Wikimedia:Manual of style
 | This policy is maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation and applies to this wiki (Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki). Please note that in the event of any differences in meaning or interpretation between the original English version of this content and a translation, the original English version takes precedence. |
| Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki |
|---|
 |
|
Information |
|
Content |
|
Policies |
|
Wiki maintenance |
- See also: Wikimedia:Editing policy
This Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki manual of style outlines basic guidelines which should be considered when formatting content and creating pages on this site.
At all times, the needs of the specific type of content (resolution, minutes, legal document, etc.) takes precedent over any guidelines provided on this page. These guides are more to help avoid unnecessary inconsistency and guidance where the type of content does not provide an existing framework.
General guidelines
- Try to utilize English which will not be difficult to translate into other languages
- When in doubt, refer to manual of styles on Wikimedia project wikis or the "Communicating about the Wikimedia Foundation" guide on Meta-Wiki
Contractions and acronyms
To make content easier to translate and understand across languages, please avoid use of contractions and acronyms.
When using an acronym is necessary or difficult to avoid, please be sure to introduce the acronym's meaning in its usage.
Title, header, and page name formatting
Whenever possible, sentence case capitalization should be used for all titles, headers, and page names.
The primary exception is using a flexible use of proper noun capitalization for policies and other content with a large external audience.
Examples of pages where proper noun capitalization is most appropriate:
- Major Organization Policy
- Board of Trustees
- Official Board Committee
- Formal Board Resolution
Examples of pages where sentence case capitalization is most appropriate:
- Policy specific to only this wiki
- History of past departments
- Information from a regular board meeting
Namespace placement
- See also: Wikimedia:Namespaces
Whenever possible, content should be placed within these namespaces to facilitate greater searching of content.
- Main namespace
- General content or content without a clear namespace
- Talk namespaces
- Discussions and archives of discussions
- Wikimedia
- Content specific to this Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki
- Policy
- Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Movement policies
- Resolution
- Resolutions by Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustee
- Legal
- Wikimedia Foundation legal documentation
- Minutes
- Minutes of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustee meetings
- Archive
- Archived or historical content no longer in active use on this wiki and available for migration to another wiki (generally Meta-Wiki)
Page titles for Legal, Minutes, Policies, and Resolutions namespaces
Page titles should be left for translation and not altered with {{DISPLAYTITLE:}}. Instead, the page title - with inclusion of Wikimedia or Wikimedia Foundation in title as appropriate - should be placed immediately below the <languages /> tag using h1 headers (= {{int|Lqt-talkpage-history-tab}} =).
Example
<languages />
= <translate>Wikimedia Foundation Donuts Policy</translate> =
{{policy-board}}
<translate>
== Why we have a Donuts Policy ==
Pages properly formatted to review for additional help:
Resolutions namespace
Content placed within the Resolutions namespace should be resolutions which were considered by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. The {{resolution}} template should be used at the top of resolution pages for proper formatting.
Policies namespace
Content placed within the Policies namespace should be official Wikimedia Foundation policies. The {{Policy-board}} or {{Policy-staff}} templates should be used to help with displaying information for readers.