Re: Yahoo Style Guide No Longer Available

On 8/22/13 4:08 AM, Doug Schepers wrote:
> Hi, folks–
>
> We reference the Yahoo! Style Guide as our style guide; at the time we 
> made that decision, the online version of the Yahoo! Style Guide was 
> free.
>
> Apparently, sometime in June they took down the online version, and 
> started pointing instead to printed (commercial) versions.
>
> We have a few options at this point
> * continue to point at the Yahoo! Style Guide, which is (for now, 
> anyway) still available on Archive.org [1]
> * point to a different resource [2], noting that only Yahoo! had 
> comprehensive focus on online writing
> * adapt an existing one that has an open license and is close enough [3]
> * write our own
> * something else
>
> Personally, I like the idea of adapting the Gov.uk style guide to our 
> use, giving them attribution of course.
>
>
> Writing our own or adapting one gives us an interesting longer-term 
> opportunity to fill the void that Yahoo! has left, specifically 
> focused perhaps on writing online documentation. But that may be a bit 
> ambitious and meta to consider now.
>
> [1] 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20121014054923/http://styleguide.yahoo.com/
> [2] http://www.dailywritingtips.com/5-online-style-guides/
> [3] https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples/styleguide
>
I'm sad to see the Yahoo! Style Guide go offline. Anything we replace it 
with should be supported by an entity (e.g., government, nonprofit, or 
university) that's unlikely to make it inaccessible.

Since WPD uses US English, it may be better to start from a US English 
style guide than one that explicitly discourages American spelling and 
usage.

For example, the US analog of the gov.uk site is the US Government 
Printing Office Style Manual [4], which is  print-oriented, and 
available in PDF and plain text only. (Fortunately, there is now 
in-browser rendering of PDFs.) As a US government publication, the USGPO 
Style Manual is in the public domain.

Another good, less detailed, more principle-driven resource is the 
Writing Web Content chapter of the Research-Based Web Design and 
Usability Guidelines [5]. We should probably be promoting that resource 
in any case.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab [6] is a comprehensive, if academically 
oriented, resource.

[4] 
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?granuleId=&packageId=GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008
[5] http://guidelines.usability.gov/
[6] http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/

-- 
Janet Swisher <mailto:jREMOVEswisher@mozilla.com>
Mozilla Developer Network <https://developer.mozilla.org>
Developer Engagement Community Organizer