I am working on building out the Wiki editing and style guides from the various posts we have laying around.
I wanted to start with the guidelines for:
Capitalization: using sentence case rather than title case in both page and section names.
Singular: using names, terms, and phrases in singular form when possible.
Most of our guidelines are based on Wikipedia style and deviate only as required for our environment.
On capitalization, Wikipedia recommends sentence case where you only initialize the first letter unless it is a proper name.
What we have to decide is if and when we deviate from that to capitalize a feature of something in Waze. I think some are easier than others. Examples to consider for each category. Comment on any you disagree with here or others you are unclear about:
“Waze Map Editor” (proper name)
“Live Map” (proper name)
“National Park Service” (proper name)
“Special roads” (generic)
“Military bases” (generic)
“Overpasses, underpasses, and bridges” (generic)
“Area Manager” (a person’s title?) or “Area manager” (non-specific)
“Junction Style Guide” (name of a book/document?) or “Junction style guide” (generic?)
“Map Problems” (the MPs we get in WME) or “Map problems” (non-specific, but now could mean any problems on a map)
So when we speak about an element in Waze like a feature on a WME page like the Road Closures tab which uses title case, do we replicate that same format if we create a page out of it? Do we title cap it in sentences were we discuss it?
Maybe any specific feature of Waze that is not meant to be generic should be put in bold or possibly italic. I’m not sure if there is a convention for this, or if we want to generate our own format.
On singular titles, are there times when we would say you must have a plural name? Wikipedia discusses some of them here. Many of our original page titles are plural, so we are likely just used to seeing and hearing it that way. Change may be hard initially. Many of the examples above are current page names in plural. We can change them over time and update links (keeping redirects to the old plural.)
It may be necessary to create a list of current plural titles and decide one-by-one.
On capitalization IMHO it’s safe to not capitalize titles such as area manager, regional coordinator, etc, except possibly in state AM tables, which are generally in title case. That would accord with the Wikipedia MoS on capital letters. Junction Style Guide is the name of a specific document, so it’s a proper name. Map problems, update requests and the like are common nouns and shouldn’t be capitalized; the context makes clear that we’re talking about objects in Waze. I tried to replicate the WME menu when deciding whether to capitalize things, but it’s not consistent, and we are changing it ourselves for US English anyhow, so I recommend just applying Wikipedia style as best we can. As for when to keep plural page titles, what you linked says that titles can be plural when talking about classes of things. I’m not sure where that applies, possibly places, road types and road names. I agree that change will be hard but it’s definitely best to nail this down, so that Wazeopedia will read better, and we can write new guidance more quickly and consistently.
Yeah, I think it’s best to eliminate the use of words with multiple meanings. I try to do that when talking with other editors about places.
As for capitalization of Waze objects, that doesn’t even seem to be consistent in current usage. In the wiki I see update requests, map problems and junction boxes often capitalized, places sometimes capitalized, closures and cities less often capitalized, and cameras, nodes, roads or segments never capitalized. So where to draw the line with capitalization of Waze objects? Capitalize all Waze objects? That would be rough. Only capitalize those that have ambiguous names? That would still require a change in practice, since update request and junction box are pretty unambiguous, whereas road and camera are more ambiguous.
Since no Waze object is a proper noun, I think it’s best to have a simple rule of not capitalizing any of them while simultaneously avoiding ambiguous wording or even adding further description where something is confusing, such as
You can see that camera refers both to the Waze object and the physical device down the street, but talking about removing the camera in the Editor (which is a proper noun) leaves no ambiguity.
Maybe I am being silly here, just seems like if the point of this style guide is consistency in our wiki writing, we should really try to make it internally consistent.
After looking at that camera section, it certainly looks fine, so I think I can support sentence case for all Waze “objects” with a few exceptions:
Waze Map Editor
Live Map
Waze
Connected Citizens program
Junction Style Guide
(Script names)
(Proper names)
(items that would ordinarily be capitalized in running text)
I’m wondering about references to terms and phrases in the UI when pointing them out to users. I would expect to match the case style used there, but only when making specific reference to the UI.
