SFTropes talk:Style and Content Guide
This is the talk page for the Style and Content Guide. Please remember that all suggestions for changing the guidelines should keep the Project Goals in mind!
Formatting Work Pages
All right, I'm here to talk about and support my new formatting.
- Interpretations - If we derive a meaning from something, we need somewhere to put it. These can be just about any sort of meaning. However, these interpretations are claims, and need to be supported as such. The tropes for our wiki are universal archetypes, and linking them to an interpretation provides adamant support. Tropes and Interpretations work better together. This is a place for reasoned arguments with referenced support.
- Subjects of Interest - Sometimes you find something interesting while reading. In class, we like to bring up these bits of information. Now we have a place to put them in the articles. We can link them to article pages of their own for further analysis. A good example is Pravic v Iotic. Someone thought it was interesting, and described it, and created an article page for it with a link. Now they can discuss that specific subject in depth. Subjects of Interest give us things to support and build interpretations. Also, not everyone is going to have a thought-out and supported argument for everything they come across. Maybe something slips their mind, or the work is not a subject they are entirely interested in. This heading provides an outlet for leisurely and potentially beneficial contribution. It also lets everyone know what they're thinking when they read a story.
- Subjects of Interest / Quotes - This is just a space for interesting quotes that have not yet been linked to an interpretation. Connecting the quotes here with tropes helps finding quotes for interpretations easier, too.
- GONE: Trope and Trope Intersections - I got rid of this section, since most of the quotes end up sitting around gathering dust. A few people wrote interpretations and reasons for their meaning. As such, I searched for quotes with analysis to move up to Interpretations. The remaining quotes (without an accompanied interpretation) were moved to Subjects of Interest.
- Above unsigned comment by User:GingerGiant
Ok everybody, we need to work together to agree on and write up a way to organize our work pages. I think both of the formats we have been trying to use aren't working. The original format I prepared at the beginning of the project failed because the content people wanted to write for our pages did not match the format I had imagined, so we ended up with a mass of new headings and information sort of wedged in all over the place. Andrew's suggested revision, which he defends above, fixed some of the problems with my initial format, providing a place for everything, however it has its own problems. The headings that Andrew's format provides are a bit too general, and don't give writers enough guidance on what should be added where. It also doesn't do much to provide the article with linear organization. That is to say, it doesn't help to ensure that readers get information they need when they need it. A reader should, in theory, be able to read the page from top to bottom and use the information provided in the earlier parts of the entry to understand the later parts of the essay. It also doesn't take non-linear organization into account. Since this is a wiki, we can spin some pieces of the work page off into their own pages and provide the reader with links to find the information they need when they need it. We need to think about when we should create a separate page to discuss an idea and when ideas should remain on the primary work page. I could just impose a new format on the work pages, but I'd like to suggest several guidelines for creating a format that would usefully re-organize the work pages and invite all of you to suggest and discuss a new format. Once general agreement on a new format has been reached, we can re-organize our work pages to meet the new format. The guidelines:
- Linear Organization:the page should try to organize information in the order the reader will need it, with information the reader will need first near the top, and argument and information building off of this earlier information further down the page.
- Non-Linear Organization:we should develop guidelines for separating long or complex ideas onto pages of their own, and for providing the reader with links to these separate pages.
- Specific & Informative Subheadings: page headings and subheadings should give readers an idea of what to expect in a given section, and editors guidance on what to write where.
- Organizes & Standardizes Existing Pages:take a look at what has been written on our longer work pages, such as the pages for The Dispossessed, Frankenstein, and The Roads Must Roll. The new format should provide a places for all of the sorts of information these pages currently contain, and give them a standard format.
Propose and discuss possible formats below.Afamiglietti 20:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
People should strive to use in line links as much as possible. This is really one of the strongest characteristics of wikis and is often ignored in many articles. Nkruse3 02:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with above. Authors need to remember to also create links for anything in their articles that may be of importance even if there aren't existing pages to link to them. Otherwise articles will not be interconnected. For example, if I were to link this to the Cold War someone should see that a page isn't (or is) in existence for it and eventually create that information. dmewes3 23:33, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Will I agree that in text links are useful and should be used, there should be some limits on them. For example, if the title of a work comes up twice in a section, if should only be linked once. The definition of a section of course would be relative to the length and complexity of the page. This would reduce the insane about of blue seen on some wikipedia pages that can be so annoying. Syawn3 16:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I definitely agree with the non-linear information setup. Generally the pages on this wiki are short enough to not have to require a linear set of information, the more information condensed into each section and the less sections, the better. The trope and trope intersection section shouldn't definitely be gone. In my trope proposal I already went through all the connected tropes and intersections well before its required section. As for Syawn3's comment, it usually is wiki protocol to only link an article the first time it's relevant information comes up. The reason the pages are so blue is because there are pretty much articles for everything. We probably won't have to worry about that here. Rlama3 13:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Thoughts On New Format
I agree with the idea of having a quote section to give emphasis on a reading. This section can also discuss how the quote relates to our tropes. Also, specific subheadings can keep long drafts from being a problem, we just need to make sure that they all relate back the topic of the page. Dpike3 20:54, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I also agree that there should be a new way of organizing. Instead of just writing under the vague subheadings, people should group together similar information and create other subheadings. I only agree with the quote section if the quotes have text explaining and supporting them. Also creating new links to pages to go into greater depth is a good idea and makes the wiki more organized. I am all for nonlinear organization and specific subheadingsVacevedo3 05:17, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I am looking at the Dispossessed page and thinking about how we should organize it. It is pretty unorganized with vague headings. Any suggestions on how to do this? We could probably apply our format to the other longer pages as well.Vacevedo3 23:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
A possibly beneficial project that should be considered includes the complete revamp of the main page. As a home page, I don't feel its currently positioned in a way that optimizes the use of the wiki. --Cihenacho 14:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
