Willipedia:Naming conventions

This is a draft of a policy being worked on by the Willipedia board. It has no effect until approved by board consensus.

Titles of articles in Willipedia are chosen to serve two crucial goals which are sometimes at odds.

Titles create expectations, and therefore a title ought to accurately reflect the content that follows it.
But, on Willipedia, titles are the names that articles are called by. Titles need to be succinctly named, or they will never be called by editors, will never be linked to, and will fall into obscurity.

For an example, consider the old article, "How To Procrastinate." This was the first title it had, and it did a good job of creating the expectation of a list of suggestions, which is indeed what the article was. But only editors who already knew such an article existed could link to it. Naive editors were unlikely to guess such a title. Eventually, it was renamed to Procrastinating, a name with the advantage of still being decently descriptive, and far more likely to be linked to in the course of normal writing.

The short set of naming conventions below arises from this need for a minimal set of conventions for editors to learn so we know how to best name our new articles, and how to link to where an article is or will be as we write body text.

General Guide to Naming

Try first to choose the most general title that names the realm of your subject. However, if this general name is one that you do not expect that a Willipedian can write meaningfully about, choose a more specific title.

Illustrative examples: Problem: You want to write about how awesome the beech in the Forest Garden is for tree-climbing.

A good start: Even though you just want to write about that one tree, start/edit the article "Tree climbing," and place what you write in a section of it. If you want to do a really good job, go the extra mile to start a preface on the general title to help other editors get an idea of where they can work from.

In the future: Even without a preface, it's a very good bet that others will expand on this subject, with more trees and perhaps a guide to history and technique of the pasttime.

Problem: You want to give advice on procrastinating on a thesis. You're thinking "How to procrastinate on a thesis" might be a good title.

A good start: Think about your topic in the general sense. You are talking about two things: the practice of procrastinating and the topic "thesis." Start/edit an article with either name, and include what you want to write in a well-named section, even if it is a lonely section at first.

In the future: Others are likely to have something to say about "Procrastinating" or "Thesis". The articles are likely to cross-link. Over time, what you started will evolve into a rich article.

Problem: You want to write about great spots to hang hammocks on campus.

A good start: "Hammocking" is probably the most general name you could pick, but are Willipedians likely to write about anything more than

"Hammocking" is the most general title, but is there something meaningful to write on "hammocking" besids where to do it? This is arguable. Start/edit "hammocking" with a section on places, or start/edit "hammock spots". Someone can always create "hammocking" and link to/move your content later.

Conventions

Effort is wasted when someone starts an article "Prank" when it really could have been added to (or already was in) "Pranks". Using naming conventions lets us use content to its fullest extent, and build on what's there already. Much of the below is adapted from Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Singular vs. Plural nouns

Most of the time, a singular noun is preferred. When the main focus of an article will be to explain, define, or give the history of the subject, use a singular noun (eg. broomball, Mountain Day, crusty).

For some topics, however, defining seems totally unnecessary -- "Class" or "Prank" are good examples. It's outside the scope of Willipedia to explain what a class or prank is, but we are quite likely to want to talk about instances of Classes and Pranks. In such cases, where the content will be listing and explaining instances, use the plural.

Wikipedia origin

Use -ing verbs

wiki link

for activities, common practices, and the like, try to use the most basic but most unique gerund verb applicable. Instead of "Great places to ski" use "Skiing" and, after talking generally a little about skiing at williams, have a section on "places" if you wish.

When what would otherwise be a section gets large and detailed/complex enough to be its own article (Skiing cheaply) use the shortest descriptive title you can (Skiing cheaply vs. Ways you can ski cheaply) and be sure to link to this article in a (perhaps empty) section of the main article.

Sentence-style capitalization

wiki link

even though the title of something, like an encyclopedia article, typically has all words campitalized, Willipedia is different. capitalize your title as though you were writing a sentence

the first word in the title is capitalized (the program will force this)

all other words are lowercase, unless they are proper nouns

Naming students and alums

use full name of a place to be unambiguous

ex: Dodd Dining Hall, Hopkins Hall, Mark Hopkins House (notice all these words in these are capitalized, as they are all proper names)

if you're feeling very helpful, create a disambig page at the name that forks to many related pages. ie, "Dodd"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Be_precise_when_necessary