User:Acunning40/guidelines

Guidelines-related links

items changed in guidelines revision 1.9.d (March/April 2007)
items changed in guidelines revision 1.9.e (July 2007)
items changed in guidelines revision 2.0 (March 2009)
items not changed: These are suggestions collected in the Documentation forum from December 2005 through July 2008 (give or take a bit), but not changed in v2.0. The list will likely be useful to future guidelines editors, since there were plenty of good suggestions that didn't make it into v2.0 due to time constraints or other reasons.

These are some notes from my experience in updating the guidelines.

check for "proof" and make sure it's always "proofread"—site documentation uses e.g. "proofreading" not "proofing"
check the section titles in the TOC against those in the body of the guidelines
usage of the word "need": sometimes we say "there is no need" for something that's optional, while other times it's just a polite way of saying "don't do it". Be careful when using phrases like this—make sure that the guidelines are clear on whether it's required, optional, or forbidden.
links to other sections of the guidelines wherever needed
keep in mind that the contents of the guidelines will appear elsewhere (in the random rules). It's generally better to say "See [link to whatever section] for details" rather than "See the previous section for details".
Any title in h3 markup will become a random rule. Don't use double quotes in section titles—use " instead of the actual character if you need double quotes.
- If you need HTML markup that involves double quotes in a section title, it's best to make a note of it and inform the squirrel who generates the new random rules because it will require manual fixing—at least at the time of this writing (June 2009).
check locations of the "END RR" html comments
once in a sandbox, run the files through the W3C validator to check for markup errors (ignore any issues related to the autogenerated stuff at the top of the page—just look for any errors appearing within the guidelines contents)

keep track of other files that are added, removed, or changed in the process (e.g. pdfs, images used in examples, etc.) and make sure that the squirrel who commits and installs the new guidelines has a complete list of affected files
files that may be affected by guidelines changes:
- revision history (faq/dochist.php)
- pdf guidelines summaries (start with the corresponding .odt document in OpenOffice and then produce the pdf from that)
- pdf shortcut charts if any changes are made to the shortcut tables (start with the corresponding .odt document in OpenOffice and then produce the pdf from that)
- quizzes
- proofreading/formatting interface (e.g. adding a new button if there's new markup)
- BEGIN project comments template (pinc/templates/comment_files/BG1b.txt)
- the "Simple Proofreading Rules", present on the P1 page for newbies (pinc/simple_proof_text.inc)
- update forum thread url in pinc/faq.inc once a new thread is started
regenerate the random rules
contact people about translation
close tasks as appropriate
create site news announcements if there's any substantial guidelines change, linking to the guidelines & the guidelines discussion thread