Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Style guide

Style guide 1.0 is, as far as we are aware, the first project which discusses the effects of the upcoming printed version of Wikipedia, Version 1.0, on Wikipedia style guidelines. This project was created after discussion at the Village Pump (Policy), reproduced on the talk page. We will list here any requests or concerns of the Wikimedia Foundation and the publisher of the printed encyclopedia which seem to vary from current style consensus on Wikipedia. This also may be a source of useful information for editors who are interested in getting approval for bots that involve style standardization, since bots may be a part of the discussion here. Other than that, the scope of this project is limited at this time to those discussions about style guidelines for which no consensus has been reached, and for which consensus might be reached when the issues surrounding the printed version of Wikipedia are taken into account.

Concerns of the Wikimedia Foundation and publisher

Many people, including Jimbo (see the old Thread on Wikipedia 1.0 Paper plus), have previously assumed that it's a good idea for the printed and online versions of Wikipedia to stay largely synchronized. Basically, the argument is that storing roughly the same information in two different places using two different sets of rules is a Very Bad Thing: people have to learn to keep separate sets of rules straight, people think they're referring to one when they meant the other, the data gets out of sync and therefore pulls down the credibility of both, and it's an order of magnitude more work to update the data both places and continually check the two lists against each other.

We are planning to get feedback from the publisher during an upcoming online chat (date, time and channel to be announced).

Style-standardization bots

None under discussion at this time.

How to add an issue to this project page

It is generally best to discuss a problem in one place at a time, so if there has been a recent related discussion on a style guidelines talk page, try to keep the discussion there. Some of these conversations have stalled without consensus, and may require discussion in a context of Version 1.0 in order to gain consensus, and that is one of the purposes of this project. To move a discussion here, begin by asking permission on the style guidelines page of the previous discussion. That may be enough by itself to restart the discussion there; but if not, try to restart the discussion on this project's talk page, and keep a summary of the state of the former and current arguments on this project page, in the Current issues section.

We will poll widely to get people to participate in style guideline discussions here and elsewhere, so there's no need to speak for the "unrepresented", here or on any other style guidelines project or talk page; anyone who wants to show up will show up, so everyone should speak for themselves. Of course, random and representative samples of articles to demonstrate a point are very welcome.

Issues that may be suitable for this project

This project only concerns matters of formatting or look-and-feel, not language, which are normally standardized in printed encyclopedias. In general, we're looking for "boring" issues here: where the period goes, where the line breaks. If standards really do differ from one subject area to another or one country to another, or if people really do feel strongly about it, then there is no reason for all Wikipedia articles to be conformed to whatever standards are followed in the printed encyclopedia.

If some formatting practice is widely but not universally followed on Wikipedia, it may be that no harm would be done, and good things would be accomplished, by getting approval for a standardization bot. This is not a Version 1.0 issue per se, but Version 1.0 makes the need for standardization clearer. To people who object "you can't use a bot to conform articles to guidelines", you're right, and that's why we're handling this like any policy discussion. Creation of this project was discussed at WP:VPP, and when we've come up with a list of topics and invited everyone to give their input, we'll go back to WP:VPP to ask for permission on any policy matters, then over to WP:Bots to request approval for bots.

Current issues

None at this time.