I want to get as much attention on this other side of the topic.
As noted earlier, the Wikipedia MoS recommends singular titles for a number of reasons. They all seem like good ideas and I believe in other threads we have come to the same conclusion.
The exception would be for pages that are covering lists of items, a collection of items, or it would be unnatural to speak in the singular.
Bookmarklets - (a page of bookmarklets)
Cameras - (covering different camera types and when to map them)
Classification of crossings (there are multiple types)
Banks of servers
How Waze determines turn / keep / exit maneuvers
Map tiles (? we rarely reference an individual tile)
Routing penalties (there are different kinds of penalties)
Road types (there are multiple types discussed)
Road names (there are multiple names discussed)
Your rank and points (there are multiple points)
Places (there are multiple place types)
Indian reservation roads (this is discussing how to deal with all the roads inside an Indian reservation)
Scripts (this is a list of scripts)
Roles and responsibilities
Online resources (there are multiple resource types)
This list seems to support a plural form because they are grouped together.
Carpool, HOV, transit lanes
Soft and hard turns
This list seems to support a singular form. Many of these pages are not currently singular, but some are (and appear here as examples for completeness).
Dashboard (the conversation is on a single user’s dashboard, even though everyone has one)
Update request (? although there are thousands on the map, you manage them one at a time)
Aerial photograph request
Duplicate city (? one city is duplicated, but we have many cities that have this issue)
Routing server (there may be multiple, but we reference and discuss the term singularly)
Tunnel (there is only one tunnel type and it is managed the same way as every other tunnel)
Driveway (there is only one driveway type)
Ferry (there is only one ferry type)
Junction box (all boxes are managed the same)
Private installation (all installations are handled with the same decision points)
Military base (all bases are handled with the same decision points)
Real-time closure
Roundabout (there is only one roundabout type)
Regional coordinator (the focus is on the role of one)
State manager (the focus is on the role of one)
Speed limit (it is a single feature set the same way)
I’m having a harder time with this list. Although you can talk about each of these items one at a time, the titles sound strange in singular form.
House numbers on service roads (or should it be “House number on a service road”)
House numbers in WME (there is only one “house number” feature in WME, but there are other screens where you can enter addresses)
Overpasses, underpasses and bridges (or should it be “Overpass, underpass, and bridge”)
(Places/)Hospitals and urgent care (or should it be “(Places/)Hospital and urgent care”)
I think “Routing penalty” as a concept, “Road type” as an attribute, and “Place” as an object do certainly exist in the singular. I mean, there are multiple types of dogs, but the Wikipedia page is still called “Dog”. This is what a (dog|road type) is; here are some different types of (dogs|road types).
“Road name” exists on its own too, though it doesn’t read as well IMO. There is an argument to be made for “Road naming”, as that article is really just guidance, not an explanation of what a “road name” is (whereas the others do explain the concepts therein at least on a cursory basis).
“Routing penalty” I think more than anything out of this list should be singular. The big question about penalties is, “what the hell is a ‘penalty’?” Anyway, are there any other types of penalty, or can the name just be “Penalty”?
“Place” feels weird but I can’t really think of a reason it should be different than the above.
I could support this line of thinking, i.e., if it exists as a singular and it is not a “list of things”, then it should be singular. I believe some titles will feel strange until we get used to it. It would be better to more closely match Wikipedia since I don’t think we have a good reason not to.
I think all the ones you pulled out could easily stand as singular, including “Place”
I would add “Camera” and “Map tile” to your singular titles.
I don’t like “Road naming.” We just got away from that last year. We don’t have pages for “Place naming” because naming is already covered under “Place”. Now you could go the other way and say we should only have “Road” and merge it all together, but that page would be too large. The options are subpages or separate pages. I could argue we should rename them to “Road (name)” and “Road (type)”, but that puts escape characters in links that are a bit complex for novice Wiki editors.
Routing penalty would likely be “Penalty (routing)” in Wikipedia as a form of disambiguation, but when there are no other “Penalty” articles it might be OK to just have “Penalty.” My concern is out of context you have no idea what that references, so I would recommend either “Penalty (routing)” or “Routing penalty”. My vote is the latter.
