Continuing the discussion from What if a group changes name?:
What would realy help people like me, that, while not completely newborn babes, lack the long history with the MB community: a collection of guidelines that are considered best practice, but without the full weight of a style guideline. At best with a rationale for each paragraph.
People are complaining that the style guides are too detailed, but I often find them not detailed enough: a particular question of mine is not explained there, but has been discussed to death before on IRC/lists/forums.
Collecting this knowledge in a central place would also allow evolving it along with the capabilities of the software. Like when artist credits (or aliases, etc.) made a number of practices obsolete.
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I totally agree with the sentiment, but adding another page to:
- Begginners Guide
- Style Guidelines
- How Tos
- FAQs
- Documentation Index
Is not the answer imo, both for the end-user, and whoever has to keep that mess updated.
We could perhaps lay out the guidelines to have a clear and concise ‘basic’ version at the top, and then expand on the more complex examples below.
I’m also a bit confused because your post seems to want less detail than the style guidelines, but then you say you want more detail?
I created a similar topic not too long ago: Should the guidelines cover everything? I think the discussion could have been continued for longer, so I’m glad you revived it.
@reosarevok and @aerozol suggested that the guidelines overall should aim to be as clear and concise as possible, with complex details omitted when possible. This vision of the guidelines seems similar to what you’re suggesting. I requested that if that’s the case, that aim should also be stated somewhere in the guidelines. I also suggested that the community should be used as a database for minor issues that don’t fit in the concise guidelines.