ZineWiki:Manual of Style

This Manual of Style has the simple purpose of making the encyclopedia easy to read by following a consistent format. The following rules do not claim to be the last word on ZineWiki style, but if everyone does it the same way, ZineWiki will be easier to read and use, not to mention easier to write and edit. The editors of new and existing articles should strive to have their articles follow these guidelines.

Clear, informative, and unbiased writing is always more important than presentation and formatting. (It's easier for other editors to simply reformat an entry than to rewrite unclear or biased text.) ZineWiki does not require writers to follow all or any of these rules, but their efforts will be more appreciated when they do so.

General Editing Guidelines (Read this before you get started!)

ZineWiki is designed to be an online encyclopedia of zines, zinesters, zine resources, small publishing history and zine culture. Entries should be encyclopedia-like in nature. Avoid profanity, inside jokes, too much praise, plugging or hyping, and blatant commercialism. The idea is to list information and document zine history, not sell issues or promote yourself and your projects (i.e. list the contents of a zine's issues, but don't list the ordering price and information). Think about how your entry will hold up over time. Avoid saying "New issue coming October 2006" and other future dates unless you are willing to continually update the entry so it remains up-to-date.

Article titles and the article's first sentence

The title of the article should appear as early as possible; preferably in the first sentence. The first time the article mentions the title, put it in bold using three apostrophes — '''article title''' produces article title. As a general rule, do not put links in the bold reiteration of the title or any section title. Also, try not to put other phrases in bold in the first sentence. Finally, keep the first sentence straight and to the point as to what the page is about. Two examples:

"This Manual of Style is a style guide for ZineWiki."

"Hip Cool is published in Deadwood, CA by Joe Blow."

Headings

Use the == (two equal signs) style markup for headings, not the ''' (triple apostrophes) used to make words appear bold. Start with ==, add the heading title, then end with ==. This will produce a bold larger text heading with a line under it like at the beginning of this section.

This page is a work in progress, feel free to add to it and edit it...