Wikidata:Glossary/Guidelines

This page contains general guidelines and rules to write entries of the Wikidata:Glossary to its ensure consistency and usability.

Purpose of the glossary

• Allow people not familiar with Wikidata to look up relevant terms
• Directed readers to relevant help pages
• Help to establish a consistent terminology for help pages and discussions

Structure and content of the glossary

• The glossary is sorted alphabetically as one single list of entries. To allow sorting in any language, the list is put into a table.
• The glossary should contain all basic concepts and jargon relevant to Wikidata. In particular
  • Terms that appear in the user interface
  • Terms that appear frequently in help pages
  • Terms that are used frequently on talk pages

Structure of a glossary entry

Each entry consists of:

• the name of the concept marked in bold. Don't use bold anywhere else!
• alternative names of the concept (marked in italic)
• the English name of the concept (if you write the glossary in a different language than English) marked in italic
• a definition of the concept
• description of the context (where is the concept relevant)
• one or two brief examples
• a link to the dedicated help page of the concept. Use this syntax: {{see|Help:Topic|Topic}}

The format of an entry:

• Each entry is one single paragraph only
• It should contain of between 3 and 7 sentences
• Use simple and short sentences

Adding new entries

To add a new glossary entry to the English glossary, use copy the following snippet and include in into the source in alphabetical order. Please don't add too general or too specific concepts and respect the rules of this guidelines.

|-
| style="border-bottom: 1px dotted black" | {{anchor|Foo}}<translate>
'''Foo''' (also ''bar'') is a concept used to illustrate a glossary entry. {{see|Help:Foo}}
</translate>

Caveats

• Don't assume background knowledge. Each entry should be understandable alone without having to read the other entries.
• Glossary entries must be short. Don't try to explain all of Wikidata in one entry but refer to related entries and help pages!
• Link to other glossary entries via its anchor ([[#anchor|title]]). Avoid additional links in the entry.