User:Inductiveload/Thoughts on style

This page lists some assorted thoughts about WS policies and style. These are my own personal thoughts, and no-one is bound by them. If you think I have the wrong end of a stick, please tell me!

Transcluding page titles

If a pagespace page has a title on it (like this one), it should always be transcluded into the mainspace, even if it is a duplicate of the information in the {{header}} of the mainspace page. This is because the "real" title (in the pagespace) constitutes part of the text, and the {{header}} in the mainspace is metadata. If you lose the metadata, you should never compromise the integrity of the actual text.

Trimming templates

There should preferably be only one way to acheive a certain result. If there are two templates to do the same thing, one of them should be removed. This is because templates are designed to allow a single edit to affect all usages. If you fragment the templates, things that should look the same will diverge, in appearance and usage. Also, having a tidy and orthogonal set of templates makes it much easier for new users to learn them and easier for us to document their usage.

If you find two templates that appear to do the same thing, find out any differences and detail them on the template page. Otherwise, consider migrating usages of one of them (probably the less documented used one) to the other.

Templates must be documented, as simple as possible and intuitive

If you don't know what a template does or what the parameters are: find out and write the documentation. If a template's parameters are needlessly complex, simplify them. If there are many positional parameters, make them named parameters.

Metadata is lacking

We need to find a better way to store and present metadata about our works. This includes interwiki links.

Babel is good

We should push for the Babel extension, as it is better than any template system.

Collective works—Mainspace vs. Portals vs. WikiProjects

In a collective work (for example, journals with many volumes) where we do not expect to have a full set of articles, the mainspace page (eg. British Medical Journal) should be a simple list of volumes or other subdivisions. These in turn have links to the issues and the article lists, many of which will be redlinks. This sparse hierarchy will make it easy to integrate works in the future, and it is much easier to set up from the start than apply retroactively. There should be a clear link to the portal, especially if the hierarchy is particularly sparse.

The portal page for the work (eg. Portal:British Medical Journal) contains a list, perhaps thematically organised, of the articles we do have. In the long run, the Portal can be full thematic index and/or a showcase of particularly interesting articles.

The WikiProject page, if it exists, is used for co-ordination of the upload and proofreading process. It contains nothing that an outsider reader should need to know.

Organisation of poems and other works prone to repetition in name or content

A poem by itself with no indication of which book it came from can live at the top-level page with the correct title: "Poem".

Poems backed by scans are generally found as compilations, compendiums and anthologies. In this case, the poem should be located at "Collection Title/Poem", "Collection Title (Author)/Volume 1/Poem" or similar, just as chapters are organised in books.

In the absence of any other poems by this name or other versions of the same poem, there should also be be top level page which redirects to this subpage: "Poem" redirects to "Collection Title/Poem".

When other versions of the poem surface in different collections, this redirect should be converted to a {{versions}} page. If another poem surfaces by the same name, but otherwise unrelated, it can become a {{disambiguation}} instead.

In the case that we have both disparate works by the same name and the same work in different versions, use both methods. The top-level "Poem" is a disambiguation page between authors, leading to the version pages, which in turn lead to the poems located under the work top-level page.

Single work, no data about which book it came from

  Poem

Single work backed by a scan, or with data about which physical book it came from

  Poem ------------------> Collection/Poem
(redirect)

Work with multiple versions of the same poem

  Poem -----------------> Shelley's Complete Works/Poem
(version)       |
                +-------> Selected Poems of Shelley/Volume 2/Poem

Work with multiple different works sharing the name, but only one version of each

  Poem -----------------> Poems by Shelley/Poem
(disambig)      |
                +-------> Blake's Poetry/Poem

Work needing disambigation between works and versions of the same work

  Poem -----------------> Poem (Shelley) --------------------> Shelley's Complete Works/Poem
(disambig)      |           (version)              |
                |                                  +---------> Selected Poems of Shelley/Volume 2/Poem
                |
                +-------> Poem (Blake) ----------------------> Poetry of Blake/Poem 
                           (redirect, convert to version if more turn up)

Remember to check "What Links Here" when converting from a page to a redirect, or from a redirect to version/disambiguation. If any of the links make more sense to point to a more specific page, change them.

Early disambiguation

If you know that a work shares its name with other works, or has several distinct versions and you feel that it likely that the other works are

1. likely to be added to Wikisource in the future
2. valuable to have listed even if you don't anticipate the work being present soon,

then you should create the disambiguation page now and build your work under the disambiguated title.