“Road name” is fine, just a bigger “takes some getting used to” than most of the others.
I really think “Penalty” is okay. To someone who knows what a penalty is, they will not be confused by the mention. To someone who does not know what a penalty is, making the article title “Routing penalty” isn’t really going to help either.
My concern with “Penalty” as a single word title is that is very vague with respect to the topic. Titles like “Road” and “Tunnel” have pretty clear meanings relative to a navigation app, but “Penalty” does not have an obvious navigation definition to new editors and would likely be confusing.
Today we have more detailed page titles to help clarify the intent of the page. Here are some examples that I believe benefit from more than just one word titles.
24-hour format is not 24-hour
At-grade connector is not Connector
Creating and editing road segments is not just road segments or segments
Entering GPS coordinates is not GPS coordinates or GPS
Editing manual is not Editing or Manual
Color-by-asimuth is not Color
Banks of servers is not Server
For these reasons I think “Routing penalty” would be better.
24-hour format is not 24-hour because it is about the time format that uses 24 hours. “24-hour” isn’t the name of anything. “Format” is the noun here. “Time format” would be the next step toward generality from “24-hour format”.
At-grade connector is not Connector because it describes only one type of connector—a connector between two roads that are at the same grade. Compare “ramp”, which in its typical use is a connector between two roads that are grade-separated.
Creating and editing road segments is not just road segments or segments because it is an editing guide, not a description of a thing.
Entering GPS coordinates is not GPS coordinates or GPS because see previous.
Editing manual is not Editing or Manual because it is a manual for editing… really now.
Color-by-azimuth is not Color because it describes the concept of coloring by azimuth. It’s not an article describing the concept of “color”.
Banks of servers is not Server because it does not describe a single server or the characteristics of a server. Honestly I didn’t know this last one existed until this week, but this article is poorly named. “Server environment” would be much more accurate and would track the URL parameter used to denote it.
“Routing penalty” does not really tell you much else than “Penalty” does, and it’s not the job of the page title to explain itself. That’s what the article is for.
And another thing, “Penalty” makes it easier to refer to a “penalty” in text.
Exactly! I feel the same way that: * Routing penalty is not Penalty because it is a penalty for routing.
Routing penalty is not Penalty because it describes the concept of penalizing by route. It is not an article describing the concept of “penalty”.
I disagree. If I see a page title “Penalty” I don’t know if it relates to
The outcome after a bad map edit.
Failures for not logging in correctly.
The repercussions for going against community guidelines.
The result of running red light cameras.
I believe “Routing penalty” meets both of these objectives nicely. I think “Penalty” does not meet Precision because it is too broad in scope.
No argument there, but I would not give up clarity for the sake of saving a few letters I add to a page.
IMO, the drawbacks of “Routing penalty” is less than the drawbacks of “Penalty”. And conversely, the benefits of “Routing penalty” is greater than the benefits of “Penalty”.
Does there need to be specific guidance on the colored items for freeway, major highway, minor higway, primary street, local street, parking lot road, private road, ramp?
Here is the wazeopedia Road type page as an example where on the purple for freeway it is Freeway, the Blue for major highway is Major Highway, etc.
Most wazeopedia pages are this way (Title Case). Some have gone to all lower case, unless it is an abbreviattion the all caps.
Didn’t see this addressed in the above discussion and think it can be easily resolved vice having to change a lot of pages.
The road types are in Title Case because they are (or, at least, should be) considered proper nouns to make sure the difference is understood between the road type “Major Highway” and the general English term “major highway”, and to match the WME list anyway.
I agree, but others are doing some newer pages as lower case citing this discussion as the reference for the interpretation. So thought should get it clarified with the community’s consensus. Thanks.
Some others = me :lol: At least Kent and I agreed that most Waze objects are common nouns, but we didn’t really talk about road types, and the conversation turned away to singular vs plural
I agree with Sketch that we need to differentiate between the WME items like “Major Highway” and State Route 55 which is a “major highway.” I don’t recall if there were other objects that had a similar potential for confusion.