Style Guide

Here are some of the editing standards we've adopted. These guidelines are definitely open to debate: please click "discussion" above to propose changes or additions.

General

Here are some general editing guidelines we ask that you follow.

Always use the Summary box

When editing pages, always fill in the "Summary" box above the Save/Preview buttons before saving, and make sure that you fill it in with something useful describing the edit you made and, if it's not obvious, why. For example, "fixed spelling error" or "added fun fact" or "reverted from troll 127.0.0.1" are all acceptable. Saying "made some changes" or just filling in the name of the page is not helpful, because it's information that we already have. Making your summaries accurate and useful makes it vastly easier for the rest of us to keep track of Recent Changes and keeps everybody happy.

Use the Minor Edit button

As a corollary to the above, if you're making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us.

Don't link to the current page

In other words, a page should not link to itself.

Link once

A given page should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to Larry Block in one place, then that should be the only link to Larry on that page. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article.

Don't use conversational style

This is an information site. It should read like Wikipedia, not like your diary.

• Check your spelling and grammar. Don't use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you're not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Google or Dictionary.com. If you know that you're not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor like Microsoft Word that has spell-checking built in.
• Interesting facts should be written as statements, not questions. If you're not sure about a fact, use language like "may" or "could be" to indicate ambiguity; don't phrase it as a question. Each page has a "Discussion" subpage we use for asking each other about stuff like this.
• Don't use "smileys" or "emoticons", except perhaps in discussion pages or your own user page.
• Don't "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's Discussion page. If you're 100% sure that something should be changed and don't think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' Discussion pages.
• Don't leave notes or instructions to future editors like "Add more information here if you find it". Again, use the article's Discussion page if you want to communicate with other editors.
• Never abbreviate the names of characters, actors or things on the site (e.g. DMW or SoT). Wherever possible, use the full name the first time it is mentioned. After the first mention, you may refer to "Debi Mae West" as "Debi" and so forth.

Don't sign your edits

All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the Wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you've made an edit that you're particularly proud of, the correct place to take credit is on your own user page. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too.

Do sign your Talk posts

If you make a post on a discussion page, please sign it. If you have a user account, this is as easy as typing "~~~~" at the end of your post. If you don't have a user account, just sign it with your name or nickname so everybody can tell who's who when reading long conversations. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described. There really is no reason not to if you're going to stick around.

Keep it friendly

Wikipedia's article on wikiquette is a good place to learn the ins and outs of maintaining the health of our Wiki community.

Program Writeup Format

Here is how we're structuring program writeups. See Higher Learning for a nice example.

== Synopsis ==

== Interesting Facts ==

== Commentary ==

{{commentary}}

== External Links ==

{{The Other Side}}

[[Category: Absurd Monologue]]

Commentary

Guidelines for including personal opinion are described elsewhere.

Categories vs. Templates

WikiMedia can do some clever things with cross referencing and templates that can make our lives easier when it comes to managing links between pages.

Categories

Categories involve placing special wiki text at the end of the article, like this:

[[Category:Absurd Monologue]]
[[Category:Narrative Monologue]]

When you do this, two things happen:

1. a nicely formatted block of category links is placed at the bottom of your article, and
2. those category pages are automatically populated with alphabetized links to your article.

To create a link to a category page without making your article itself part of that category (like we do from the Main Page), use a leading colon, like this:

[[:Category:Absurd Monologue]]

Suggested uses for wiki categories are the "types" of shows originally articulated in The Joe Frank Reminder and listed on the Main Page of this wiki. Using this capability to manage series of shows ("Somewhere Out There" and "The Other Side" for example) is not recommended; see "Templates" below.

Templates

Templates are like macros. Text that we want to appear in many places without lots of retyping can be entered a single time and included with a special code in lots of pages.

To include, for example, a collection of links to each page for the shows belonging to the series "Somewhere Out There", use this syntax:

{{Somewhere Out There}}

Like anything else in a wiki, each template has its own page for editing purposes. To see (or edit) the material presented when {{Somewhere Out There}} is included in a page, visit Template: Somewhere Out There.

So: we use categories for show types, and we use templates to manage links to members of each series. As for cast members (Debi, for example), the current practice is to use categories, and that seems to make sense for now.

Just in Case: Titles and Capitalization

Links in WikiMedia are case sensitive. A link to In The Dark might take you to a different article than a link to In the Dark. So which one is correct? We have adopted the following titling guidelines:

• Since series titles are sort of special, we capitalize all of their words. Hence: "Work In Progress". Exception: "WBAI and NPR Playhouse", since that's really two series joined into one category.
• Names of individual shows: per the common-sense title capitalizing rules implemented by the perl module Text::Capitalize, every word in a program title should be capitalized, except: 1) the articles a, an and the; 2) two and three-letter conjunctions: and, or, nor, for, but, so and yet; 3) short prepositions: to, of, by, at, for, but and in.
• If a program is a remix of another program ("At the Border (remix)"), leave "remix" in lower case.
• This is more of a titling rule than a case rule, but if an article like a, an or the is the first word in a program name, leave it capitalized and move it to the end, like "Call in the Night, A" so it will alphabetize properly.
• But if you're linking to a show with a title like that, use WikiMedia's syntax to make it prety, like this: [[Call in the Night, A|A Call in the Night]].
• Programs split over multiple parts should be named according to these examples:
  • Karma (part 2)
  • Dictator, The (part 3)

If you find an article or a link that has been misnamed, feel free to fix it!

• In the case of incorrect links, go ahead and change them, first making sure they point to a page that exists.
• If a page exists with incorrect case, you can move it such that its capitalization is correct. Please do not just delete it, copying its text to a new location. Using the "move" feature will cause al remaining incorrect links (or mistyped searches) to be properly redirected.