User:Tom/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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Titles for articles must meet certain conventions in Powerpedia.  For example, acronyms are discouraged and in most cases not allowed.  Parenthetical statements are also discouraged.  Common names are preferred over specific names, except to avoid acronyms.  This guideline page details all of the accepted naming conventions on [[Powerpedia]].

When creating a title for your article, make sure that it is specific enough that it won't cause confusion for other Powerpedia users.  For example, an article titled "Leadership" should discuss leadership qualities and related information, as opposed to the leadership of a specific country.

Even when the best practices are used to create good, long-lasting article titles, a changing world can often require a page to be renamed. Within Powerpedia, a good example is the [[Nevada Test Site]].  In August, 2010 the site was renamed to the [[Nevada National Security Site]] and Powerpedia had to adapt to that change.  The [[Help:Renaming]] page describes the best practices to follow when this type of issue occurs.

The inclusion of '''[[Three Core Principles|organizational names within topical article titles]]''' is discouraged.  Powerpedia is organization-neutral and topic-focused.  

Powerpedia can manage the information explosion more effectively if we work topically not organizationally in wiki space. So organizationally nesting an intelligence topic discourages outside contributors, perpetuates issue “ownership” attitudes, and is not inclusive.

Categorizing titles is discouraged.  Examples of categorizing in titles include using colons (i.e. ''Aircraft:F-16 Fighting Falcon'' or ''NIE:South Africa''), using subpages (i.e. ''Aircraft/F-16 Fighting Falcon''), or using parentheses (i.e. ''F-16 Fighting Falcon (Aircraft)'').  All of these examples are unacceptable.  Instead, use [[Powerpedia:Categories|categories]] for categorizing articles.

Slashes hold a special meaning in Powerpedia as a designator for [[Powerpedia:Subpages|subpages]].  They also imply hierarchy.  Use of slashes in an article's name is highly discouraged as there are many different ways the same message can be conveyed without the use of a slash.  In fact, unless greater specificity is needed to resolve a [[disambiguation]] issue, make the title as specific as possible and use links within the article to say how it relates.   

Colons are used to categorize and therefore are highly discouraged.  Only in rare and special cases should they be used.  Instead of ''Iraq: Collection Requirements'', use ''Iraqi Collection Requirements''.  In most cases, a colon can be avoided by changing the form of one word.  Colons are to be avoided, not just because they represent poor title design, but also because they appear to be referring to Powerpedia's formal categorization using namespaces (for example, [[PowerPedia:Guidelines]]).  Finally, in the event that ''Iraq'' were to be made a formal namespace in the future, articles that begin with ''Iraq:'' may pose a problem.

[[Category:Powerpedia]]