User:Cpiral/essay on wikipediaStyle

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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Collaborative Style

Collaboration software could be a new, governing, tool of democracy. It's being watched by the millions, and soon to be billions. Let's see how one "Wikipedia" displays its collaborated style, how it pans out, and let's see how their "voting" affected the content of four key articles.

Five Pillars

The Five pillars page is highly compact--almost screen-sized. Yum. Icons start sentences. The starting phrase of sentences a link five or six words long. A language box offers 260 languages. It is notworthy that when viewing other languages, the icon remains the same, but the linking has changed dramatically, as has the wording and paragraph size and aesthetic style. (Apparently many many tongues need MediaWiki, and don't need to be told the Five Pillars of collaborating online before they start contributing because, even without that tongue's Five Pillars article being as polished as the English version, they can "somehow" have many more articles than their Five pillars could seem to hold up.) Five Pillars is page-fit, iconic, simple, edible, and in English, the article repeats a theme and a style about how to write right: be moral, be supportable. The many hands polishing the page shows up in many places, but I noticed the six shortcuts arranged not in alphabetical order, but in hourglass; the constant tick of period and comma punctuation, partitioning-out perfectly compacted and polished prose, linked heavily, but linked in consideration of those readers who are scanning quickly. The links are easy to understand if you wish, and thus hide the subtle fact that any link is an invitation to complexity. A modicum of "easy and simple" the Five Pillars article's "simplified rules" link says that rule 12 is "ignore all rules".

The Edit warring policy document has a style fitting for its subject. It is not plain, direct, unambiguous, or specific, (despite policy and guideline style), but neither is a person who wisely practices "keep your enemies close". It has an unclear terminology and a harsh style. This is no doubt because the setting is the dust and smoke of war and wikilawyering. It starts off with saber rattling, and goes on in a style meant to thwart wikilawyering.

Manual of Style

Manual of style is wordy and long, unlike Five pillars. Because style refers to word style, wordiness and length is highly appropriate and acceptable here. Even so, the content per section is limited to managable chunks. Subpages hide intimidating volumes of information, yet keeps it "on the level" with the body of text, as a sidebar. Readers happily begin a perilous journey of "only twenty-five section"

Notable in the style of the style of styles is that this article starts with

a self concept: it is yet another Manual of Style in the field
a self categorization: it is a guideline
a self reference: use the namespace "Wikipedia:" to locate the manual of style
a self context: it offers an environment for similar need: an editing index

Recursively speaking, all these are good examples of style by example in a style manual. And it ends with 'six' sections of fashion: Links, Misc., Notes, Further Reading...

Be Bold

The "Be Bold" Wikipedia off with yet another kind of banner--an "If you're Lost" signpost, complete with a set of possible intended destinations for these cyber-folk . It has the usual Guidelines box, but it also has something unique: a logo for the article frames the lead paragraph with the Guidelines box. The style of the Be Bold article is bold. I would not, until now, have dared to start a section title with an ellipsis, the way it displays "...but please be careful". The page is so often degraded it has three times the average number of watchers.

Copyright

Copyright is colorful, like the colorful and dangerous creatures in nature. It uses a light pink background to attract attention. The page is locked, with the obvious icon, and the normal "edit this page" tab is displaying "view source" instead; also there, in the very start of the article is a box containing the often seen words "Changes made to it should reflect consensus." All this beautifully echos a common theme: danger.

Summary

All the articles whose style was reviewed here, have been shaped by many hands over many years. They are also all guides in nature, and supposedly shaped by experts who know the landscape. What is most revealing about this tour of style study is the way the articles style reflects the article's subject in a linguistic relativity. They did not have to prove linguistic relativity, but the article about words' style was wordy, the article about protection was colorful and locked, the article about boldness had a crazy logo, and the article about the foundation was short and wide. These developments are not accidental, although they may have been subconscious; they are a result of the natural mental tendency to find what we seek and to create our own reality.