Should we Ask for Reasonable Consistency in Style for Things like "WordPress" (vs. wordpress, Wordpress), etc.?

Question

Question: Should we publish style guidelines for the site and when not followed make edits or should we let people choose to write in whatever style they prefer including non-standard casing of WordPress, spelling of words like "ppl", "ru", all lowercase, etc?

I don't expect everyone will read and follow the style guidelines (actually I expect most won't) but it's relatively easy to do a quick edit as long as the volume is not overwhelming (and if it is then we can have more volunteer?) And I think it will make the site and much nicer experience for visitors and thus case them to want to use the site even more.

But I made an edit and asked someone to use proper capitalization and he replied that I should not edit his stuff and that he wants to use a casing convention that is contrary to the WordPress trademark.

As a user with high reputation points the system gives me the rights to edit other people's stuff but I don't want to unilaterally decide what the rules are.

What do you think? Should we set and uphold standards for style, casing and quality of writing here or should we just let it be a free-for-all? (yes, there is bias in my question but I'm being explicit about it.)

Thanks in advance,

-Mike

Answer 1

I see no problem in fixing general spelling errors. This is also the sentiment on Stack Overflow. For the difference between US, British or other variants of English, a good rule-of-thumb is to stay with the variant of the original poster (since all variants are correct, as long as you remain consistent). The only exception is for tags, which must match: they are in US-English. If you fix spelling errors, remove unnecessary text ("Hello", "Thank you", ...), or chat language, you improve the question or the answer, just like you would do when you add formatting or a code example.

However, I would stay away from the way people spell WordPress, because this will lead to energy-draining edit wars. In your example, we know hakre knows enough about WordPress, so when he writes Wordpress or wordpress it's not a mistake, but a deliberate choice. If the user is new here and the rest of the post shows poor spelling, you could try to replace it, but otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Answer 2

I agree generally with Jan Fabry, but I also think that a bit of personal style goes a long way in both a) making an answer easier to read (by making it more interesting to read) and b) fostering a sense of community. Fixing spelling and grammar errors is useful (maybe essential?), but sterilizing the "voice" of an answer is not.

Having said that, the word "WordPress" is a special case (no pun intended). It is the proper name of the one specific software package that this site is devoted to and that we supposedly are discussing at an expert level. The least we can do is ensure it is always spelled (and cased) correctly on this site.

Answer 3

As a non native speaker I’m always grateful for any help. But most of the time the text should not be “fixed” unless it is absolutely necessary. Especially “wordpress” may be not an error but a statement against “censorship”. ;)

Oh, and one note: This question showed up four times in the newsfeed due to massive title editing. That was rather annoying.

Answer 4

Sometimes a question or answer needs to be edited so that it makes sense. If the reader has to re-read a statement multiple times to glean meaning from poor grammar, incorrect spelling, or overused chat lingo, then it needs to be edited. Most times, I'd defer to the original poster by asking them in the comments to rephrase their question, but sometimes that's not possible (infrequent users, non-native English speakers, etc.). In those cases, a quick edit so long as it doesn't change the original tone or quality of the question is appropriate.

Anything that's along the lines of censorship, though, would be off limits. Editors and moderators have a lot of power, and removing humor or colloquialisms that were intentionally used reeks of editorial abuse.

That said, the product we're discussing is "WordPress" ... with proper camelcase formatting. At the same time, there has been plenty of discussion/debate/arguing/bloodshed over how the formatting of this term should be performed. Some developers are intentionally misusing the camelcase as a form of protest. Not everyone, but some.

In the majority of cases, I'd say we should ask that people use the proper camelcase for WordPress. If they forget to, it shouldn't be a big deal to fix the oversight. In some situations, though, where we know the poster knows better it can be left alone. If hakre used "Wordpress" intentionally, that's his right. Now that we know it's a conscious decision, we should leave it alone from this point forward.

Other formatting (headers, lists of reference links, etc) should follow simple guidelines. Most likely set up in the FAQs. Well-formatted questions and answers are easier to read and build a higher-quality site. We should encourage formatting as much as possible and, if necessary, offer to fix mistakes as appropriate.

Answer 5

I also think the proper case ("WordPress") should be used, though I've started thinking that it should actually be removed from most titles, e.g. "Trying to get fittext to work in Wordpress" to "Trying to get fittext to work in Wordpress". Someone with much higher rep. than me actually edited my edit to replace "WordPress" with "Wordpress" which is what made me track down this question here.

My thought process now is that you're on WordPress Answers asking a WordPress question so ostensibly you're trying to get something to work in WordPress. So much repetition and redundancy sometimes makes my right eyelid twitch.