for suggestions on the mailing list and wouldn't mind a few volunteers to help!

Jeremy 21:17, Mar 16, 2004 (EST)


 * Well, I decided to be bold and made a few sections :-). Hope you don't mind. ugen64 17:20, Mar 12, 2004 (EST)


 * I might have been a little bold, myself. Perhaps too much so. I felt it important that things be as concise and consistent as possible. I went around and gathered up various points from the lists and took your layout as a jumping off point and worked them in. Many, many more points need to be introduced, several of which are still in the consensus-building stage. Digiot 08:21, Mar 13, 2004 (EST)

Having this page protected so early is a little prohibitive; The (Wikipedia) standards for headers (ie uppercase first letter, lowercase rest except for proper nouns) should be adhered here too, which I tried to change, but could not. Dysprosia 08:53, Mar 13, 2004 (EST)


 * The page is protected so we can outline a style of our own (ie. it's likely that if everyone could edit they would just start putting Wikipedia conventions in there, which is not what we want). If you'd like to help decide the direction and style the wiki should have, I highly suggest the mailing list:
 * http://lists.linuxquestions.org/mailman/listinfo/lqwiki-list
 * Jeremy 21:17, Mar 16, 2004 (EST)

Most things in the namespace are protected, though nothing's necessarily permanent. The casing is by no means stable. That seems to be the tentative consensus thus far, but can easily be shifted. Perhaps the best way to shift things is to join the mailing list, where much of that page came from. The list is the primary place for discussion of overall site goals and policies.

Digiot 09:16, Mar 13, 2004 (EST)


 * Even the MoS at the Wikipedia isn't protected :) I don't like joining mailing lists, in any case, and I'm already heavily involved in one/two Wikis already, and I need time for other things ;) I should actually be sleeping now, in any case... Dysprosia 09:24, Mar 13, 2004 (EST)


 * Well, input is input wherever it is. :) Just the ideal is the list. (Though I don't usually join them either.) Digiot 10:24, Mar 13, 2004 (EST)

Digiot -- you mention elsewhere (in a "Recent Changes" comment) that someone should add "no smilies" to the style guide. Why? Personally, I disagree: they add a nice flavor, and subtle meaning to the text that would otherwise be missing. For example, someone mentions "holy wars" on the emacs page. I put a smiley after the sentence (among making some formatting corrections), because it looks too serious and unfunny without it, but it was removed.

Smileys convey meaning, and that's what this site is all about, right? JohnMG 17:08, Mar 13, 2004 (EST)

Yeah, I removed it. Feel free to put it back, if you feel strongly about it. I have no problem with them, as such (I use 'em all the time), but just feel they're a bit - well, unprofessional isn't the right word, obviously, but something along those lines. I figure the joke in the article makes it clear it's not too awfully serious. And I prefer vi, so if anybody was going to get offended... :) I think smilies are better for conversational netspeak but not so much for factual, informational prose. I think it's a valid question for the guide but not something I'd argue about very strongly. ;)

Digiot 17:59, Mar 13, 2004 (EST)

Just to clarify and for consistency across the Wiki.... are we definately using a capital "L" in "External Links" titles (as in the current Manual of Style), or... a small "l" like "External links" - (before I go through the lot :) ) - Sky

Skyline 19:31, Mar 16, 2004 (EST)

Hm. The point of that was to resolve whether or not an [Ee]xternal [Ll]inks section should exist at all, which is affirmative. I don't think that case was really stressed on that topic. But since it'd be a header, it would make sense to me to capitalize both. That's just my opinion, though - others may feel differently.

-- Oh, I should clarify - not every page *has* to have that section - just *if* it does, that's how it should be handled.

Digiot 19:46, Mar 16, 2004 (EST)

It's ugly and will Encourage Capitalization Of Words Which Should Not be Capitalized, and looks more normal if it's lower. That's just my opinion, however. Dysprosia 00:30, Mar 17, 2004 (EST)

Indenting is fine and desirable if one uses the ":" method, however it should probably made clear that indenting with spaces is not. Dysprosia 07:53, Mar 20, 2004 (EST)


 * Agreed and done. (And your 'External links' has incidentally been adopted, too.) Digiot 13:00, Mar 20, 2004 (EST)


 * Yay :) Dysprosia 04:32, Mar 21, 2004 (EST)

markup type choices
Ok... I think we need to offer an oppinion on different when different markup types are usefull

eg, external hyperlinks and wiki links should be in their full form ... if in a list for clarity, and ease of having other people link to the same page.

when used in a sentance, it should be ok to use the the wiki name in a different case, or other markup...

navigation
each page should link to related pages. This does not happen in paragraph type information... as it is extremely redundant to see:

Freds Finger manager offers Xifflebaffle capability to the blahblahblah architecture, (I'm getting tired writing this example) when:

Member Of: functionality : xifflebaffle blahbalhbalh See Also: blahblahbalbh

---

Purpose Plan
They have a name they have a purpose, and a plan

example:

Xifflock Ooobfooscatior purpose: provides overview type information of this product, and links to more extensive documentation plan: please follow template X, and keep rewrites of manuals to Xifflock Documentation

---

Namespaces
namespaces are goofy if not implemented nicely

There can be two products named xfiff.

one washes your windows

the other walks your dog.

wiki's inherrently help with namespace issues, as the name xfiff will contain an overview of both products, and then contain links to further information if that is needed.

Moderators
should look for abuse, and add navigation functionality, and solve disputes

moderators should not just go about nuking changes that they don't like, moderators may fork pages of course!

saving of other peoples work
users should be encouraged to add content without wiping out the other peoples content if possible. If it is a large chunk of work, it should be forked to a different page

Examples of linking styles
When suggesting the preferred style for links, examples should be given to show the new user how to create links.

Header markup
I should also like some guidance on when to use which forms of emphasis.

I started out putting in single "=" marks on top-level headers, but I see that this page in particular always uses two or more. Is the single form intended to be reserved for some special use?

4dummies 15:57, April 17, 2011 (UTC)

Page Titles
I have seen a few pages that are named after a file, and example being

/etc/fstab (I can't even see how to link to it)

Whereas another might just be the filename (I can't remember any examples).

I feel that just the common name would be a much better page name fstab, rather than the full path and name /etc/fstab. In general I might talk about editing my fstab, not my /etc/fstab. Would this be a good style guideline? Or maybe other people prefer the full path and name? Pigzag (talk) 15:46, April 9, 2019 (EDT)

More Page Titles
There are a number of pages named for command names. Ls or Rename, for example. I feel that the page should be all lowercase ls or rename. Whereas Libre Office, isn't the name of the command, it's the name of the whole package and that makes sense to have capitalization. Pigzag (talk) 15:52, April 9, 2019 (EDT)