Thread:Thoughts on related issues -- over & above style guide recommendations ...... (1)

I'm very pleased to see this organic emergence of a work group looking at style guidelines :-) -- A few additional thoughts:


 * We may need to develop a concise resource on the rationale for guidelines -- eg promoting consistency etc. Perhaps this should be specified as an outcome in the Charter for the workgroup.
 * Personally, I feel that style guidelines should be an incentive rather than a disincentive for collaboration --- We need to think carefully about the processes whereby we implement the style guidelines. Sadly, some wiki projects use style guidelines as a mechanism to reprimand newbies for not adhering to agreed process. I would love to see a wiki that tolerates experimentation and learning. Perhaps we need to think about a mechanism whereby primary authors opt into the style guidelines. For example -- a category or template which says "I want to improve my resource by adhering to style guidelines -- help!" rather than a witch hunt for pages that don't meet style guidelines. Basically if an author doesn't physically request style guideline compliance -- the style guide police should leave the page alone.
 * How do we incorporate the style guidelines with the QAF framework as an incentive?
 * What training materials, resources do we need to support prospective style experts in our community?