Chapter 1: Title and nomenclature
This guide is here to help you navigate decisions about designing docs and channels in our Slite. Of course, there will be exceptions to the rules. In those cases, use your best judgment as the owner of the content you create. Good luck and happy Sliting!
Key decisions in Slite
The first decision to make when creating a doc or a channel in Slite is what to call it.
Keep in mind, search is one of Slite's top features. However, the quality of our search depends on the information we provide. As computer scientists say, "Garbage in, garbage out," or GIGO.
How to solve the problem of GIGO? Good naming practices.
A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with those of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another.
As one of the largest and oldest wikis in the world, Wikipedia has had to develop their naming system over time. Our Slite is growing too, and here's how we can apply those practices.
Consistent
Channels and Documents – Use sentence case [only the first word is capitalized]
Common docs should have consistent titles. Examples:
1:1 meetings – 1:1 [Name] x [Name]
First month reviews – [Name] - first month review
Intros – [First Name Last Name]
Handbooks – [Process or Team] handbook
External channels – Slite x [Outside Consultant Name]
Concise
Channel titles: 1-3 words
Document titles < 5 words
Precise
The document's purpose should be clear from the title. If it's too general at first, revise to make it more precise. Examples:
"Updates" ⟶ "Weekly team updates"
"Research" ⟶ "New features research"
Natural
Slite is read by humans. If you aim too hard for consistency, concision, and precision, you might miss the fact that your title sounds nonsensical. In that case, try to make it a bit more human. Examples:
"OKRS" ⟶ "Annual Company Objectives"
"New visuals for SEO content" ⟶ "Educational images and charts"
Additional Best Practices
Style Guide Highlights
Do not use A, An, or The as the first word
Use nouns or noun phrases
The final character should not be punctuation
Avoid including Channel name or "parent doc" name
If writing the title of a pitch, it should be actionable
Video walkthrough of naming and channel organization:
Chapter 2: Styling and formatting