StyleGuide

The Stock Investor Support Wiki style guide aims to make the Stock Investor support Knowledge Base consistent, resulting in a knowledge base that is easy to read and contribute to. These are not rigid rules. If you feel you have good reason not to follow any of these guidelines, feel free not to follow them. Conversely, do not be surprised if your contributions are edited, to comply the style guide.

Tips and hints

• Use a clear but informal voice. Expect others to elaborate or complete your writing. (This is easiest if you write in third person.)
• Notes and comments need not be in chronological order on the page -- add them where they seem to fit best, possibly set apart or as separate page with a link inserted in the original text.
• First person accounts are suitable when reporting experience not easily reduced to facts or advice, e.g. anecdotal, personal opinion or added comments. Sign these. Such can often form dialogue threads.
  • I think wikiwiki servers are interesting. -- WikiSignature

Note that this kind of signature points to a page where we would expect a presentation of who "WikiSignature" is. This is the joy of hyperlinked text.

One useful wiki-convention when "commenting" is WikiWord in someone's text to create "open links" ("?"-prefixed) when you feel some further clarification or explanation is needed -- You can in fact do this in your own text to invite comment or elaboration from others. A later reader will then (hopefully) be prompted to provide this content. This can be as a new page, or by again editing and adding to the original text (possibly removing the open link).

Horizontal rules can be used to set apart different voices, subtopics or context breaks. (The end-of-page rule is automatically added by the server.)

Preferred style guides

If you have questions about usage and style not covered here, we recommend referring to Read Me First! A Style Guide for the Computer Industry, or the Economist style guide. Failing that, use the Chicago Manual of Style.

Capitalization

Capitalize the following items:

• Proper nouns
• The letters of many abbreviations and acronyms
• The first letter of the first word in numbered or * bulleted lists
• The first letter of each term that identifies the name of a key on the keyboard
• The first letter of the first word of a complete sentence
• The first letter of the first word of a complete sentence following a colon
• The first letter of the first word in a title or heading
  • Good: How to make Firefox your default browser
  • Bad: How To Make Firefox Your Default Browser

Dates

• For dates use the format: January 1, 1990.
  • Good: December 31, 2007
  • Bad: December 31st, 2007
  • Bad: 31 December, 2007
• Alternatively, you can use YYYY-MM-DD
  • Good: 2007-12-31
  • Bad: 31-12-2007
  • Bad: 12-31-2007

Headings

Use heading 1 (h1) for the highest level headings.

General spelling, grammar, and punctuation

United States English spelling is preferred.

• Good: color
• Bad: colour

If you're unsure of spelling, refer to Answers.com.

Latin abbreviations

Common Latin abbreviations (etc., i.e., e.g.) may be used in parenthetical expressions and in notes. Use periods in these abbreviations.

• Good: Search engines (e.g. Google) can be used ...
• Bad: Search engines e.g. Google can be used ...
• Bad: Search engines, e.g. Google, can be used ...
• Bad: Search engines, (eg: Google) can be used ...

Pluralization

Use English-style plurals, not the Latin- or Greek-influenced forms.

• Good: viruses
• Bad: virii

Serial commas

Use the serial comma. The serial (also known as "Oxford") comma is the comma that appears before "and" in a series of three or more items.

• Green: Clear your cache, cookies, and history.
• Bad: Clear your cache, cookies and history.