User:CWii/EditorIndex/About

This page contains Notes on special ways to use this index, and on maintaining consistency when making (or considering making) changes.

Content
Although this is called an "editor's index", it's really intended to be an index for anyone involved with Wikipedia in other than the role of a reader. Most of the topics are directly relevant to editing of articles, but some topics are less directly relevant to editing, and a few are only distantly relevant. For example:
 * There is information on how to extract data from Wikipedia. While not immediately relevant to editing on Wikipedia, such extraction might be part of a procedure to analyze data offline, with results that eventually inform edits to articles on Wikipedia (for example, offline data analysis might reveal inconsistencies in naming conventions, which an editor might then correct in the online articles). Editors sometimes want to do this, and are sometimes asked about downloads.  The index can help with both.
 * Some editors are interested in Wikipedia as a community, although (arguably) some community aspects (including things such as games) are only peripherally related to actually editing articles. The index covers just about anything an editor might do that involves an edit to a page in any namespace within Wikipedia.
 * Another way to view the editor's index is that it serves the interests of Metapedians, for whom editing articles is in theory the primary raison d'être, but the various means to that end sometimes become quite circuitous. The index is a guide to the vast amount of material Metapedians have written about what they do.

Navigation
There are basically two approaches for finding something in the index:
 * You can use the index as you would a paper index, looking in the "O" section, for example, for "organizations".
 * You can do a  search in your Web browser, looking for a particular word or phrase.

For common words, such as "link", "edit", and "user", the first approach is better. For less common words, the second is usually better: many times, a particular word (keyword) appears only in the title of a page, or in subtopic within a major topic.

The index may not list every possible synonym for the term you have in mind, so if you don't find what you want on your first attempt, try searching for related terms. The particular words you initially think of to describe a concept may not exactly match the words other editors used to document it. Also, the first relevant link you find in the index may not tell the whole story on your topic of interest. You should repeat your  searches to be sure you find all instances of your search terms in the index. You may wish to look for additional keywords in the titles and bodies of the first pages you find, and search the index for them as well.

The more familiar you become with the index, and with the jargon of Wikipedia, the more successful your searches will be. If you cannot find what you are looking for, ask at the Help desk for the "simpler" questions, or at the Village pump (technical) for the "technical" questions.

Linking to a major topic within this index
A major topic is one that has multiple entries. A topic that says "see X" or just points to a single wikilink (essentially, a topic that is only a single line in the index) is a minor topic. You shouldn't link to a minor topic, there is no point in doing so.

Every major topic has an anchor - typically six characters. This makes it easy to post a wikilink like this:


 * ''For information about privacy at Wikipedia, see that section of the Editor's index.

The format of the wikilink in this example is:

that section

where " " is the anchor within the index.


 * If you know the first six characters of a major topic in the index, a six character link will always work.
 * If the topic is only four or five characters, you can use a shorter anchor.
 * If you're not 100% sure of the exact name of the major topic, one approach is simply to guess - then, after clicking the "Show preview" button, you can follow the wikilink to the index and check where the anchor you've entered actually points to.

Editing this index
In general, except to fix typos, including broken anchors, it is strongly advised that you not edit this index. Instead, if you think an entry or a topic should be added, deleted, or changed, you should post at the the talk/discussion page of the index, and see what others think. This goes DOUBLE for adding or deleting an entry that you have a personal interest in.


 * One exception to this "DO NOT EDIT" rule is when a page which has an entry in the index has been moved. In such a case, the entry should be changed to reflect the new name.  (Yes, clinking the old name will get to the page with the new name, but the name itself is critical - for example, if the word "guideline" has been added to the name, someone reading the index should be aware of that without having to follow the link.)

Asterisks and spaces
The convention in the index (note the spaces, they're important) is: * Topic: ** Page name of entry 1 ** Subtopic *** Page name of entry 2

The space just before a topic or subtopic name is very useful when editing - it helps find one's place in the index. It is invisible to the reader.

Anchors
As mentioned above, every major topic has a six-character anchor, as a way to jump to a specific place in the index. In edit mode, these anchors look like:

Originally, the index used three-character anchors. These have been left in place to avoid breaking existing links; it is recommended that you not link to these, though if you do, they will work (remain in place) for the indefinite future.

In a very, very few cases, there is an anchor that is seven or more characters. Unless there is a very, very good reason, don't add any more of these.

Anchors could have been the same as topic names, such as:. But that would have made anchors brittle: if the topic used in this example were to be changed from "Naming an article" to "Naming of articles", all of the links to this anchor would break and would have to be found and fixed, unless an additional anchor was added. More importantly, it would require external (incoming) links to a major topic to spell the anchor exactly right; it's much easier to just get the first six characters right.

