Help:Guidelines
Contents
Page Layout[edit]
Right now the standard format for a chapter is as follows:
Volume/Book/Chapter reference[edit]
English chapter titles on first line, French chapter titles on second line.
General notes on this chapter[edit]
Any textual notes that don't fit under a footnoted word or phrase. In numbered-list format.
French text[edit]
Our reference version is the Project Gutenberg ebook: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3 | Vol. 4 | Vol. 5. If you're creating a page for a chapter that hasn't been added yet, use the Chapter template and follow the HTML-to-wiki formatting instructions on that page.
English text[edit]
The Gutenberg reference version is here. If you want, you can turn words into Wikipedia links with the code [[wikipedia:yourword]], but that's the only change you should be making to this text. (Other valid interwiki link codes include wikisource:, wiktionary:, and wikimedia: for Commons multimedia pages.)
Translation notes[edit]
Yes, our reference version is the Hapgood translation. Yes, the Hapgood translation is awful. If you have a correction or clarification for it, do not change the English text, add a translation note to this section. This is also where notes about puns go.
The format for annotations is: Create a subheading in the 'Translation notes' or 'Textual notes' section. Its title should be the word or phrase you want to footnote. Don't try to put a number, asterisk, or other footnote marker in the text of the chapter itself. Do try to keep the footnotes of each section in order by where their keywords first appear in the chapter.
If you want to link to an already-existing footnote from a different chapter, use [[Volume 1/Book 2/Chapter 3#keywords go here|Link text goes here]], substituting in the chapter numbers and keywords you want. Since they're subheadings, all footnotes will automatically have their own page anchors.
Textual notes[edit]
These should be as factual as possible. Keep your flights of literary-analysis fancy to a minimum and stick to elucidating Hugo's literary/historical references. Feel free to add other useful historical context either here or in the general notes, depending on whether it can be nailed down to a specific word or phrase. Also feel free to add meta-information about Hugo's editing process or communications with his publishers regarding particular passages. (Although if you have a long list of mostly minor edits, you might want to create a separate top-level "Errata" section for them between the textual notes and citations.) Do not use the notes to opine about characters' sexual orientations or argue about the validity of Victor Hugo's understanding of class issues; do use them (with editorial restraint) to provide raw information that might be useful for other people's analysis of those topics.
Citations[edit]
Cite your sources with the <ref> tag within the body of your footnote. Use whatever citation format you like as long as you leave enough information for somebody else to track down your source. Again, don't use the ref tag to insert your textual or translation notes into the body of the chapter; make them subheadings of the textual- or translation-note section. (If anyone knows of a technical workaround that would allow nested footnotes--i.e. textual/translation notes with anchors in the text of the chapter, and source citations within the footnotes themselves--contact Marianne.)
