User:Selbsportrait

A memento of tips and tricks I find useful.

Principles

Cooperation

We form a rewriting system that composes a public encyclopedia of everything worth noting. We need one another to pull it off. Minimally, our cooperation involves making contributions that help the encyclopedia.

Conciseness

We cannot consign every human thought to the wiki, so we must summarize. Cutting words and sentences hopefully increases informativeness. Cutting irrelevant information too. Both are a boon when the number of notable topics keeps growing.

The shorter our contributions the better, a preference both subjective and fallible. Shortening creates space for others to add information. Every new information can improve the sum of what we have so far.

Clarity

Text comes and goes as a result of a mutual effort to make information shines through. Preserving good information matters above all, if not where it landed first in the immense web of pages, then elsewhere. Good work can always find its use.

Concurrence

Edits occur in parallel and with a shared commitment to veracity. Two types of concurrence (co-occurence, agreement) that make us compete toward a common goal, ideally without conflict. Trying to see eye to eye with everybody else won't reduce friction, far from it. Let us look in the same direction, rules be damned.

Constructiveness

Work to make gnomes and elves appear. In the end only selfless joy makes the wiki worthwhile. Call for their help: they're diligent, and kind. When fairies enter the scene, it's time to move elsewhere. Unless you're a fairy yourself, your work is done.

Stay away from windmills and let knights be. Many mean well, most are clumsy. Expressions like "WP:" simplify assertion; they do not replace reasoning. Many essays are wrong, most guidelines are misinterpreted. Better to say what you want, and why.

Our North Pole will always be the encyclopedia. Ask yourself if what you do tightens its construction. If not, let go.

Policies

Talks

Talk pages may improve the page they're meant to improve, but only as a last resort. They can still be used for clerical matters, issuing notes or releasing citations. Syntax is beyond hope, fogs for pettifogging.

I may make my voice heard from time to time. I would prefer not to and so comment my edits instead. Editing will always remain the best way to resolve issues.

My own talk page is reserved to talking. An exchange natural enough to feel a conversation going on more than a diplomatic mission. I archive them regularly or immediately when it's to be patronized.

Thanks

I like to thank editors for their work. It should be more common. There are so many good reasons to thank: learning something new, recognizing complementary work that saved time, signaling that you noticed. I am sure there are many more reasons.

There are situations when it's best not to thank. They usually involve independence.

Times

The main tense of the wiki is the eternal time. Things take time. Laisse les bons temps rouler.

Timestamps are from Greenwich.

An entry reaches maturity when New York Times citations dwindle away from their page.

Just about everything about WP:Proseline is wrong. Encyclopedias are bound to provide synoptic views. Announcements ought to be timestamped.

Topics

To keep the main thing the main thing is key. The best way to do so is to divide it properly. A single and simple criterion needs to separate sections. Each section ought to express that criterion.

Tools

Syntax highlighter

Click on the pen at the top of the edit page. You'll thank me later.

Zotero

Zotero makes citing fun. Citations often need to be tidied up: authorship, title, etc. Still saves an enormous amount of time.

ProveIt looks like a decent alternative.

Scripts

Click here to fix a random page lacking reference!

Other good tools

The Sigma Bot III archives talks from your talk page. I prefer to do it by hand.

The Visual Editor can be useful to someone who prefers to edit with transparent syntax.

HotCat could be useful to someone who likes categories.

Who Wrote What? is pretty cool to see how a page evolves. Authorship changes when text gets moved around.

xtools I would certainly use if I still cared who wrote what.

CitationBot may save time.

Wikipedia:Templates are the best. Use them so I won't have to.

Syntax and style

Style is all about syntax. Syntax is a question of style. In alphabetical order:

Abreviations

In doubt, do not use them. When talking, try not to use them.

Citations

For most sources, Zotero is enough.

For almost everything, citation style 1

For legal cases, use the Cite court template.

Money

The USD template simplifies things.

Naming convention for citations

For news, [three]-[key]-[words] is my favorite format.

For articles, [author]-on-[topic] works well.

For books, [author]-[year] remains the best.

So it all depends which information matters, and what helps recall.

Notes

Not a fan. Should be parentheses. To be used sparingly, very sparingly.

Punctuation

Use the logical punctuation.

Confer to the Manual of Style for more.

References

An encyclopedia rests on its citations. Deleting citations destroys more work than editing text. Not having the space to discuss details is fine if readers can find them elsewhere. Only citations make that information traceable.

More than two citations for one single sentence ought to be rare. In doubt, keep the most specific citation. Basic decency obliges to find the most accessible sources.

The standard for scientific citations (in references, at the end of a page) is subtle.

Sections

Sections ought to divide topics, not viewpoints.

Sentences

Sentences ought to be as long as they need to be. A complete sentence should be complete.

Put dependent clauses last and see if that works. To emphasize context, timelines, or effects, put them first.

Semicolons delimit the scope of a citation, clarify an enumeration that contains commas, and identify the logical connection between propositions.

Sources

Daniel is too polite: the concept of primary and secondary sources, as applied by our wiki lawyers, isn't consistent at all.

A source is primary when the author has direct knowledge, and the support rests on the directness of that claim. In other words, they are relative terms: it depends on what one does with it.

Alfred writes in his journal that he believes snow is white. If we cite his journal to support the claim that Alfred believes that snow is white, then we use it as a primary source. If we cited his journal to support the claim that Polish logicians tend to use "snow is white" as the epitome of a platitude, then it becomes a secondary source.

Primary sources are crucial to establish facts of the matter. And they only should be used as such: "a primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge". It's when we use them to build something more that the practice becomes problematic.

So in doubt, use both: "where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source".

Spacing

Editors like to remove two carriage returns. This is fine as long as writing is mostly done. For very short paragraphs I don't see any upside, whereas the downside should be obvious.

Removing the space between the "|" and the predicate in a citation makes it disappear visually, so the convention isn't universal.

Structure

A wiki page structure evolves. It expresses the current attention and the thinking styles of its editors. It divides both topics and labor.

A section with only one subsection is precarious. To divide is to divide at least by two.

Tables

Captions follow title conventions. They don't replace section headings. Use the scientists' way of wording them. For instance:

"Table 3. Amount of FA per unit of FO"

I may revise that convention.

Text formatting

I always need to revisit the Manual of Style for this. Might as well put it here.

Titles

Some like hierarchical structures and long titles. I prefer flat structures and short titles. When done well, both are fine.

Titles foster cooperation. The structure may evolve as points and references are being added. Go with the flow.

Ordering them alphabetically makes some sense to gather thoughts. Chronological order almost always works best.

Titles expressing more complete ideas can reduce the need to add details.

Word choice

A single preposition may replace verb phrases. Well-ordering reduces preposition quantity. Precise verbs soothes adverbial verbiage. Same for nouns and adjectives.

A few indicators when to cut: two consecutive verbs; two verb clauses, one acting as a modality; indefinite time markers, like "recently"; genitive construction; two modalities (reported, reportedly); that clauses (that there had been friction can be shortened to friction); conflicting speech acts. Two sentences starting with the same proper name.