Here you will find some further information regarding some of the most common sections of an Appropedia page, format and general anatomy of a page.
Title[edit | edit source]
Page names in Appropedia should:
- Tell uninformed readers at a glance what the page is about (e.g. Deidre's vertical vegetable garden instead of "Daidre's project")
- Have only the first letter of the first word capitalized (e.g. Appropriate technology) except for:
- Proper names (e.g. Rachel Carson)
- Organization names (e.g. Fashion Revolution)
- Publication titles (e.g. Energy Conservation with Open Source Ad Blockers)
- Be a complete name rather than an acronym (note that redirects can be created from the acronym) except where:
- The acronym is better known (e.g. MIT)
- The acronym is part of a longer page name (e.g. AEF spiral herb garden) in which case the full meaning should be made clear in the beginning of the page
Note that in Appropedia, slashes / create subpages, so if you want a slash in the page title but not a subpage, use a backslash \ instead.
Lead section[edit | edit source]
The lead section of a page is the content after the title but before any section. Lead sections generally contain an introduction, abstract or summary of the entry, explaining its nature and importance in simple terms.
Lead sections often contain:
- A definition like "ABC is …" or "This page is ..."
- An image illustrating the entry
- A summary of the key points
- Relevant databoxes such as Template:Project data
- Important notices such as Template:References needed
Lead sections are important because they are the first and often the only part of the page that visitors see. Furthermore, the first sentences or paragraphs are often shown in search result snippets (on Appropedia, Google and beyond) and excerpts.
Table of contents[edit | edit source]
Appropedia automatically generates the standard index for all the pages that contain at least four sections, except those in which the command __NOTOC__ is present. Conversely, you can force the presence of the table of contents even on a page that has fewer than four sections, by adding the command __TOC__ to the text. These may be useful if the page is very long or very short.
Body[edit | edit source]
First of all, remember an entry is never complete. No matter how deeply you have dealt with a certain topic, there's always something more to explain, a note or a detail to add, a sentence, a paragraph, etc. It is also important to cite the sources of what has been written so that the information reported is verifiable. It is necessary to be complete in explaining at least the most important aspects, but without exceeding.
Take your time to do justice to a topic that is particularly close to your heart, and make sure you don't make any grammatical or syntactic errors. When you are satisfied with the result, simply click on the Save Page button, which you find exactly below the editor you just used.
