Wikipedia:Introduction to structurism

The five goals of structurism (Clockwise from top: Navigability, Intelligibility, Translatability, Editability, and Accessibility)

This essay contains links specific to the English-language Wikipedia. For guidance applicable to all Wikimedia projects, see the corresponding page at Meta-Wiki

Structurism is a broad editing philosophy emphasizing interconnection, organization, and uniformity as the best way to improve the usefulness of content across all Wikimedia projects. Structurism provides five interconnected advantages to users and editors, by making Wikipedia:

1. Navigable

Allows users to find relevant content quickly and easily

2. Accessible

Allows all users—including impaired and mobile users—to access content

3. Intelligible

Allows users to understand content

4. Editable

Allows users to improve existing content

5. Translatable

Allows users (and bots) to parse and migrate content to other languages and sister projects

Types of structurism

Inter- (navigational) vs. intra- (informational)

• Inter-structurism is concerned with "building the web"—making connections between content pages.
• Intra-structurism is concerned with how content is organized for presentation within content pages.

Exo- vs. meta-

• Exopedian structurism is concerned with the application of structure to encyclopedic content.
• Metapedian structurism is concerned with the application of structure to project namespaces and to the practice of encyclopedia-building itself.

Tools and techniques

Wikipedia provides a large array of structural tools. To become a more effective structurist, familiarize yourself with these tools and apply them as appropriate. Some tools, like wikilinking and categorization, will apply to nearly every page you work on. Others, like maps and tables, will only apply to some pages.

Inter-

Connecting related articles

• Wikilinks
• Categories (Wikiproject)
• Navigation boxes/Article series
• Books (Wikiproject)
• Portals (Wikiproject)
• Wikidata statements
• Interlanguage links
• Interwiki links

Helping readers find a particular article

• Disambiguation pages (Wikiproject)
• Anthroponymy pages (Wikiproject)
• Set index articles
• Redirects

Intra-

Different article structures for different purposes

• Broad-concept articles
• Glossaries (Wikiproject)
• List articles (Wikiproject)
• Outline articles (Wikiproject)

Ways of structuring information

• Accessibility (Wikiproject)
• Infoboxes (Wikiproject)
• Images and diagrams
• Embedded lists
• Graphs and charts
• Maps (Wikiproject)
• Summary style
• Tables
• Wikidata

Meta-

• Cleanup tags
• Maintenance categories
• Policies and guidelines
• Talk pages (Guidelines)
• Information pages
• WikiProjects

Display your philosophy

Join the Association of Structurist Wikipedians, and display the {{User structurist}} box on your userpage!

Relation to other wiki philosophies

Mediawikianism is a related philosophy that emphasizes the role of the Mediawiki software in organizing and improving the encyclopedia.

Structurism does not entail any specific position with regard to deletionism vs. inclusionism, mergism vs. separatism, immedaitism vs. eventualism, or any of the various philosophies of wiki governance.