Diaspora Wiki:Wiki style guidelines

Speculative:

This article is a work-in-progress. This article is currently a speculative draft based on user feedback and developer needs. As such, it should not be interpreted as a canonical source of future information until the details are more further refined. improve the article by updating it. There may be additional information on the talk page.

Article titles/headings

Make titles as concise as possible. Make sure they clearly explain what the page is about. Use a capital letter only for the first word, and for any words which need a capital: for example, "Notes on installing and running Diaspora*".

Diaspora*

Please use the asterisk which is part of Diaspora*'s name. [are we still using this?]

Language

• Use American English, as the most "universal" form of English, but don't use idiomatic English.
• Try to make it as universal as possible, so don't use any local idioms (e.g. "awesome!") where they can be avoided.
• Keep your language as simple as you can – many people reading the wiki will not have English as their first language, so write with them in mind as well as native English speakers.
• Also keep in mind that many people reading the wiki don't have technical knowledge and are trying to understand how Diaspora* works, so keep technical language/terms/references to a minimum, and explain them where necessary. (The exception to this is of course the technical pages and sections for developers, where technical knowledge can be assumed.)

Structure

Make sure that your article has a simple and easy to follow structure. If it is a complex subject or a long article, break it up into subsections. Use self-explanatory headings for sub-sections, as these will be listed in a table of contents at the top of the article. If in doubt, ask for some help with editing your article.

Spelling/punctuation

Use American spelling and punctuation, such as:

• -ize not -ise

example: "organization" and "decentralized;" not "organisation" or "decentralised."

• double quote marks, with single quote marks for any quotations within a quotation.

example: He reminded me: "People marked 'Only sharing with me' only see your public posts."

• closing punctuation within quote marks.

example: "It's not that easy," she said.

• periods/full stops in abbreviations

example: U.S.A., not USA

Apostrophes

Don't use apostrophes when pluralizing abbreviations

examples: CDs and DVDs; not CD's or DVD's.

Capitalization

As with headings, only use capital letters where they need to be used, mainly for proper names such as Diaspora*, Ruby on Rails and so on.

Categories

Always make sure the article has at least one category.

Syntax

Follow the suggestions on Help:Cheatsheet

Templates

Use templates where appropriate:

• Template:Note
• Template:Serious
• Template:Speculative
• Template:Work in progress
• Template:Out of date