CZ:Proposals/Create workgroup style guides

This proposal has been assigned to the Editorial Council, and is now in the Editorial Council proposals queue.

Driver: David E. Volk

Complete explanation

Whereas, CZ wants to promote high quality, fully informative articles, and

Whereas, specific sections should be included in all articles for some workgroups, and

Whereas, consistent style, formatting and color schemes are desirable for any major website, and

Whereas, a reference guide will aid a new author writing an article up to approval standards, and

Whereas, this guide will to serve to remind editors of the specific requirements of the workgroup,

It is proposed that CZ creates style guides for each of the Workgroups in order to promote stylistically consistent articles and approval standards within a given workgroup.

• Action item 1. Get agreement from the Editorial Council.

• Action item 2. If accepted, put out a call for a lead author(s) from each workgroup start writing the guides.

• Action item 3. Once a good first version of a guide is assembled, email a notice to each workgroup member for further suggestions and refinement of the style guide.

Reasoning

As described above, the proposal would ensure consistent styles within a workgroup and point out what must be done before an article is approvable. It will also help to avoid much reformatting. The current discussion regarding music articles for albums (see Revolver talk page ) vs. discographies is an excellent example of a typical topic that could be covered in a group style guide.

The guide can also give useful hints on how to do things, like make math equations and arrows, fill out group specific templates (elem_infobox, chem_infobox, taxonomy_infobox, etc) correctly, the location of obscure pages only needed by that workgroup.

Implementation

• Action item 1. Get agreement from the Editorial Council.

• Action item 2. If accepted, the drive (User:David E. Volk) will put out a call for a lead author(s) for each workgroup to write the initial draft style guides for each workgroup.

• Action item 3. The leader author(s) will email a notice to authors and editors of their respective workgroups for further suggestions and refinement of the style guide.

Discussion

Possible lead authors might look at Chemistry style guide to aid with their first verion, or add comments.

__________________________________

I agree. Sounds like a good idea.

John Moffett

I would also agree as long as there is a proviso that if a work group decides that its particular group would be hampered by a set of guidelines, that work group has the option of not adapting any. Gary Giamboi

There's no reason why every workgroup needs to adopt a specific style, but there should be some discussion about it. I am more worried about articles which cross workgroups, and what to do with those.... Martin Baldwin-Edwards 19:20, 9 June 2008 (CDT)

Perhaps "style and content" guide is a better name for this initiative, as it pertains as much to suggested/required contents as much as style. Multi-group pages might incorporate the suggested contents for both if appropriate, or defer to the most appropriate workgroup's guidelines. David E. Volk 11:05, 10 June 2008 (CDT)