Policy Creation and Formatting Guide: Difference between revisions

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==MediaWiki formatting - BSC style==
==MediaWiki formatting - BSC style==


We use mediawiki as the platform for our wiki website. It's the same platform that wikipedia uses, and is very popular, which means that there are lots of very good resources at hand for learning to use it. When in doubt, check out http://www.mediawik.org , and specifically the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Help| Help pages]. For now, we will run through the basics of the formatting syntax and best practices we will need to write BSC policy. It's not hard, I promise. The best way to learn is to start looking at the 'edit' pages and trying it out yourself. As you read this, I encourage you to click on the 'edit' tab at the top of this page to look at how things on this page are built. You can also use the [[Sandbox]] to play around and test different things as much as you want.
We use mediawiki as the platform for our wiki website. It's the same platform that wikipedia uses, and is very popular, which means that there are lots of very good resources at hand for learning to use it. When in doubt, check out http://www.mediawik.org , specifically the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Help help pages], and most specifically the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting formatting help page]. I constantly refer to that formatting help page to remember how to do certain things.
 
For now, we will run through the basics of the formatting syntax and best practices we will need to write BSC policy. It's not hard, I promise. The best way to learn is to start looking at the 'edit' pages and trying it out yourself. As you read this, I encourage you to click on the 'edit' tab at the top of this page as well as on some other policy pages to see how things are built. You can also use the [[Sandbox]] to play around and test different things as much as you want.
 
 
===Headings===
 


headings
headings

Revision as of 12:24, 15 June 2011

Policy Structure

the first thing to understand is what all of the different parts of our policy are.

At the top we have our articles of incorporation; these define our organization as far as the state of california is concerned. they cannot be changed easily and don’t ever really change

next we have our bylaws; these lay down the fundamentals of our organization and how it functions. it does things like lay out what powers board and the committees and executive have, and defines the way that out meetings and voting and things like that work. these also don’t change very often, and are designed to be relatively constant.

After that we have what is actually referred to as the policy directory. These is where the bulk of our actual policies are, and these are the ones that we typically change or add to on board. If you are creating a new policy, chances are it belongs in one of the sections of the policy directory. The policy directory is divided into seven sections, enumerated by roman numerals. Section II, membership and housing, is also referred to as the AdCode (Administrative code) and is sometimes organized separately from the rest of the policy manual. The important distinction with the AdCode is that AdCom (the administrative committee) has the power to grant exceptions to the AdCode, but not to the rest of the policy manual. [check with kim about this]

Before going on it’s worth mentioning that there are a few the policies that don’t fall inside of the policy directory. most notably is the Personal code (PerCode), which is a set of policies governing our employment practices. There are also both the member contract and the employee association contract that live with the policies but are not in the policy directory as such. In addition to these there are a few other miscellaneous policies that don’t fall under the scope of the policy directory, and a whole slew of informational documents that lay out general practices but are not actually organizational policies.

getting back to the policy directory, each section is divided into several subsections, marked by upper case latin letters (e.g. I.A, I.B, IV.E etc.). On the wiki site, each of these subsections has its own page. If you are writing a new policy, you are most likely going to be adding to one of these subsections, or possibly creating a new one. A quick conversation with the operations manager is usually the best way to figure out where your policy should be located in the policy directory. It is possible that you need to change policy language in several sections. Searching the policy wiki for key terms is a good place to start looking for


MediaWiki formatting - BSC style

We use mediawiki as the platform for our wiki website. It's the same platform that wikipedia uses, and is very popular, which means that there are lots of very good resources at hand for learning to use it. When in doubt, check out http://www.mediawik.org , specifically the help pages, and most specifically the formatting help page. I constantly refer to that formatting help page to remember how to do certain things.

For now, we will run through the basics of the formatting syntax and best practices we will need to write BSC policy. It's not hard, I promise. The best way to learn is to start looking at the 'edit' pages and trying it out yourself. As you read this, I encourage you to click on the 'edit' tab at the top of this page as well as on some other policy pages to see how things are built. You can also use the Sandbox to play around and test different things as much as you want.


Headings

headings spacing lists links/references overall structure