Introduction to Structurism
Structurism is a broad editing philosophy emphasizing interconnection, organization, and uniformity as the best way to improve the usefulness of content across all Wikimedia projects. Structurism provides five interconnected advantages to users and editors, by making Wikipedia:
1. Navigable
- Allows users to find relevant content quickly and easily
2. Accessible
- Allows all users—including impaired and mobile users—to access content
3. Intelligible
- Allows users to understand content
4. Editable
- Allows users to improve existing content (for example, by identifying gaps and redundancies)
5. Translatable
- Allows users (and bots) to parse and migrate content to other languages and sister projects
Types of structurism
[edit ]Inter- (navigational) vs. intra- (informational)
[edit ]- Inter-structurism constitutes "building the web"—making connections between content pages.
- Intra-structurism constitutes the way content is organized for presentation within content pages.
Exo- vs. meta-
[edit ]- Exopedian structurism is concerned with the application of structure to encyclopedic content.
- Metapedian structurism is concerned with the application of structure to the practice of encyclopedia-building itself.
Tools and techniques
[edit ]Wikipedia provides a large array of structural tools. To become a more effective structurist, familiarize yourself with these tools and apply them as appropriate. Some tools, like wikilinking and categorization, will apply to nearly every page you work on. Others, like maps and tables, will only apply to some pages. (Note that several of the links below are specific to the English-language Wikipedia; guidelines for using these tools may vary between languages and projects.)
Inter-
[edit ]Connecting related articles
[edit ]- Wikilinks
- Categories
- Navigation boxes/Article series
- Books
- Portals
- Wikidata relationships
- Interlanguage links
- Interwiki links
Helping the reader find the right article
[edit ]Intra-
[edit ]Types of articles with different purposes
[edit ]Ways of structuring information
[edit ]- Accessibility
- Infoboxes
- Images and diagrams
- Embedded lists
- Graphs and charts
- Maps
- Summary style
- Tables
- Wikidata
Meta-
[edit ]Display your philosophy
[edit ]Join the Association of Structurist Wikipedians, and display the {{User structurist}} box on your userpage!
Relation to other wiki philosophies
[edit ]Mediawikianism is a related philosophy that emphasizes the role of the Mediawiki software in organizing and improving the encyclopedia.
Structurism does not entail any specific position with regard to deletionism vs. inclusionism, mergism vs. separatism, immediatism vs. eventualism, or any of the various philosophies of wiki governance.