STYLE GUIDE for Taper, updated 2023-12-17 GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR ALL HTML FILES - Files are to have LF line endings (Linux and Mac style), not CRLF. The files will eventually be hosted on a Linux server. Also, converting LF to CRLF line endings could actually make an originally 2KB poem exceed the limit! - Files are to be encoded in UTF-8. - Files use tabs for indentations, not spaces. GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR ALL TEXT - Use the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style: https://chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html - For matters not covered there, use the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: https://merriam-webster.com/ - Use the Oxford or series comma (e.g., “my parents, God, and Ayn Rand”) - Use an en dash (-) to separate number and date ranges. - Use an em dash (-) without spaces around it when used in text. - Use typographical quotes, “” and ‘’, and a typographical apostrophe, ’ - Titles are not capitalized unless immediately before names: “Pope Francis” and “Professor Moriarity” are correct, but use “Francis, the pope” and “Moriarity, professor of mathematics.” - The names of academic disciples are not capitalized (computer science, art history, etc.) unless they are also languages (e.g., English) - The names of organizations, such as academic programs and deparments, are capitalized (MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, UCSC Computational Media). - Abbreviations for degrees are presented as done at the particular institution, but always without periods (PhD, MFA, BS at most schools but SB at MIT because it is an abbreviation for the Latin name used there) PROCESS NOTE - The publisher will run linkchecker to make sure that the contents of href attributes are valid URLs, absolute or relative. - The OpenGraph metadata and URLs that appear in comments still have to be validated the old-fashioned way. CREATIVE STATEMENTS AND COMMENTS WITHIN POEMS - Separate multiple paragraphs in the statement with blank lines. - The title as shown at the top of the creative statement must match: 1. The title in the title element 2. The OpenGraph title metadata 3. The title as given in “index.html” 4. The title as given in “about.html” 5. The title as given in the poem page’s navigation header - The author’s name at the top of the creative statement must match: 1. The OpenGraph author metadata 2. The mention of the author in the OpenGraph description metadata 3. The author’s name as given in “index.html” 4. The author’s name in “about.html” 5. The author’s name as given in the poem page’s navigation header - Wrap all text to 72 characters with some exceptions: 1. The top line with the copyright message should be kept on one line. 2. Do not break a URL that is longer than 72 characters. 3. The editors may make special exceptions for creative statements that have innovative formatting. AUTHOR BIOS - End with a complete sentence including a period. - If URLs work without “www.” omit that from the beginning of them. - If links work with https use that protocol, otherwise, http. - Follow the spirit of the Chicago Manual of Style as best as possible with regard to whether words should be surrounded by quotation marks or set in italics: Standalone works are italicized, those published along with other works are typeset in quotation marks. This is not always clear with digital work, but that’s the principle. FILE NAMING AND SITE STRUCTURE - Each issue’s files are located in a directory with the number of that issue (e.g, “7” for issue #7). No leading zeros are used. - Each issue has an “index.html” “about.html” and “template.zip”—all of which must be updated from issue to issue, including the template. - Poem files are placed directly in the main issue directory. - Poem filenames consist of lowercase letters, numerals, and underscores only, followed by “.html” - The filename should be a form of the title. In the most straightforward case this will be the title set in lowercase and with underscores instead of spaces, e.g., “356_trillion_haikus.html” or “up.html” - Do not include definite or indefinite articles at the beginning of poem filenames. That is, remove the English articles “a” “an” and “the”—as well as any articles in other languages. - Include only a work’s title in the filename, not any subtitle. - Use short “slugs” for filenames, two words if possible and not many more in any case. Abbreviate the title in a way that makes sense editorially. - Each issue’s directory has a directory “images” inside it which contains images referred to in the OpenGraph metadata for each poem. - The image filenames corresponding to each poem are the same as for the poem, with the extension “.jpg” instead of “.html” - The images are 600×600 and in JPEG format. SOCIAL MEDIA CARDS - Each poem has the following OpenGraph metadata in the head element: 1. title 2. author 3. type (the content is always “website”) 4. description (the content is always “A poem by AUTHOR for Taper #X” where AUTHOR is the poem’s author and X is the current issue) 5. image 6. url