Hoodie Language Style Guide
Engage. Talk directly to the person who is reading whatever document, post, or comment you are writing. Prompt them to take an action, start a conversation, or try something new. Getting even a single person to start engaging with the Hoodie community is a success - we want to grow the community as much as possible, and every person that becomes a part of the community (engages with it) is a success story.
Be positive...
Be helpful...
Be a bit fun. We're not a big corporation, we're a friendly little collection of humans that do human things, and that includes being funny or delightful from time to time. Take the edge off a complicated topic by using a humourous example or finish off a long tutorial with a grin-worthy line. It'll make the experience more pleasant and more memorable.
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For dates and years, use figures. Do not use st, nd, rd, or th with dates, and use Arabic figures. Always capitalize months. Spell out the month unless it is used with a date. When used with a date, abbreviate only the following months: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec.
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When writing examples, especially in code, try to avoid traditional abstractions such as foo, bar, baz and so on. Instead, aim for examples that build upon real-world concepts. It's easier to imagine a library that has many books than a foo that has many bars. Take away the cognitive strain of having to learn the internal rules of an abstract example, they just distract from what our readers are actually trying to learn. However, please be aware to not use examples that are too specific to any given culture. For instance, a baseball-based example will be meaningless to most people outside the US and Japan.
We prefer to use gender-neutral language in referring to people. Singular "they" is fine:
When the user presses "enter" they shouldn't have to wait for a response.
Our developer and user communities include people with many different gender identities and agender people. Instead of "you guys" as a second person plural, use "you all" or similar language.
Don't refer to components with "he" or call them "guys".
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Use title case for headings and titles.
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Always use a person’s first and last name the first time they are mentioned in a story. Only use last names on second reference.
Never begin a sentence with a figure, except for sentences that begin with a year. Examples: Two hundred freshmen attended. Five actors took the stage. 1776 was an important year.
Use Roman numerals to describe wars and to show sequences for people. Examples: World War II, Pope John Paul II, Elizabeth II.
For ordinal numbers, spell out first through ninth and use figures for 10th and above when describing order in time or location. Examples: second base, 10th in a row. Some ordinal numbers, such as those indicating political or geographic order, should use figures in all cases. Examples: 3rd District Court, 9th ward.
For cardinal numbers, spell out numbers below 10 and use figures for numbers 10 and above. Example: The man had five children and 11 grandchildren.
When referring to money, use numerals. For cents or amounts of $1 million or more, spell the words cents, million, billion, trillion etc. Examples: $26.52, $100,200, $8 million, 6 cents.
Use a single space after a period.
Commas and periods go within quotation marks. Example: “I did nothing wrong,” they said. They said, “Let’s go to the Purdue game.”
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Use figures, but spell out noon and midnight. Use a colon to separate hours from minutes, but do not use :00. Examples: 1 p.m., 3:30 a.m.
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