ZineWiki talk:Manual of Style

For your consideration - I often will list other projects a zinester has been involved with, such as music projects, film projects, etc. Although zines are obviously the most important subject, I think that mentioning the overall impact any zine editor has had on the culture through different mediums makes a statement about the significance of zines as a cultural product, and their importance as a medium of choice for so many artists, musicians and filmmakers.InvisibleFriend 01:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's a question: What should our policy be on the detailing of submission guidelines, etc, within an article on a zine. For an example, see MoTHER (has words…). InvisibleFriend 01:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Ordering Categories

Wondering about the order categories should be in an article. Example: Green Zine is categories Zine, Zine Yearbook, New York Zines, 2000's publications, Perzine and Zines from the U.S.A. Perhaps categories should be sorted Zine, then subject (example: Perzine), then geographic origin (example: New York), then timeline (example: 2000's publications) and finally others (example: Zine Yearbook). --EarthFurst 21:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Category names: singular or plural

Not sure if this is the right place, but what can be done about getting Categories into a uniform methodology. For instance, some categories are plurals (Science Fiction Zines) and some are singulars (Artist, Zine, etc). It would seem that it would be much easier if one method or the other were chosen to be the Universal for the matter as a way of making it easier to edit. --Johnny Eponymous 18:12, 7 February 2007 (EST)

I think there a various categories that should be changed from singular to plural. Example: Main Page includes "List of Distros" link that goes to Category:Distro which is a list of Distros (plural). I think category should be renamed to Category:Distros. There are various zinewiki categories that are plural (32 of the first 50 categories are plural). --EarthFurst 22:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Category names: capitalization

Earth Furst, why are you changing all the categories? You're changing all the capital Z zines as in New York Zines to lower case, without discussing it with anyone first. Can you please put them all back? I'll tell you why - because that's what everyone is accustomed to, and the people who do all the work here will soon be wondering why none of the categories are working when they type in a category in the way they are accustomed to do so. If you don't wish to change it all back, fine, just leave it and I will do it all, but please don't do anymore. There was never a discussion about this that I can recall, and most certainly not a consensus with the editors and admins. Thank youInvisibleFriend 06:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Earlier this month you replied "If you would like to change the names of all the Provinces and States to use a lower case 'z', then you are welcome to do so" and nobody posted an objection. I apologize for changing non-geographic categories (example: Comic_Zines to Comic_zines) without explicitly asking, I made an assumption (since no one objected to the province/states Z-to-z change and no one objected to my suggestion of creating categories "USA zinesters" and "Zinesters by geography" .. but then it seems that there are no replies on that "zinesters"/"by geography" suggestion.) --EarthFurst 17:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, I did write that, it's my mistake. As you say, no one objected, but I am concerned that I should have more actively pursued a response from other editors. Dan and Jerianne, how do you feel about this? I think what we need to do is make a decision and then include this information in the ZineWiki:Manual of Style so that everyone knows exactly what to do.

What concerns me is that long time editors will be coming and creating entries using the familiar capitalization, and wondering why various categories aren't working. Many of these people don't necessarily check the talk pages to see what's happening. If we can make this decision and include it in the manual of Style that would help a lot. And let's put a link to the manual of Style on the front page, ok?

In regards to the Wikipedia "category naming guidelines", I would personally rather not use their guidelines. At Wikipedia this necessitates altering titles of well known books and movies simply to fit into their guideline: I would rather we faithfully record the titles of zines in terms of capitalisation (or not). I feel this way in regards to other names as well, so that Riot Grrrl doesn't become Riot grrrl, as I've seen it mistakenly written. I would prefer to respect the intentions of the writers, artists, and others who are the originators of these titles and names, rather than insisting they be subject to a guideline ruling. This is another matter we should probably discuss, so that everyone's opinion can be heard.

Again, this is my mistake, so please bear with me until we hear from the other editors. InvisibleFriend 21:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, it doesn't matter to me if they are capitalized or not as long as it's consistent throughout the Wiki and we can add it too the Manual of Style. And I agree, would should have a link to the style manual on the front page. I'm bugging Jerianne again about front page changes, she's got a lot on her plate and I haven't heard back from her after my last email. dan10things 19:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I agree that we should figure out a scheme for category naming and make it consistent. I also prefer to see zine titles capitalized or not according to how it's presented in the zine -- some capitalize regular headline style, some use no capitalization at all. Personally, I like the aesthetics of having general category names follow headline-style capitalization. (Do most wikis follow Wikipedia's category naming guidelines?) Just because we've always done it that way doesn't mean we have to keep doing it that way -- but let's make a logical decision one way or the other. Also regarding guidelines, I like the idea that topic categories are singular, but list categories are plural. Alas, there is a lot of work to be done on these kinds of issues for the manual of style. Perhaps the discussion would be best moved over there? Create a page to set out the rules of category naming (or whatever) and use the talk page for it? Jerianne 00:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea, to discuss this on the Manual of Style talk page. I was wondering, can be get the link for the Manual of Style put onto the main page? I think people need to be able to find it easily. InvisibleFriend 02:21,

Having done a lot of work on the categories, my personal preference, and what I've done when creating most of the categories is to capitalize words like 'zine', i.e. "California Zines". I feel at this point that I've got all the categories in order and have categorized all the zines according to country and state of province where the information is available. I do not see the point in going back and redoing all this work just to fit into the guidelines of Wikipedia. What I've done is servicible, not confusing, and aesthetically pleasing. To me, at least ; ) and hopefully to others as well (I've always thought aesthetics were a low priority at Wikipedia). I think there are more valuable things one could do to help out at Zine Wiki. I agree, there is a problem with some categories being plural and some being singular and I think that could be addressed, since it does cause confusion.

So, then , I imagine all descriptions, such as "Perzines", "Lit zines", "compzines" should all be plural, because when one clicks on that category, one gets a list of this genre of zine. Likewise, all zines under the categories of Countries and States/Provinces. Is this what others have in mind? Specifically, what should be singular? InvisibleFriend 02:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that -- "Perzines" etc. being plural, as well as "Distros," "Portland Zinesters," etc. A topic category, which would be singular, would be things zines are about, like "Parenting," "Pop Culture," or "Punk." Jerianne 13:19, 14 October 2009 (UTC)