EOB:Editorial guidelines
Editorial guidelines for this site
General policies
Reliable sources
We generally follow the Wikipedia guidelines for developing articles, with some exemptions.
This means that the articles on this cite are developed based on reliable sources. In our case, we consider main-stream Buddhist teachers and academics as reliable sources. So we want to avoid original research or opinions in the articles.
Things we do differently from Wikipedia
Some of the things we do differently from Wikipedia are:
- The Wikipedia guidelines discourage the overuse of quotes. On this site, we encourage properly curated quotes, from both skillful academics and Buddhist teachers.
- For generally well-known Buddhist concepts, we don't need a lot of citations.
- Generally, we can be a bit more relaxed about the guidelines.
Additional specific guidelines for this site are explained in the sections below.
Non-sectarian approach
We also follow a non-sectarian approach. This means that were appropriate, we present the perspectives of different traditions on a particular topic. The article on the Four Noble Truths is a good example of this approach.
Note that in the article on the Four noble truths attempts to present the perspective of this topic from the three main historical traditions:
As well as presenting views of modern academics.
Note that many topics are only relevant to one of the major traditions.
Article development
Titles
Sanskrit (or Pali) titles
- For articles where the title is a Sanskrit and Pali word, we generally try to avoid using diacritics. For example, Samsara and not saṃsāra. There are exceptions. This is partly a judgement call.
- In most cases, when choosing a title, preference is given to the Sanskrit term over the Pali term, but there are exceptions to this as well. For example, the Pali term is used for the article Tanha, since this term is emphasized much more in the Theravada (Pali) tradition than in Mahayana.
Teachers
- The page title should be the full name, rather than a nickname.
- Where possible, avoid using honorific titles in the page title: they can appear in the article itself.
Indicating translations of terms in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages
When the title is in English, but there are also equivalent terms in other languages:
- Generally, we indicate equivalent Sanskrit and Pali terms in parentheses, placing Sanskrit (or Skt.) or Pali before the word itself. Sanskrit and Pali terms should be in italics. The Sanskrit term in parentheses can have diacritics, but avoid the use of diacritics in the main article.
- The order to cite is Sanskrit first, then Pali.
- Generally, equivalent terms in all other languages should be included using the template {{Infobox Buddhist term}}. For example, see Samsara.
Tibetan terms
- For terms that are emphasized in Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan term can be included in parenthesis after the Pali term. But this is not necessary. We need to figure out a consistent policy on this.
- Note: Tibetan terms and words should end with a sha ( ་ ), not without one or with a tsek (་། ). Ex: སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་, not སྟོང་པ་ཉིད or སྟོང་པ་ཉིད། This is for consistency.
Chinese terms
- For terms that are emphasized in Chinese Buddhism, the Chinese term can be included in parenthesis. We need to figure out a consistent policy on this as well.
Citing Sources (Footnotes and Endnotes)
We generally follow the Wikipedia guidelines for citing sources, and we use the same templates. See:
Links to Wikipedia articles
With template
Best practice is to use one of the available templates to link out to a Wikipedia article. See:
Within link
We have decided to avoid using this option, and use the templates instead.
The "Wikipedia" tag with in a link can also be used directly to a wikipedia article.
Format:
- [[Wikipedia:article_name]]
Examples:
Biographies
For discussion on issues related to biographies, see:
Contemporary biographies
Contemporary bios refers to someone who is still living or is recently deceased.
The reason we have contemporary bios on this site is because we imported a bunch when we did a mass import from Wikipedia of Buddhism-related articles. These bios are not the primary focus of the site. But they are useful to have. In many cases they are bios of writers who are cited in the articles. In some cases, they are bios of persons who have been influential in the dharma.
Many of the imported bios contained a lot of personal information. Dorje108 has been trimming these bios, and removing much of the personal information.
Our general policy on bios:
- Keep bio short and concise.
- A lead paragraph and an infobox is sufficient for most bios.
- Avoid stating what the person is "currently" doing; since this type of info can change relatively quickly, and we want to keep these pages low maintenance.
- We are more interested in the person's professional career, then in personal history; this is not a hard and fast rule, just a general guideline
Unfortunately, a number of contemporary teachers have been accused of misconduct. We are still figuring a policy for these bios. But the simplest approach for now is: do not add pages for teachers accused of misconduct.
Templates for bios
There are several different templates being used for the "infobox" on biography pages. This is because that is how the articles were set up when we imported from Wikipedia.
The best template to use for new biography articles is:
At some point, we will probably want to standardize the templates on this articles.
Importing biographies
Potential sources
For bios of teachers in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition:
- https://treasuryoflives.org/ (their content is copyrighted to the author of each article)
- Rigpa wiki
Categories
Templates
Site admin
Site admin issues: