Powerbase:Naming Conventions

This page is a list of guidelines on naming conventions on how to name pages.

Before creating a new page, please familiarise yourself with the guidelines on how to start a new page.

Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

The purpose of this policy is twofold. First, to allow web users to easily judge from search engine results whether the article is likely to contain information they seek. Second, to make creating new pages with appropriate links easier.

Any subject, names, words, or phrases in an article/page that you think should be linked to further information, should be bracketed so that they will appear as links. Following consistent conventions in both naming and linking makes it more likely that these links will lead to the right place.

People and organisations

As Powerbase is a profile encyclopedia, most articles are likely to consist of titles of people or organisations.

Capitals should be used as normal for people's and organisation's names. For example: Gordon Brown or Labour Friends of Israel.

Use a person's full name if possible. For individuals with titles such as Dennis Stevenson who is also known as Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, use his real name for his main article. It is possible that others may know him as his title, but not his real name: so to make it easier for people searching in Powerbase to find him, create a redirect so that someone looking for 'Lord Coddenham' will be automatically be directed to 'Dennis Stevenson'. See How to redirect a page for how this is done.

Sometimes more than one person may share the same name. In this case, follow the guidelines given in How to redirect a page.

Descriptive titles

It is preferable for descriptive titles to also be created using capitals, after all it is a title. For example: GlaxoSmithKline: Silencing Critics Through Intimidation.

Try to ensure that the title is as clear as possible whilst being short and snappy. The example GlaxoSmithKline: Silencing Critics Through Intimidation makes it easy for a reader to identify that the article is about GlaxoSmithKline, that it is about critics being silenced and that this is through intimidation. If the article was simply entitled 'Silencing Critics' for example, then it would be very ambiguous and unclear what the content of the article actually was.

Ensuring an article title is clear has two main benefits: It makes it easier for people using Powerbase to browse the site and to find articles on their interests. It also makes it easier for someone using a search engine on the world wide web to spot a Powerbase article relevant to the subject they are searching for.

and, the, of... etc

The exception to using capitals for words in the title relate to the use of words such as 'and', 'the' and 'of'. For example Powerbase guidelines on Search Engine Optimization of Articles and Powerbase Image Use Policy and Guidelines.

Country-specific articles

If an article is country specific, it would also be useful to put the name or abbreviation of a country in parentheses at the end of an article title: for example (U.S.) for the United States of America and (UK) for the United Kingdom.

Acronyms

Often, organisation etc are known by an acronym of their title. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is also known as AIPAC. The main article for the organisation should be titled with its full name. As it is likely that someone searching Powerbase could look for it through its acronym, then it is helpful to redirect the acronym to the page with the full title.

Spelling

As Powerbase is a British project, using English for titles is preferable. This is a general guideline as alternatives may be more appropriate depending on the nature of the article. For organisations, use the name it is known as. If an article is country specific (for example the U.S.), then it may be more appropriate to use American spelling. If an alternative to English is used which could cause some ambiguity, then it may be helpful to redirect a page with the alternative spelling to the page you have created. This will enable anyone searching for the article to find it easily.

Give new pages a category

When creating an article, don't forget to give it a category. This keeps articles on certain subjects connected together, as well as making them easier to find.