Wikimedia:Manual of style

See also: Wikimedia:Editing policy

This Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki manual of style outlines basic guidelines which should be considered when formatting content and creating pages on this site.

At all times, the needs of the specific type of content (resolution, minutes, legal document, etc.) takes precedent over any guidelines provided on this page. These guides are more to help avoid unnecessary inconsistency and guidance where the type of content does not provide an existing framework.

General guidelines

See also: :m:Communications/Communicating about the Wikimedia Foundation

Try to utilize English words and phrases which will not be difficult to translate into other languages
When in doubt, refer to manual of styles on Wikimedia project wikis or the "Communicating about the Wikimedia Foundation" guide on Meta-Wiki

Contractions and acronyms

To make content easier to translate and understand across languages, please avoid use of contractions and acronyms.

When using an acronym is necessary or difficult to avoid, please be sure to introduce the acronym's meaning in its usage. (example: Wikimedia Foundation ("WMF"))

Dates

When possible the {{DateT}} template should be utilized to properly format date to a user's language and preferences. Where not possible, dates should be formatted as:

Year-Month-Day as YYYY-MM-DD (example: 2024-03-01)
Day Month Year (example: 1 March 2024)

Gender and pronoun usage

Whenever possible, gender-neutral pronouns should be used.

Requests for use of specific pronouns when referring to person making the request should be honored whenever it is possible to do so. Any limitations should be shared by the core administrators team with individual making the request.

Existing content can be changed en masse by contacting the wiki's core administrators team.

Job titles

Job titles should be capitalized and treated as proper nouns. (examples: Chief Executive Officer, Chair, Director of Job Titles)

Name changes

Individuals requesting changes to uses of their own name, for whatever reasons (including safety or privacy), may do so by contacting the wiki's core administrators team.

Requests for changes will be honored, including within historical content, as much as can be done. Any limitations should be shared by the core administrators team with individual making the request.

Project names

Names of Wikimedia projects should be capitalized and not shortened or abbreviated.

Examples:

Meta-Wiki (not Meta)
Wikimedia Commons (not Commons)
English Wikipedia (not enWP)

Title, header, and page name formatting

Whenever possible, sentence case capitalization should be used for all titles, headers, and page names.

The primary exception is using a flexible use of proper noun capitalization for policies and other content with a large external audience.

Examples of pages where proper noun capitalization is most appropriate:

Major Organization Policy
Board of Trustees
Official Board Committee
Formal Board Resolution

Examples of pages where sentence case capitalization is most appropriate:

Policy specific to only this wiki
History of past departments
Information from a regular board meeting

Page titles for Legal, Minutes, Policies, and Resolutions namespaces

Page titles should be altered with {{DISPLAYTITLE:NAME}} as needed - with inclusion of Wikimedia or Wikimedia Foundation in title as appropriate. Pages using the {{DISPLAYTITLE}} should not have their page title's marked for translation as well.

Example

<languages />
{{DISPLAYTITLE:<translate>Wikimedia Foundation Donuts Policy</translate>}}
{{policy-board}}
<translate>
== Why we have a Donuts Policy ==

Pages properly formatted to review for additional help:

Namespace placement

See also: Wikimedia:Namespaces

Whenever possible, content should be placed within these namespaces to facilitate greater searching of content.

Main namespace: General content, navigational pages, or content without a clear namespace
Talk namespaces: Discussions and archives of discussions
Wikimedia: Content related to operations of Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki
Policy: Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Movement policies
Resolution: Resolutions by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustee
Legal: Wikimedia Foundation legal documentation
Agenda: Agendas of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustee meetings
Minutes: Minutes of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustee meetings
Committee: Content related to committees of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustee
Endowment: Content related to the Wikimedia Endowment
Memory: Institutional knowledge of the Wikimedia Foundation
Archive: Archived or historical content no longer in active use on this wiki and available for migration to another wiki (generally Meta-Wiki)

Usage of Resolutions namespace

Content placed within the Resolutions namespace should be resolutions which were considered by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. The {{resolution}} template should be used at the top of resolution pages for proper formatting.

Usage of Policies namespace

Content placed within the Policies namespace should be official Wikimedia Foundation policies. The {{Policy-board}} or {{Policy-staff}} templates should be used to help with displaying information for readers.