Wiki Style Guide

Before editing or making contributions, please make sure you are familiar with the applicable Membership Contribution Policy and IPR Policy of this community.

Editing Pages

 * If you want a refresher on the wiki syntax, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet
 * more detailed documentation can be found at the Getting_Started page.


 * If you see a typo, fix it!


 * When annotating a Wiki page, edit the page, add your comment, and sign it with two dashes followed by your Wiki name a slash and then a date (or a date/time stamp), all in a pair of parenthesis.. For example, "See the end of this suggestion. (Jane_Doe / 2010.10.21-20:18 PDT)"


 * To keep the page structure consistent within this wiki, it is advisable that, when starting a new page, for one to (a) take a look at the wiki Page Index first, and try to follow the structure and pattern of how pages are named and structured; (b) always consider your audience (people who will be reading the page) and the long-term archival nature and how we are using this workspace as a collaboratively built knowledge repository. Therefore, when creating a new page title, ask if that title you have in mind (which makes total sense now,) whether it will still make sense in 3 months, 3 years or 30 years - to the entire community; and/or (c) consult with the WikiAdmin for advice (especially if one is just beginning to create new content for this wiki.)


 * If you noticed that a page has been vandalized, please restore the content (see details at WikiSpam) and notify the WikiAdmin.

Link or Page Title Naming Conventions

 * Wiki pages related to major categories or subjects should best be prefixed accordingly, e.g. "NKOS_Repository", "NKOS_Meetings", "NKOS_Systems".


 * if the community runs multiple projects, and each project will run their own meetings and conference call schedule, then it would be prudent to put, say, the MeetingsCalls wiki pages as sub-pages to each project - like NKOS_ConferenceCall_2010_10_21 ; Taxonomy_ConferenceCall_2010_10_21 ; ... etc.


 * When specifying dates or date/times, please express them in a format in the order of the significance of the elements (like yyyy.mm.dd_hh:mm). For example:
 * "notes taken by ppy / 2010.10.21-20:18 PDT"
 * ConferenceCall_2010_10_21

Accessibility Considerations
Compliance with Section 508 (of the August 1998 amendment of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act) is required for all US federal government CWE sites, and highly recommended for all other sites. Users (which will be the content developers) should review the http://www.section508.gov/ site for more details, and to make sure their work meets with requirement.

When users author content that involve non-text elements to convey information, like color palettes, images & graphics, multimedia presentation, image maps, tables, frames, and when making use of scripts, plug-ins, applets, forms and/or timed responses, they should take responsibility to ensure section 508 compliance, if it is so required. Section 1194.22 - Web-based Internet Information and Applications of the Section 508 VPAT should be referenced.

Wiki pages should generally have no problem with Seciton 508 compliance as the pages are essentially text based. In the case of images, which will be displayed whenever a compatible image element (e.g. a link to a png, gif or jpg file) shows up within the body of the page. To ensure compliance, users should properly caption such linked image elements. For example:


 * http://community.cim3.net/file/work/pic/eGov-ECT-Conference_20040126/thumbnails/DSC01403.jpg  Picture of the CWE system being demonstrated.

Maintained Pages
While part of the power of wiki's is that anyone who can read a page can also write to it, there are circumstances, when the editing work is better done by one (or a small number of) individuals. If, for some reason, a person is to take full responsibility in maintaining a particular page, please make sure one clearly states that as part of the footer. Include at least the following information:


 * This page is maintained by "Your Name" 
 * Page last updated 
 * Describe your desired content update instructions, like:
 * please make sure any additions and comments are properly traceable to an author I can reach via e-mail, or
 * please email the page maintainer all changes, he/she will post it to this wiki page for you, ... etc.

History Section
There will be times when mailing list discussions lead to important changes that either directly or indirectly affect the Wiki. For example, we may discuss a new approach. Once we reach a decision, we would have to make a major update to a particular Wiki page. When this happens, it's good practice to create a History section on that page, and include a link to the relevant discussion (at the discussion forum archives.) That way, we capture why things are the way they are.