User:SBJohnny/howto guidelines worksheet

Introduction

• General definition of how-tos

How-to books are textbooks designed for use in a vocational setting. This setting might be a classroom, a family project, or for self-teaching. Topic areas include home economics, crafts, construction and repair, and so on.

• Goals

Completed how-to books should provide clear and easy to understand instructions for the project at hand. These instructions should be accessible to a beginner, but detailed enough to be of use to an expert.

Standards

('Note - a good example is Cookbook

• Accurate descriptions of processes, easy to follow step-by step instructions
• Tools and materials well-described (linking to wikipedia may be acceptable in some instances)
• Well-categorised
  • (In general, the how-to categories need to be cleaned up to allow for clear structure).
    • Suggested splits below
• Well-defined topics
  • Particular modules should not describe more than one process. If there are alternative processes, perhaps use something like the disambig pages on wikipedia.
  • Not too narrow: unless a project has multiple stages that justify independent treatment (e.g.: "building a house"), it's better to keep the process on one page.
  • Flowcharts may be useful: some how-to modules may require flow charts for steps. This may override the preference for keeping all the steps on one page.

Transwikis

• Transwikis should be cleaned up and then put into the proper (sub) categories. In the case of transwikied articles from wikipedia that contain how-to information only in part, it may be useful to create a page using the form [[MODULENAME/Transwiki]], and use it as source material for the main module. The contribution history from the wikipedia side can be placed onto the talk page of the "/Transwiki" page.

Category structure

• Vocational manuals
  • Cooking
    • Recipes
    • Ingredients
    • Equipment
    • Outdoor cooking
      • Barbecue
      • Campfire cooking
  • Gardening
  • Survival
    • Disasters
    • Camping
      • Shelters
      • Foraging
      • Campfire cooking
  • Construction
  • Crafts
    • Woodworking
    • Metalworking
    • Stoneworking
    • Cloth and fibre
  • Maintenence
    • Automotive maintenence
    • Home
    • Machine
  • Electronics
• Self-help
  • Learning
  • Presentation