Wikispooks:Style Guide

The only golden rule of writing is to keep the reader in mind. On the web, this is easier said than done, since the reader could be anybody. Certain principles however should help keep your writing on track. Since this is a wiki, feel free to experiment and try a variety of ways to get your ideas across.

Collaborate

Remember that this is a wiki, so be prepared for other editors to develop your articles. Also return the favour by developing articles which others are working on if the mood takes you, dropping in a link to another article or giving some extra piece of information. All of us are smarter than any of us, and it's always encouraging to see your work improved by others. Don't get hung up on matters technical - if you need help with syntax, just ask and someone will pitch in to advise or improve your work. Original ideas and putting information together is more important than presentation.

Avoid Repetition

Repeating material from elsewhere on the web is a fast way to add content, but is off-putting to serious researchers who recognize it from their earlier research. Wikipedia is a good source, but has its problems, so be selective in how you import from Wikipedia. Linking to material often makes for a more readable article than repeating it, either from elsewhere on Wikispooks or from other websites. When creating internal links, it is generally good practice to link in only the first occurrence of a new word or phrase; it distracts the reader to have a forest of identical links.

Encyclopedic Style

If you are familiar with Wikipedia you probably already understand encyclopedic style. Well chosen headings and subheadings will help structure content so that readers can quickly locate material of interest. The ideal page (and page section) remains focused on its title; while pages inevitably touch on a variety of topics, try to present the material from the perspective of a readership primarily interested in the page title. If pages get overly long, it is good to move a larger section or two into its own page, usually replacing it with a few lines which summarize the material moved, and a pointer to the new page.

References

Citing sources is an essential way to help readers estimate the creditworthiness or otherwise of an article, so is highly recommended. If an article has references, it will need a subsection (generally the very last) entitled References.

Names

For consistency, and to redress credentialism, pages of individuals should generally be devoid of a title. Where people are commonly referred to by their title, a redirect page is fine. e.g. Colonel Gaddafi is a redirect to the main page, Muammar Gaddafi. This can be varied where the title neatly resolves an ambiguity or where it has become integral to the name, e.g. "Dr Rola".

Emphasis

Sometimes you may wish to emphasise a particular word or phrase. Italics are a good way to convey emphasis. Bold is usually best avoided in ordinary text. BLOCK CAPITALS, or <big> - AKIN TO SHOUTING - ARE NOT CONDUCIVE TO A PRODUCTIVE DEBATE. Many of the topics on Wikispooks are matters of life and death, about which very strong feelings are to be expected. Nevertheless, please seek out well chosen words to express yourself, rather than resorting to formatting, which has a rapidly diminishing rate of returns.

Wikispooks Specifics

While it has plenty of similarities with Wikipedia, WikiSpooks also has differences, for example, it is not tied to a single, official narrative.

Official Narrative

Many deep political topics have a single official narrative which is widely promulgated through commercially-controlled media such as newspapers, TV and hence Wikipedia. This typically includes a set of correct and widely agreed facts and is a departure point for many who are trying to dig deeper, it is often a good starting point for a page. So, while extensive narration of the official narrative is unwanted, it is often good style to have an "Official Narrative" subsection as the first section of a page which briefly summarises the story promoted by the establishment. This often has a subsection "Problems" which outline some of its shortcomings that are discussed in more detail in the article.

Original Documents

Full article: WikiSpooks:Document Editing Rules

Sometimes, you will find a document which would be good to include in its entirety on the site. Copying to Wikispooks is preferred to linking if there is a chance that the link could go dead or be changed (e.g. news stories from commercially-controlled media sources which are sanitized because they accidentally let something slip) or maybe because the original is not yet on WWW (e.g. it is a scan of hardcopy). In this case, post it to a page in the "document:" namespace so it is preserved in its original form.

Name	Description
(Main)	This is for ordinary pages, it is not shown
Talk	Every main page has an accompanying 'talk' page, for discussions about the page content.
Document	For text documents. They should not be edited.
File	For posting other files, such as images or PDFs.
Wikispooks	For pages about this project (such as this one)
Help	For help about the software used.
User	Every user has their own page which they can use, for example, to introduce themselves

Namespaces

Full article: Help:Namespaces

The Mediawiki software which runs Wikispooks organises the material into separate sections, called 'namespaces'. This page, WikiSpooks:Style guide for example, is in the "WikiSpooks:" namespace, used for pages which are about this project. There are a couple of dozen namespaces, but most are not so important. The most important ones are:

Templates

Full article: [[image:The symbol "Category:Templates" was used in a place where it is not useful.star.png|link=:Category:Templates|Rated The symbol "Category:Templates" was used in a place where it is not useful./5|80px]] [[

Category:Templates|“:Category:Templates”]]

The template: namespace is for short programs which make some of the page for you. To invoke them, begin "{{" and end "}}". For example, the pointed to the list of templates at the top of this subsection is created by Template:FA, and it is invoked by typing {{FA|:Category:Templates}}. To see all the available templates, see the templates category.

Where To Start?

Full article: WikiSpooks:To Do

WikiSpooks is a big project and there is quite a lot going on. Don't be put off by the wide choice. The 'To Do' section details a number of ways that it is easy to get started.