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SL Conventions Discussion
    Keywords: SL description

SAS: I think it's good to have a set of conventions. However, I've removed this one:

  • Capitalize the noun "Go" meaning the game, to make it easy for the eye to distinguish from the common verb "go".

because I don't think we have any consensus on this. It's not a proper noun, so it should not be capitalized. Personally, I find the incorrect capitalization jarring.

Also, I think the "Text Seen by Writers and Editors (Deshis)" section should be removed.

Hu: Ordinarily I would agree about the capitalization of the non-proper noun go, but in SL, Go is central to what we do here. Even so, it would not be useful to capitalize go except that there is confusion with the common verb to go. Thus I hope a consensus will develop to capitalize Go.


Charles I'd like to raise a point about the 'People' keyword. This appears along side 'Home Page' quite often. That seems redundant to me - I'd like it reserved so that 'People' and 'Home Page' are mutually exclusive.

Another point - it seems that a number of home pages flag that they are beginners with the 'Beginner' keyword. Is this considered good practice? I can see it has some point to it. But it's not the usage intended for difficulty of content.

SAS: This is clearly an incorrect use of the 'Beginner' keyword. I also agree that 'People' should not usually be used on homepages, but there are exceptions like Richard Hunter where the page functions both as his homepage and as an article about the author of several go books. (Really we ought to have a separate namespace for homepages, as they do on [ext] Wikipedia.)


DaveSigaty: I think that trying to set forth and refine a list of conventions is not very likely to succeed. The nature of a Wiki works against it. The size of SL in particular means that few people are going to even find the list in the future. Also I do not entirely agree with the idea that contributors to SL should feel that they have to take the point of view of a "conscientious writer". I think that this anticipates a degree of ability (and time) that many contributors do not have. This is especially true for non-native writers of English. Although personally I try to express myself clearly and effectively, I worry alot more about my lack of understanding of Go than I do about my failures to convey my thoughts in English or to properly beautify the pages. :-)

ArnoHollosi: I'd like to add that the "no more than four dashes" is questionable. Personally, I just hit '-' a couple of times (or press until auto-repeat sets in).

Also, I see that people take great efforts to add spaces to link-names like "ArnoHollosi" -> "Arno Hollosi". I don't think this is necessary. Actually, I find it especially irritating in cases like Recent Changes or Find Page. Camel-case syntax is an useful tool in wiki. I can't think of a reason why not to use it?

SAS: I would like to see support for CamelCase links removed altogether. They are a hangover from early primitive wikis, and just encourage people to WriteUsingUnnaturalCapitalization.

Charles I agree with SAS about capitals. On the main question, I hope any conventions are seen in the right way. Not, naturally, to constrain people who won't or can't be constrained - contributors here are all welcome, according to what they have to say. There can really only be at most one recognised house style (per area, perhaps). Conventions can help in understanding what that would mean.

unkx80: I don't see anything really wrong with the CamelCase link mechanism, except that it is quite irritating when I want to type words like JagoClient and I have to specifically put a exclaimation mark to prevent it from becoming a link. I admit that I am kind of a formatting freak sometimes, so I also tend to change links created by unnatural capitalization to those created with square brackets and separated by spaces. But seriously, I think Arno and Morten have done a great job creating and maintaining this Wiki, so I personally do not think that we should burden them further with such trivial things that require a lot of work with minimal difference in results. Perhaps we should just adapt to the rules and type accordingly. =)


Dieter: When I was lurking around here for about half a year, I felt the same need for standardizing a couple of things that seems to be at the source of the SLConventions page creation. I abandoned the idea, because

  • The wiki spirit, as explained above
  • The feeling I'd interfere with administrator business

Text formatting rules and Wiki etiquette are the guidelines the adminstrators chose to lay upon the community. Even if a lot of things have become common practice, I wait for Arno to put them into one of the above pages and if he doesn't, I'd rather mention the fact on some discussion page, than create a page of conventions of my own. In the same spirit, however, when someone decides the community should be educated more and makes up a new convention page, who am I to deny him the right. Wiki will solve the issue. That is why Arno didn't say anything about it, I guess.

Arno: well, I guess the reason why I don't interfere, is because I have a very clear picture of my role as admin and my personal interpretation of wiki philosophy. SL wouldn't be where it is today if I would have forced my (initial) vision upon it. So, unless someone gets rude or offensive or SL starts filling with pages unrelated to go I will not interfere.

Btw, I find it interesting that people use the difficulty headers in combination with HomePages for indicating their own strength. An usage I didn't think of. At least as interesting as this usage however is Charles' and SAS' point of view that this is somehow "incorrect". Who is right? I don't dare to say.

On a side note: If you are an SL-veteran (say, here for at least 1 year) you will have noticed that certain topics and certain styles have been en-vogue for some time, then disappeared. The reason why a wiki is so easy to contribute to is because you don't even have to read TextFormattingRules. You just hit edit and do copy&paste. Whatever is on SL's mind (==RecentChanges) is what shapes SL.

Do you think that people are nice and polite here, only because we ask so on WikiEtiquette? Of course not! It's because new contributors see how politely we interact with one another. Same goes for SLConventions. Noone will follow it just because you write it down. Enforcing rules is not really possible either. Soon enough you will find out that SLConventions are those which people actually use, not what is written down.

Just my two cents ....

Hu: Good discussion. I have taken note of it and have accordingly softened the introduction on the SL Conventions page: "Feel free to use [...], but we value your good ideas and knowledge more than any writing guidelines". I hope this comes closer to the spirit of a Wiki. We may wish to change the title of Text Formatting Rules to something like "How SL Text Works". I altered the link on the Text Formatting Rules page to say: "You may follow some SL Conventions but they are less important than your ideas and insights." I changed the text on the Wiki Etiquette page to say "You may use SL Conventions as guidelines". Would it be good in a similar spirit to change the text at the top of that page from "rules" to "guidelines"?

I hope that the difficulty level keywords would be reserved for Go knowledge and that the People keyword would be reserved for people but not for homepages.

It think programmers and computer techies like CamelCase, but the reason it did not evolve naturally in the wider world of writing is that is less readable by readers. When I write, I try to make the text as easily understood by the reader as possible so I am happy to take the extra time to use brackets and spaces, but realistically, CamelCase can be deciphered with OnlyALittleExtraEffort by readers.

I join the others in thanking Arno and Mort for their enlightened administration of this world class resource. -- Hu



This is a copy of the living page "SL Conventions Discussion" at Sensei's Library.
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