[wp-docs] Titles for Codex pages

[Morgan Doocy]

On Dec 16, 2004, at 2:45 AM, Chris Waigl wrote:
> Matthew and Morgan suggested not to use "How to ..." in titles. I
> agree half-way with this: They are right, I think, for the most common
> points, but IMHO the smaller points are better treated in a "How to
> ..." format -- things that don't go under a big title like
> "Installation" or somesuch.

Yes, this is very true. There will definitely be circumstances where 
using "How to" just feels more natural -- in which case, by all means, 
use "How to". My only concern is in its over-use.

> A much more serious problem: Some pages now have the -ing form not
> only in how they appear in the Codex text but also in the pagename
> itself. For example,
> http://codex.wordpress.org/How_to_Back_Up_the_Database has been moved 
> to
> http://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_up_your_database -- This means that
> a user who types "backup" or "back up" in the search field won't be
> guided to this page any longer! The verb forms in the page URLs need
> to be in the 'naked' infinitive.

Good point. But wouldn't the user looking for "installing WordPress" 
also have the same issue? Or, conversely, the user who searches for 
"installation" if we named it "Installing WordPress"? I think in the 
case of that word a user would be less likely to use the naked 
"install" and more likely to use "installation" or "installing" -- so 
how do we design for that?

Granted, to go back to the example in question, users may be a bit more 
likely to search for "backup" than "backing up", But are the drawbacks 
of the search tool something we can really design for? If need be, we 
can also set up redirects at Backup and Back_up.

Additionally, while I know that there are two types of users -- those 
who tend to go straight for the search box, and those who tend to 
browse first -- I do think that the better we design text and 
navigation on the site, the fewer people we will lose to the search 
box.

> We are running into huge problems if we start creating pages whose
> wiki page names contains conjugated verbs.

In support of the usability of present participles: a quick flip 
through the reference books at my desk shows zero section headers with 
straight infinitives. If they're about a thing, they use a noun, 
usually plural; if they're about an action, they use a present 
participle: using, getting, storing, determining. In fact, every 
chapter I look through in the TOC of my Perl Cookbook -- a how-to 
manual if there ever was one -- begins _every single_ section, save the 
Introduction and Examples sections, with an "-ing". Not a single 
straight infinitive.

The only context that I can think of where a straight infinitive -- 
well, imperative really -- is actually appropriate is in the context of 
an ordered instruction list: type this, go here, do that. Which would 
only be found within the body of an article, not as part of the 
article's title, or even a subheader.

While I do think the "-ing"s are a bit odd to look at while you're 
designing text, I also think that there's a very strong precedent for 
titling of instructional articles that creates very specific, but 
subconscious, grammatical expectations for users.

Morgan