HymnWiki:Editing Conventions

Most of these editing conventions are not absolute; which ones are indicated under Absolute. Please follow them unless you have a good reason not to do so.

Absolute

Acceptable Content:

• See Appropriate Content for HymnWiki

Copyrights:

• See the copyright page.

Uploads:

• See the upload information page

Disclaimers

• See the Disclaimers.

Sheet Music

• When you add sheet music to an article, submit the article to search engines - like Google and Yahoo: Add a site to Google; Add a site to Yahoo.
• Also, once you have sheet music, for an article, feel free to make similar articles in the Choral Public Domain Library, linking to HymnWiki's articles; feel free to use links for sheet music uploaded to HymnWiki there if there is an article on HymnWiki linking to those files (i.e. if you don't want the CPDL license; also, the links will be helpful for advertising HymnWiki).
• If you already have sheet music on a HymnWiki article, feel free to hotlink directly to the sheet music files from Wikipedia, CPDL.org, and IMSLP.org (unless you don't have the right to the stuff, in which case you should get permission from the author). Though you should also put external links to the HymnWiki article if this doesn't violate any rules.

Hymnists

• Poets, composers, adapters, arrangers, and such (of all songs, hymns, etc.) go under the category Hymnists.
• Writers of song lyrics go under both Poets and Hymnists.
• Writers of song tunes go under both Composers and Hymnists.
• In hymnist articles, make sure to list both poetic works and musical compositions, as well as arrangements and adaptations.

Compilations

• For the article name of a compilation, put the full name of the hymnal, followed by a comma, followed by the year (if known).
• If the hymnal has a common name, plus the name of the publisher in parentheses in the article name, after the year.

Personal Statements

• If you feel inclined to make a statement on an article, which may be of some use, you may do so, provided you sign with ~~~~ after the statement. Remember, however, if someone else wishes, they may remove this. This should either be infrequent or under its own heading for such personal statements.

Standard Hymn Articles

(This section needs to be updated) Note that you are not required to do things in this standard format, but it may be helpful and is generally encouraged (you may, however, have something more aesthetically appealing - or you may have improvements upon this model).

• Here's an example text file containing a model: ModelHymnArticle.txt
• A standard and complete hymn article contains at least the following headers:
  • Sheet Music (if legal sheet music is available for HymnWiki)
  • Tunes
    • Put a section for each different tune here.
      • Put each composer under each tune.
  • Lyrics
    • Put the poet (lyric-writer) under this heading. Also put copyright information for the lyrics under this heading.
    • Cite sources for lyrics (in subheadings) as most hymns will have been published in more than one book, and they often differ from book to book.
• A standard hymn article contains at least the following categories:
  • Hymns, and the proper poetic meter categories (e.g. 8 8 8 8 - for Long Meter)
• Other common categories for a hymn article include the following:
  • Lyrics, Public Domain, Sheet Music, Public Domain Sheet Music, Public Domain Lyrics, Swedish Sheet Music

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)
• See and read disambiguation for information about what to do when articles want to have the same name.