Wikispooks:Standardisation

While trying to give users as much freedom as possible, it is nevertheless helpful to follow some standards while composing Wikispooks. The general approach is designed to make pages easy to find and interlink. Although, as a project page, this is only editable by administrators, all users are encouraged to contribute their ideas and comments to the talk page.

Templates for Pages

Full article: WikiSpooks:Semantic_Objects

All pages in the main: namespace should have exactly one object template. This determines broadly what the page is about and is needed by SMW. See here for a list of available objects. This policy was fixed in June 2014 and many legacy pages still do not have an object template yet.

Page Names

Naming of pages is obviously important so that links work as expected, but the importance goes deeper still with the use of Semantic Mediawiki since these names become semantic 'anchors' used to connect data items.

Using Wikipedia

Wikipedia is often a useful reference point as regards names, and all other factors being equal, provides a simple choice which will generally be understood. It should be noted that all other factors are not necessarily equal since pagenames are regularly massaged by interested parties, so while an equivalent Wikipedia page name is a good default, careful consideration is still warranted.

Subpages

The character "/" has a special meaning in the context of pagenames, since Wikispooks uses mediawiki subpages to indicate a hierarchical (dependent) relationship. A page title of the form A/B can be read as "the B of A". For example, John F. Kennedy/Assassination is the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A redirect at JFK Assassination points to the longer form, which is semantically useful to the software. Similarly, the Warren Commission, which covered up the crime, redirects to a sub-sub-page: John F. Kennedy/Assassination/Cover-up.

Such standardised pagenames fulfill the role of binomial names in biology; existing in parallel with alternative common names, they provide an easily interpreted structure intended to help both software and humans in navigation around the pages, and could be used in conjunction with particular Semantic properties. Common subpage names may include:

• assassination
• cover-up
• death
• perpetrators
• misc ...

People's 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".

Names of books, films etc.

As of May 2014, Wikispooks has no clear policy on this. Putting them in italics might be a good simple standard, though more research needs to be carried out in this area before a policy is decided upon.

Singular/Plural

For consistency and clarity, page titles which are nouns should generally be given in the singular. So, the article about False Flag Attacks is actually entitled "False Flag Attack" - note that Mediawiki's link syntax means that this plurals can be easily linked like this: [[False Flag Attack]]s

Letter Case

Mediawiki automatically capitalizes the first letter of each pagename, but for multiple word titles, there is ambiguity about whether the other words should be capitalized or not. e.g. False Flag Attack or False flag attack? The standard is to use lower case where possible. Subpages should have an initial capital. This policy was only adopted in February 2014, so some older page names do not yet follow it.

Events with Dates

Many pagenames have dates for greater clarity or to avoid ambiguity (e.g. Iraq war 2003) Where a year is part of the title, it is recommended to put this first for consistency's sake, and also to help with sorting.

Other Names

Although none are as widely used or as important as page names, there are a host of other items for which standards would simplify and improve WikiSpooks.

Categories

Use of SMW is generally preferred over categories, since it offers a more modern and flexible system of organising content. However, on occasions, a simple category is all that is needed. In this case - although some legacy categories are in the singular - new categories should be plural nouns.

Properties

Full article: WikiSpooks:Semantic Properties

SMW uses relationships referred to as "Properties", most of which (but not all) have the form "Has something".

Templates

As with properties, these are mostly used 'behind the scenes', so templates don't impinge on the user experience, but standardisation is important to facilitate collaboration between those who create them.

Parameters

A standard for custom Wikispooks templates was fixed in June 2014, although it is not yet followed by all Wikispooks templates and is still subject to review. Parameter names should be :

• all in lower case letters (although exceptions are possible, for clarity, e.g. "ON_" to differentiate official narratives)
• connected by underscores (_) and not spaces where multiple words exist

This standard does not apply to templates are imported other websites.

Redirects

If in doubt, more redirects is better than less. However, do check the correct spelling before you make a redirect. Creating lots of redirects for incorrect spellings is not generally useful. While it is good that users can follow the link, this obscures the fact that a red link is an easy way to spot the spelling mistake. It is important to avoid 'circular' redirects - which link back to the page.

Project links

The Mediawiki software automatically aliases the Project: namespace to the Wikispooks: namespace. This should be used in preference as it is more portable - or use the custom Template:WSLink.

Wikispooks Policy

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