Wiki standards

Here are the basic standards for posting and editing in the wiki. Discussion and questions are in the discussion page.

Minimize creative editing, seeking best alignment with New Message with least editorializing.

Headers, a necessary exception

Feel free to use your own words as placeholders when creating headers. All headers are subject to review for replacement with words found in the quotes or elsewhere in New Message

Feel free to make headers more "new message-y" as you see fit

Excerpt quotes precisely and aptly

Copy any complete thought from the New Message word for word, with freedom to edit capitalization or punctuation to isolate the concept.

Always check the context of your quote and ask: what is this section about? Is it about the keyword of my wiki page here? If the quote is really about another subject, put it on that page and put a "see also" (x-ref) to that page.

Brackets ( [ ] )

No use of brackets except as found on texts edited by Marshall. All brackets will have editor's note <!--visible only in edit mode-->by all brackets that have been checked against Marshall's final manuscript edit (as found on the newmessage.org website).

A work-around when one word or so will summarize the essence of a paragraph:

Introduce a quote with a leading topic outside of the quotation marks. Example:

Knowledge "is the core strength that you have, the core integrity, the core certainty, the core power. It is the source of the enduring love within you."

Format--capitalization, punctuation--and style choices

Minimize ellipses.

No need to lead off the sentence with ellipsis marks ("dot-dot-dot"--" ...") to show words are missing; just capitalize the beginning of the edited sentence.

No need to put [S]quare brackets on a capitalization, nor for ellipses to prematurely end a sentence....

Keep the ellipsis outside the quotes by marking each solid quote, e.g.: "God has" ... "spoken again."

Rule: Quotation marks will enclose a passage from the original revelation in its complete wording.

Sentence case

Use sentence case for titles of wiki page. I.e., capitalize only if if the word is capitalized in the New Message.

So, according to use of sentence case, capitalize only proper nouns in wiki page titles. Result: a slight more ease for later embedding interior links to the page. This recommendation is OPTIONAL, as the tendency to capitalize is strong (evidently!).

Also, sentence case for sentences in titles

Step titles from Steps to Knowledge and

Chapters from Greater Community Spirituality

"The" in page titles

The word "the" is allowed but not encouraged. It is o.k. to use what feels right to you--if it just doesn't work without putting "the" at the beginning, go ahead. If you can avoid it, please do. For example, "The Collectives" refers to the ones who are visiting Earth, while "Collectives" includes all collectives. Both pages could co-exist, depending on how substantial the content for both.

Media Files

Images should be no larger than 160px x 280px or so. There are many exceptions that need removal or resizing.

No photoquotes

Images only, no text.

Any exception may be removed.

Images files already uploaded are found at the gallery of new files. Some have been added to the discussion page for Images for easy browsing.

New pages

Every page should be a topic, a subject, referred to in the New Message. The clearer and more direct, the better. There are a few exceptions: the feeds page, and this one, for example.

Original writing

Avoid all original writing (in headers only as necessary), though members of the Society will be writing summaries or blurbs on some pages--please do not delete those. These words by The Society will appear at the top of a page with no quotation marks. O.k. to add format their words in italics or bold for emphasis.

Optimal page layout

The following sequence could work as a guide: Sections for a page. The wiki page should lead with the most direct statement on the topic, sometimes written by Society member (and italicized to emphasize their authorship), or most succinct and memorable quotes on a topic, proceeding to specific and detailed perspectives. Pages overloaded with extensive detail can calve off new pages.

Quotes & Quotation Marks

All quotations should be as brief as possible: 2 paragraphs max.

Longer than one paragraph? Put in <blockquote></blockquote> to preserve breaks between verses.

Each different quotation from the same teaching gets their own open/close quotation marks.

All direct quotes should be wrapped in quotation marks.

All quotations should be cited:

As chapters from books of The One Book

• include book title, chapter number and chapter name if published as a printed book in a volume of The One Book
• include the title and date of the revelation if not published in a book

Add links wherever you can to the teaching on newmessage.org, stepstoknowledge.org, alliesofhumanity.org, greatwavesofchange.org

The quotation and the citation (the name of the source revelation) are the only essential elements! For your convenience, the reference can simply be indicated below the quotation with indentation, using four colons. For example:

The New God (January 5, 2025)

Ref tags

Ref tags can always be added later, using this format:

<ref>The New God (January 5, 2025)</ref>

which winds up looking like this

• All pages with ref tags need this header with the single entry added below:

==References== <references/>