Appropedia:Page naming

This is a proposed Appropedia guideline. You can edit it, or discuss it on the talk page or at the Appropedia policy discussion page.

For now, this should be considered an essay by one or more Appropedians, and not as a policy or guideline.

Warning: Do not use & # < > [ ] | { } in page titles. (It will cause errors and the saved page will not be accessible.)

General guidelines

Page names in Appropedia should:

1. Tell readers at a glance what the general subject area is (E.g. "Smithville Local Exchange Trading System" and "SLETS (Smithville Local Exchange Trading System)" are both good, rather than just "SLETS". (Help:Redirects can be created from the other names.) "Pete's efficient stove" is better than "Pete's project")
2. have only the first letter of the first word capitalized, e.g. Appropriate technology, unless it is:
   • a proper name,
   • the name of an organization,
   • the title of a publication.
3. be a complete name rather than an acronym, except where:
   • the acronym is better known,
   • the acronym is part of a longer article name - in which case the full meaning should be made clear in the beginning of the page.
4. be a unique name (i.e. not just the general topic name. For a personal project, "Ruth's mango orchard" is better than "Mango orchard".)
5. use very few, or better yet, no symbols - especially ampersands (&). Due to technical clashes, the following characters can never be used in page titles: & # < > [ ] | { } If you create a page with one of these characters by accident, and can't access the page, take these steps:
   1. If you have a copy of the page (e.g. by clicking "back" and then copying everything in the edit box) then make a new page with that same text.
   2. An admin can delete the page for you. If you don't have a copy, tell them and they can copy the page for you (with effort) before deleting the old copy. (Instructions for admins at Help:Correcting bad titles.)

Specific guidelines

Following are hints on naming different types of pages

Topics

The name of the page should describe the specific subject area. The title should be, as far as possible:

• Brief
• Accurate
• Easy to understand
• Consistent with common usage

Project

• Organization name_Project type - Example: AEF Greywater
• Project location_Project type - Example: Occidental Greywater
• Your name_Project type - Example: Aleiha's parabolic solar cooker (although without the apostraphe may be better).

Organization

• Full organization name - Example:Potawot

Organization chapters

• EWB NameOfChapter - Example: EWB Australia

How to

• Detailed name, describing exactly what is being instructed in the article - Examples: How to measure stream flow rate, How to avoid the heat island effect.

Program

• Full name of program, Example: Parras summer program

Supplies

• Yourareaname_supplies - Example:Humboldt CA Supplies (although Humboldt California supplies would be better)

Coordination

• Name of organization, program, project or location where coordination is taking place - hoped for final product name.
• For global coordinations, just use the hoped for final product name, Example: Low cost computer guide

Resource

This is for resources that would be placed under a topic. These pages are almost always under another category as well. Please peruse the other categories, to see if there is one that can direct your naming better.

Thesis

• Name of your thesis - Example: Water management and culture in Indonesian cities

See also

• Help:Moving a page - how to rename (move) a page.