(A page on my opinions regarding naming conventions) |
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I feel like there's | I feel like there's usability issues with some articles in the Fedora Project wiki. Here's a sample of some of them: | ||
* [[Websites]] | * [[Websites]] | ||
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* [[Overview]] | * [[Overview]] | ||
These should be renamed to be more indicative of their content. "Fedora" should be included for project pages, | These pages should be renamed to be more indicative of their content. Specifically, "Fedora" should be included for project pages, non-wiki-like titles such as "Overview" should be renamed, and esoteric abbreviations like L10N should be expanded. | ||
* Websites -> [[Fedora Websites]] | * Websites -> [[Fedora Websites]] | ||
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* Overview -> [[Fedora Project]] (or perhaps simply [[Fedora]]) | * Overview -> [[Fedora Project]] (or perhaps simply [[Fedora]]) | ||
Most pages should not include Fedora, since the Fedora wiki implies a bias towards Fedora-related information. For example, I expect a page on [[Red Hat contributions]] to contain contributions that Red Hat has made to Fedora. | Most pages should not include Fedora, since the Fedora wiki already implies a bias towards Fedora-related information. For example, I expect a page on [[Red Hat contributions]] to contain contributions that Red Hat has made to Fedora, so I feel like this is a suitable name. | ||
I don't think this bias is strong enough | I don't think this bias is a strong enough reason to exclude it from project pages. I'm not likely to assume that page called "Websites" is a project page since the name gives me no indication. The repetition of "Fedora" and the capitalization in "Fedora Websites" in the URL reinforces the fact that the page is about a group called "Fedora Websites," rather than websites in Fedora. | ||
Redirects from "Fedora *" do not sufficiently solve the problem. The title on the article page will still be without "Fedora" and so will still evoke confusion. Tooltips shown by mousing over a link will also show this ambiguous title. | |||
Redirects from "Fedora *" do not sufficiently solve the problem. The article | |||
Ordinarily, I wouldn't think the repetition of "Fedora" is necessary. http://fedoraproject.org/docs reads much better than http://fedoraproject.org/fedora_docs. This is because I read it as "the docs page in the Fedora Project" and I am not confused. More importantly, I don't have any learned expectations about its content. | Ordinarily, I wouldn't think the repetition of "Fedora" is necessary. http://fedoraproject.org/docs reads much better than http://fedoraproject.org/fedora_docs. This is because I read it as "the docs page in the Fedora Project" and I am not confused. More importantly, I don't have any learned expectations about its content. | ||
Wiki pages do have learned expectations. When given a URL to a wiki page, I | Wiki pages do have learned expectations. When given a URL to a wiki page, I expect that the content will be an article, and I expect the last part of the URL is the article title. This is why URLs like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki do not strike me as redundant or confusing. On the other hand, I ''would'' be confused if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview contained an overview of the Wikipedia. | ||
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki do not strike me as redundant or confusing. On the other hand, I ''would'' be confused if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview contained an overview of the Wikipedia. | |||
Our wiki sadly violates these expectations. We name some articles using a "naive" convention, so the page's subject is ambiguous | Our wiki sadly violates these expectations. We name some articles using a "naive" convention, so the page's subject is ambiguous. | ||
Latest revision as of 01:19, 30 June 2010
I feel like there's usability issues with some articles in the Fedora Project wiki. Here's a sample of some of them:
These pages should be renamed to be more indicative of their content. Specifically, "Fedora" should be included for project pages, non-wiki-like titles such as "Overview" should be renamed, and esoteric abbreviations like L10N should be expanded.
- Websites -> Fedora Websites
- Women -> Fedora Women
- L10N -> Fedora Localization
- Overview -> Fedora Project (or perhaps simply Fedora)
Most pages should not include Fedora, since the Fedora wiki already implies a bias towards Fedora-related information. For example, I expect a page on Red Hat contributions to contain contributions that Red Hat has made to Fedora, so I feel like this is a suitable name.
I don't think this bias is a strong enough reason to exclude it from project pages. I'm not likely to assume that page called "Websites" is a project page since the name gives me no indication. The repetition of "Fedora" and the capitalization in "Fedora Websites" in the URL reinforces the fact that the page is about a group called "Fedora Websites," rather than websites in Fedora.
Redirects from "Fedora *" do not sufficiently solve the problem. The title on the article page will still be without "Fedora" and so will still evoke confusion. Tooltips shown by mousing over a link will also show this ambiguous title.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't think the repetition of "Fedora" is necessary. http://fedoraproject.org/docs reads much better than http://fedoraproject.org/fedora_docs. This is because I read it as "the docs page in the Fedora Project" and I am not confused. More importantly, I don't have any learned expectations about its content.
Wiki pages do have learned expectations. When given a URL to a wiki page, I expect that the content will be an article, and I expect the last part of the URL is the article title. This is why URLs like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki do not strike me as redundant or confusing. On the other hand, I would be confused if http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview contained an overview of the Wikipedia.
Our wiki sadly violates these expectations. We name some articles using a "naive" convention, so the page's subject is ambiguous.