Piped links
Piped links are not used for entries in the index, because showing the full wikilink adds value. In some cases, this requires somewhat duplicate text, in order to preserve the alphabetical order of the index. An example is: Conservation: Conservation status

Piped links are used for internal navigation (as anchors, as mentioned above), and (rarely) as part of the explanatory text for an entry in the index, but never as part of first wikilink in an entry.

Shortcuts

 * Only one shortcut (of the format WP:SHRTCT to a given policy or guideline is listed.
 * The shortcut follows immediately after the name of the policy or guideline.
 * Shortcuts are listed only if they are frequently used (which, generally, means that the policy, guideline, or essay is frequently cited). The goal is not to clutter up the index with shortcuts that aren't particularly useful; those policies and guidelines with shortcuts then stand out as being (generally) more important.

"Guideline", "Policy", and "Manual of Style"
Generally, these the entries for these three types of pages are identified by (guideline) (policy) (Manual of Style) immediately after the shortcut, if there is one, or immediately after the page name if there is not.

Exceptions:
 * If the name of the guideline or policy includes "guideline(s)" or "policy/policies" or "Manual of Style" within it, this is not repeated after the name
 * Since all Manual of Style pages are guidelines; "(guideline)" is not added to Manual of Style entries

What isn't in the index
The following are omitted from the index:
 * Almost all templates. There are less than 20 in the index, out of the thousands that exist.  Don't add one without understanding why only these 20 or so are included.
 * Almost all categories. There are about 50 in the index.  Again, don't add one without understanding why so few are now in the index.
 * Failed proposals. The barrier to proposing something on Wikipedia is quite low; as a result, many proposals are not of the highest quality.  And many that had some merit have been overtaken by events.
 * Note: to be technical, where these are useful to know about (to help prevent someone unknowingly resurrect one, or point an editor to a prior attempt that could be useful as a starting point), these are in the index, but are invisible comments.  Restraint in adding these is highly recommended; though not visible to the reader, they make editing the index more difficult.
 * WikiProjects on a particular topic (again, too many). Those interested in a particular topic can find if there is a WikiProject by checking WikiProject Council/Directory or Category:WikiProjects, or by looking at talk/discussion pages of articles that are in the topic of interest.
 * Note: cross-cutting WikiProjects (for example, a WikiProject about categories, a WikiProject on disambiguation) are in the index. In most cases, such cross-cutting projects are listed even if inactive.
 * Entries solely for the purpose of pointing the user to another place in the index. For example, "Cinema" could be added as "Cinema: see Films", but (a) it's more likely that someone will search on "films" or "movies" (the latter does in fact point to "films"), and (b) if a [Ctrl]-F search on "cinema" fails, it's extremely likely that "films" or "movies" will be immediately tried.
 * The index is searchable in ways that a paper index is not; it therefore doesn't have to absolutely mimic a paper index to be fully effective.
 * There are a few exceptions, generally because (a) a term that is common isn't used in a page title (rare), and (b) where the term is so common that searching the index for it could be frustrating. (Example: "As of")
 * Many (quite possibly) most essays in Wikipedia namespace. If all essays were in the index, it's quite possible that the majority of entries would be such essays, which would significantly lessen the value of the index.  Wikipedia namespace essays that are in the index:
 * Are frequently cited (as evidenced by "What links here").
 * Cover a subject in a way that is both insightful and outside of what appears in policies, guidelines, and technical pages. This, of course, is subjective, but both including all essays and excluding all essays are inferior approaches.
 * Almost all essays in user space. As of August 2007 there were roughly a dozen of these.  ("Roughly" because some pages are difficult to categorize as being an essay or not.)

Also, there was no attempt to list every possible topic as a topic. For example, "Summary style" is not a topic, because the user should look at the "Articles" topic, which has other entries similar to Summary style. A user looking for pages about "summary style" is expected to use the search feature of his/her browser. (Note to Internet Explorer users - Firefox has a far better search feature - it does search as you type.)

Links to websites outside of Wikipedia and its siblings, and other "unofficial" entries
The purpose of the index isn't to document what is official, it's to help editors be more effective and efficient. The index therefore contains these "unofficial" entries:
 * Tools, even if in userspace or completely outside of Wikipedia
 * Statistics and similar factual information, regardless of location

Editors who have created a new page or are otherwise highly involved with a page are (as noted above) requested not to add such a page to the index. Rather, please suggest, on the main talk/discussion page, that such a page be added (if this in fact seems appropriate), and let other (uninvolved) editors decide. (For the reasoning as to why authors shouldn't add links to their own pages, see Autobiography and Conflict of interest.)