Deliver style guide to FEC

[emileighoutlaw]

I'm opening this issue to track some of the language inconsistencies we're trying to think about:

Questions to answer

• Do we use the form number (Form 1) when or form name (Statement of Organization) when we talk about filings?
• Do committees submit, deposit or file filings? (https://github.com/18F/fec-cms/issues/232)
• Are all these lowercase political action committee, party committee, authorized committee, nonconnected committee, separate segregated fund ?

  Things with distinct meaning

Money coming in:

• Contributions
• Fundraising
• Receipts

Money going out:

• Spending
• Disbursements
• Expenditures

Filings (all the different types)

• Statements
• Reports
• Notices

  Capital or not capital (as it should be used)

• Administrative Fine Program
• Alternative Dispute Resolution Program
• advisory opinion
• Commission, Commissioners

  Other style things

• Always "for example," and never "e.g.".
• instructions, rather than step-by-step instructions
• electronic filing, rather than e-filing or efiling etc.
• Use the n dash – for ranges

(Will keep updating)

[emileighoutlaw]

[AmyKort]

My 2 cents: advisory opinion, not Advisory Opinion, unless it is a specific opinion, like Advisory Opinion 2016-50 (but in that case, I think we pretty much always say AO 2016-50).

We prefer Commission to commission.

I feel like we could go either way on alternative dispute resolution program and administrative fine program. Right now we capitalize those in our press releases and other publications.

The best word for what you do with a filing is to say you "file" it. But then you end up saying folks file their filings with us (ugh). That's how we ended up with "submit." I would avoid "deposit" because that has a separate use in our regulations as it applies to the definition of "file."

[emileighoutlaw]

Woohoo!

I agree with everything you wrote! High fives!

Here's what that means:

• Lowercase for advisory opinions. Uppercase for everything else.

To put it another way (so I can remember my thinking in the future): capitalizing things that are proper nouns is helpful for people who are unfamiliar FEC programs and hierarchy. It's the same reason we like Secretary of Senate — giving that term the weight of capital letter makes clear the significance of the position (as opposed to a secretary who works in the Senate building). Capital C for Commission is most easy to understand for novice readers. I also like Alternative Dispute Resolution Program (it's a formal thing; this makes it look formal) and Administrative Fine Program (same reason).

Let's see if we can't be super savvy in all our writing and use file all the time and also avoid ever saying file a filing (which is 😁)

[adborden]

I would love to have a copy section in the styleguide or on the wiki. I'm a big fan of glossaries, and even though we have one for users, I think it would be good to have one "internally" for consistency.

[AmyKort]

Still chipping away at our list . . .

Maybe we should go with Statement of Candidacy and Statement of Organization, because these are what they are called when you look at data--so for example, at the bottom of the candidate's landing page you are invited to view the Statement of Candidacy. Also, these are words that might actually mean something to someone. Form 2? Not as much.

[AmyKort]

I would go with instructions over step-by-step instructions (only because it is shorter).

E-Filing, E-filing, e-Filing, eFiling, electronic filing . . . I think we've been all over the place on this one. What do you think is most clear to folks?

[emileighoutlaw]

I'd love to consistently call it electronic filing, which is the most clear because there's no abbreviation. 😁

[AmyKort]

Sounds great to me!

[jeanninehunter]

If a term is mentioned more than once on a page, on first reference, we should spell out terms followed by the abbreviation in parentheses then use the abbreviation in subsequent references. For example, separate segregated fund (SSF) and advisory opinions (AO).

[jeanninehunter]

Other observations:

• Perhaps use "to" instead of dashes to indicate ranges. For example: "This archive contains advisory opinions from 1975 to present versus 1975–present.
• Capitalize Commission when referring to the body and its actions; capitalize as a noun and an adjective. For example, the advisory opinions are official Commission responses about how to apply campaign finance regulations to specific and factual situations. Or, the Commission's next open meeting is Thursday, June 16.
• Do we prefer the serial comma (aka Oxford comma) or not? Use in lists of three or more before the the conjunction.
• In following a consistent capitalization scheme: 1) Don't capitalize "federal" unless it's part of a proper noun such as the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation 2) Don't capitalize "government" unless it's part of a proper noun such as the Government Accountability Office, the Government Publishing Office, and the Government National Mortgage Association, also known as Ginnie Mae

[emileighoutlaw]

Awesome! Thanks Jeannine.

FEC is definitely no Oxford comma. You didn't find any in the audit, did you? Same with lowercase federal and lowercase government right?

I like the idea of using to in ranges, when used in content. When used in data tables, I think the n dash is easiest to read.

We'll keep the discussion going here, but I'm going to start collecting decisions into a single Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cIWTO4X9kNvjL-Lpq8A6t9NrA3ZtWvSZ5mKS1ic0-Js/edit

[emileighoutlaw]

Jeannine and I are going to keep chipping away at this, but since it's a long-term goal, I'm moving the issue itself into the backlog.

[emileighoutlaw]

We have a draft content guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cIWTO4X9kNvjL-Lpq8A6t9NrA3ZtWvSZ5mKS1ic0-Js/edit?pli=1#

It will continue to grow as @jameshupp nurtures it (and FEC will take it over at some point), but I don't think we need to keep this particular issue open.