Naming Conventions

Introduction

This topic has been discussed for sometime, but no-one took any initiative until AlsteR wrote an email to imc-docs about some pages that ImcKorea had mis-named. As AlsteR says,/

"It's becoming a general problem that people, especially from newly founded IMCs, create new WikiTopics in the 'Local' WikiWeb which do not have the IMCs name prepended, use non- WikiWord names or some other names which may collide with the naming of other IMCs and make it impossible to find out which IMC this topic relates to."

This problem is, of course, not just related to the Local web, but also to all the others - see SiteMap for a complete list. This page collates a number of suggestions re naming pages on the wiki.

Suggestions

• Get rid of the Imc prefix whereever possible, and only use it to avoid UglycasE. For example ImcTokelau not TokelaU and TokelauTech not ImcTokelauTech.
• Place naming conventions for each web on the WebHome page, and perhaps add a link in the left sidebar.
• Add links to the template which is shown when accessing non-existing topics (which is also displayed when clicking on an NonExistingTopic link or creating a new page by other means).
• Include a page specific to each web called 'Page Naming Conventions' - NamingConventions - in the WebLeftBar
• it would be nice to include in the WebLeftBarCommon:

         * [[%INCLUDINGWEB%.NamingConventions][Page Naming Conventions]]

Webs

Aotearoa

Well - guess they should look after their own, eh?

However, does raise the question of why they have their own web, why is it not part of the main "Local" web? i guess this predated the wiki being totally properly organised (when's that, anyway?!)... -- GarconDuMonde

As I assume it will be difficult to make sure the Aotearoa web is always administrated (in means of keeping things ordered) by someone at Aotearoa, it would be nice to have the Aotearoa web contents moved over to the Local web. While it would be easier to maintain multiple webs, one for each lmocal IMC, this is probably not feasible - however discussing this might be interesting. We should find out what people at Aotearoa think about having their webs' contents moved to the Local web. -- AlsteR

This idea of having a web for each local IMC seems interesting to me. From an administration point of view, I'm not sure it would be that difficult; concerning the performances, maybe we can test the performance impact of it on our plage test server ? -- DjRom

I also like the idea of having a web for each local IMC - DjRom, can you sort testing the load on plage cos i dunno how to do that?! -- GarconDuMonde

Devel

From looking at Devel quickly, there doesn't seem to be much of a naming convention!

I think that all topic names on Devel should be prepended by the name of the codebase or working group they relate to. -- AlsteR

I think too that this is the good thing to do, and I think it's a good idea to do it distributively. That is, we can perhaps count on our geek friends of Devel to do the gardening themselves slowly if we tell them too. What do you think ? -- DjRom

i agree with both of you!! -- GarconDuMonde

Global

• created page: NamingConventions

Nothing yet. following suggestions are being worked on (definitely still needs quite a bit of work! also, Global could do with restructuring - looks like it's been started but not finished at all...):

1. always prepend the global IMC abbreviation to the name. Example: You want to create 'MyTopic' for imc-process, so you name it 'ImcProcessMyTopic'
2. if you add a date, revert the order of day, month and year, using YearMonthDay style (this makes sorting easier if you have multiple logs) example: You intend to make your groups (imc-process) chat log of Dec 24th 2004 available, so you call it ImcProcessChatlog20051224
   Also make sure people use two characters for each day and month and four for each year; i.e. March 2nd 2006 must not become ...0632 but ...20060302. -- Alster
3. make sure you use a WikiWord for your topic name read this: http://docs.indymedia.org/view/TWiki/WikiWord
4. use only alphanumeric characters for the name
5. make sure you always use the same prepended abbreviation throughout your IMC so you achieve consistency

Indydocs

This was temporary place when we started with this twiki, pages from here should move to the approporiate web, if you need help on this, please email indy-docs@riseup.net. UPDATE: Actually, the Indydocs web is dead, ie. it's not available anymore. If you need a page who was on this web and who wasn't moved to the right place. Ask us (indy-docs@riseup.net).

Local

• created page: NamingConventions

When choosing a name for a new topic in the 'Local' web

1. always prepend your local IMC abbreviation to the name example: You want to create 'MyTopic' for your local IMC which is IMC Tokelau, so you name it 'ImcTokMyTopic'
2. if you add a date, revert the order of day, month and year, using YearMonthDay style (this makes sorting easier if you have multiple logs) example: You intend to make your IMCs (IMC Tokelau) chat log of Dec 24th 2004 available, so you call it ImcTokChatlog20051224
3. make sure you use a WikiWord for your topic name.
4. use only alphanumeric characters for the name.
5. try to always use the same prepended abbreviation throughout your IMC so you achieve consistency.

Main

Pages in the Main web should relate directly to users or groups only. Any extra pages that people wish to develop should either be in the Sandbox web or in one of the other webs.

Sandbox

This is the test area for the indymedia wiki: there is no naming convention required as it is for users to experiment.

Sysadmin

Server List

• Pages related to servers should have the server name prepended, e.g. MyServerInfo for an information page.
• often, there are 3 pages:
  • info: contact and general info about the server
  • metainfo: containing dmesg and other info printed out from the server.
  • tips: containing useful tips on how to manage the server

Offline Server List

• as above, but now offline!

HOWTOs

These are currently quite a mess and need sorting out!!

• all docs in this section should have 'HowTo' appended to the name.
• if applicable, prepend the working group, too. -- AlsteR
  • I'm not sure of the fact that this suggestion is practicable. The WikiNames would get really too awkward, imho. -- DjRom

TWiki

This section is based on the default TWiki install from twiki.org and relates to how to use the twiki.

-- It should not be changed by normal users, unless explicitly stated by the imc docs working group. -- AlsteR

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-- GarconDuMonde - 10 Mar 2005

Just a comment: is this worth the time and effort required to implement naming conventions? especially since twiki is heading to a web-subweb-subsubweb-... future, like a tree with branches over branches... rigth now it is implemented in dakar altough confusingly labelled as "beta?" in the feature list

i beleive we should plan for something like

docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/name-of-the-imc and removing the "/view" part would be great for non english speaking people -- JaviBaires - 24 Feb 2006