HymnWiki:Editing Conventions

Most of these editing conventions are not absolute. Please follow them unless you have a good reason not to do so.

Copyrights

• Make every attempt possible to verify the copyright information before posting. Make sure to list the copyright of anything you submit, and never submit anything you do not have the rights to submit. Generally speaking, a work is in the public domain if it was published in or before the year 1923. Put all public domain items in the Public Domain category.

Hymnists

• Poets, composers, adapters, arrangers, and such all go under the category Hymnists. If you do make separate "poets" and "composers" categories, don't forget to add the Hymnists category.
• In hymnist articles, make sure to list both poetic works and musical compositions, as well as arrangements and adaptations.
• If known, put the birth and death years in parenthesis after a hymnist's name (for the article title): i.e. Robert Robinson (1735 - 1790) instead of Robert Robinson, as there may be several hymnists named Robert Robinson. If the years are unknown, try some other identifier in parentheses. This isn't a huge deal if there is only one Robert Robinson (but doing it now makes it so someone doesn't have to do it later).

Music and Lyric Dating

• When saying who wrote the tune/lyrics, in an article, put the hymnist's birth and death years, if known, in parenthesis; put the date the song was written or first published afterward, as in the following example: Robert Robinson (1735 - 1790), 1758

Category Casing

• If there is already a category or some such with a certain casing, don't bother making a new one with different casing: i.e. if Spanish Compilations is a category, don't bother making one called Spanish compilations; there's no need for both, and one will be missing some unless someone is doing a lot of work.

Misc.

• List the poetic meter for hymns (note if they differ from tune to tune, as the lyrics are sometimes repeated, depending on the tune); meters should be listed in the categories for the hymn.
• List tune names if known, and what other songs they are used with (perhaps even in their own article).
• Avoid obscurity when referring to authors of works (i.e. 'composer'/'poet'/'arranger'/'adapter' instead of 'writer'/'author'; however, 'hymnists' is the preferred category for all of these - the articles about the hymnists themselves should say precisely what they are)