Pages

A page title is the large Level 1 heading displayed above each page's contents. The title indicates what the page is about and distinguishes it from other pages.

The title may simply be the name (or a name) of the subject of the page, or it may be a description of the topic.

This page explains the considerations, or naming conventions, on which choices of page title are based.

Deciding on a page title

A good IMSMA page title has the five following characteristics:

• Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject will recognize.
• Naturalness – The title is one that IMSMA users are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the page from other pages.
• Precision – The title is sufficiently identify the page's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
• Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the page's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
• Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar pages' titles.

Format

The following points are used in deciding on questions not covered by the five principles; consistency on these helps avoid duplicate articles:

• Keep titles short but descriptive.
• No two page titles should have the same title.
• The first letter of every word should be capital, except for prepositions, articles, etc.
• In general only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that term is always in a plural form in English or it is valid to use in an IMSMA context like Sub-Themes, Customise Views, localisation files, etc.
• Acronyms should be used in a page name if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject, otherwise avoid using Acronyms. All acronyms will be in the glossary.
• Titles cannot begin with a lowercase letter.
• Titles cannot contain certain restricted characters (e.g # < > [ ] | { } : ) and encoded characters (%, &#47) as well.
• MediaWiki treats Spaces ( ) and underscores (_) are equivalently. Underscores are used in URL and Spaces in displayed titles, there is no need to add underscore in the page titles.
• Titles should not include question marks.
• Titles cannot contain 3 or more contiguous tildes (~~~), as strings of tildes are used to create editors' signatures on talk pages.
• It is not possible for a title as stored in the database to contain formatting, such as italics or bolding. The double or triple apostrophes normally used to produce these effects in wikitext are treated just as groups of apostrophes if they appear in titles but avoid apostrophes and quotes unless absolutely required.
• Titles cannot contain images.

Section headings

Equal signs are used to mark the enclosed text as a section heading: ==Title== for a primary section; ===Title=== for the next level (a subsection); and so on to the lowest-level subsection, with =====Title=====. (The highest heading level technically possible is =Title=; but do not use it in pages, because it is reserved for the automatically generated top-level heading at the top of the page containing the title of the whole page.) The heading must be typed on a separate line. Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window.

Readability

An article longer than one or two pages when printed should be divided into sections to ease navigation. Articles that cover particularly technical subjects should, in general, be shorter than articles on less technical subjects.

Talk pages

• Stay on topic: Talk pages are for discussing the page, not for general conversation. Keep discussions focused on how to improve the page.
• Be positive: Article talk pages should be used to discuss ways to improve an article; not to criticize. However, if you feel something is wrong, but are not sure how to fix it, then by all means feel free to draw attention to this and ask for suggestions from others.
• Stay objective: Talk pages are not a forum for editors to argue their personal point of view about a controversial issue.
• Share material: The talk page can be used to "park" material removed from the article due to verification or other concerns. New material can be prepared on the talk page until it is ready to be put into the page.
• Discuss edits: The talk page is particularly useful to talk about edits. If one of your edits has been reverted, and you change it back again, it is good practice to leave an explanation on the talk page and a note in the edit summary that you have done so.
• Make proposals: New proposals for the page can be put forward for discussion by other editors if you wish. Proposals might include changes to specific details, page moves, merges or making a section of a long page into a separate page.
• Start new topics at the bottom of the page: If you put a post at the top of the page, it is confusing and can easily be overlooked. The latest topic should be the one at the bottom of the page, then the next post will go underneath yours and so on. This makes it easy to see the chronological order of posts. A quick way to do this is to use the "New section" tab next to the "Edit" button on the talk page you are on.

User talk pages

While the purpose of talk pages is to discuss the content of pages, the purpose of user talk pages is to draw the attention or discuss the edits of a user. IMSMA Wiki is not a social networking site, and all discussion should ultimately be directed solely toward the improvement of the wiki.

Users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages.