Editorial Guidelines

Editorial Guidelines

This is a tentative page for purposes of discussion only. It would be intended eventually to provide suggestions and guidance to future contributors. The present pages do not necessarily conform to these standards, which may or may not be what we want. - Jim Mosher

1. Edit Wiki pages in such a way that an absolute novice, with no prior lunar reading, can comprehend the essential content with a minimum of effort. All terms that are not self-explanatory should be linked to pages explaining them. For example, in the title line, Lon and Lat should link to a page explaining lunar longitudes and latitudes; Rükl should link to a page explaining what a Rukl number is; mentions of librations should link to a page explaining what they are; etc. (alternatively, each page should have a "Help" link).
2. Try to keep the format of new entries in a style consistent with existing entries.
3. Read pages before adding to them, to ensure that the material added is consistent with and in harmony with the existing material on that page. For example, if a name mentioned relates to a feature described by Elger, add a parenthetical note that this is "the xxx mentioned by Elger".
4. Keep bibliographic entries in a uniform style (what that style is probably needs to be established).
5. To distinguish them from the general Wiki content (which can be used or adapted for any non-commercial purpose), place a copyright symbol and signature after entries the author does not want altered or re-used, with a link to a page explaining the copyright policy (i.e., the copyright symbol would link to that page).
6. Do not arbitrarily use the Wiki image "width" or "height" directives to resize images. Resizing degrades image quality, and there is no way to guess what will look pleasing to other readers with other screen settings. If the reader has sat through the image download it is reasonable to let them see it displayed at a scale consistent with the download.
7. Make no assumptions that the reader has access to, or is familiar with any external work. References to external works should always be accompanied by a link either to the work itself, or to a source from which it can be obtained. Ideally the link should go a bibliography page where a full explanation of the work (and its significance) is given; but the reader should never be forced to initiate a web search to discover what is being referred to.
8. For links to external sources that cannot be freely accessed online, give a concise description of what will be found there and why it is important. For example, it is interesting to know that a feature is mentioned in a particular book or article, but it is much more interesting to know why it was included there and what of significance is said about it. If the mention or appearance of a feature in an external work does not add to our understanding of it, it is probably not worth mentioning.
9. The preceding applies equally to links to freely accessible external works (such as many NASA publications and conference proceedings). Since the editor placing the link presumably knows what is in the work, this relieves the reader of the burden of following links whose titles may sound interesting, yet whose content may prove of no great interest to them.
10. As much as possible, keep controversial, non-objective, and/or uncertain information/comments on the Discussion page attached to the relevant main Page.
11. Encourage all contributors to edit existing pages to bring them into conformity with the general editorial style and guidelines outlined above even if they were not the original creator of the material affected.
12. Style guides often include suggestions about the kind of language that is preferred eg active not passive. There may be others (Chuck, is this an area where you could advise?). - ArbusDriver Nov 16, 2007

Responses

Jim, we might want to add to it but as this stands it is a great start. A few specific points (my numbering follows yours):

1. Your initial idea is the right one. A help file would be the lazy and much less helpful way.
2. Yes.
3. Yes. Also helps avoid duplication of information.
4. Yes, with the caveat that it’s generally better to add more to deficient entries than to remove factually correct information that someone has gone to the trouble of adding (the-moon is not paper). In Wikipedia terms, that would be Inclusionism.
5. In principle, yes. Personally, I’d be happy for any content I add to be freely available. In fact, adding content here sometimes leads me to add it elsewhere too. For example, when starting Lunar Missions, Wilhelms, 1993 mentioned Mariner 10 and NASA SP-424 but the then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_10 did not contain anything about its lunar flyby. Fortunately NASA SP-424 is online, so I was able to extract the relevant information, add a new section to the Wikipedia article and then on the-moon both reuse my text and refer to the Wikipedia article. Having said that, licensing of free content being a surprisingly complex legal issue, it is difficult for the layman to be certain if this approach would work in practice and how it intersects with the existing licence. The later may not be a big issue as there are few enough contributors (so far) that we could individually consent to the change. The coppermine images might be a complication.
6. Another advantage of WikiMedia wikis is the ability to automatically provide thumbnails (their size is a user preference option), which link to full sized images if clicked. The result is a significant improvement in performance for slow connections.
7. Absolutely. To put it more bluntly, if you want to reference a hardcopy document you are obligated to first write it’s bibliographic page. Most of us are pretty good about this one.
8. Or as they say on/of Wikipedia, “it is not a collection of trivia”.
9. Yes.
10. Very good idea.
11. Yes, whenever one has reason to access a page. “The way to eat an elephant…” and all that.

- ArbusDriver Nov 16, 2007

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