Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Guidelines

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WikiProject Beer: Guidelines

This page provides editors with guidelines regarding the structure and content of beer and brewery articles. The aim is to provide some element of consistency with other Wikipedia articles, while allowing flexibility as needed by the demands of the individual topic.

The intention is not to impose a rigid form on beer related articles, but to provide solutions to common problems, and to suggest workable formats and approaches that enable editors to build articles to a common and interchangeable framework that aids navigation for research and minimises effort for construction.

Notability

Guidelines on assessment if a beer-related topic could be a standalone article, or would be more appropriate dealt with within a parent article.

Breweries are organisations and beer is their product; as such, main guidance for notability for breweries can be found at WP:Company, while main guidance for individual beer brands can be found at WP:Product. Editors are encouraged to write about breweries initially as sections in parent articles, such as regional articles on breweries, or articles on the settlement in which the brewery is located. Stub articles are not to be encouraged. A brewery defines itself as notable by the ability of an editor to write a full, meaningful and appropriately sourced article.

• Wikipedia:Notability (breweries)

Naming convention

Articles on brewing companies and breweries use the English name of the company/brewery: Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use English words and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). The common name of the company is used as the title instead of the legal name: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies). As breweries tend to have a product with the same name as the company - Heineken, Carlsberg, Coors, etc. - it is conventional to identify the brewing company/brewery as such, even when the product does not have a standalone article. So: Heineken International, Carlsberg Group, Coors Brewing Company, etc. The most common identifying global term is '... (brewery)', though '... (brewing company)' is preferred in North America.

In the first sentence of the article the name of the company/brewery in the original language may be placed in brackets after the English name, though still within the bold commas. Examples: Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery - Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery (Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma); Budweiser Budvar Brewery - Budweiser Budvar Brewery (Budějovický Budvar).

The legal name may be placed in brackets after the common name, though still within the bold commas. Examples: Fuller's Brewery - Fuller's Brewery (Fuller, Smith and Turner plc); Gales Brewery - Gales Brewery (George Gale & Co. Ltd).

Country specific beer articles follow the guideline in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics), and appear as Beer in Norway, rather than Norwegian beer. Terms such as Norwegian beer may be created as redirects to the main article.

For further guidance:

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics)

Brands

A beer brand is the name of a beer produced by one or more breweries or brewing companies. The beer may have a long history and may have changed breweries over the years - such as Pabst Blue Ribbon. The beer may be brewed in many locations around the world, such as Budweiser. The beer may be brewed in many locations around the world, and may be slightly different in many of those locations, such as Guinness.

Product/brand names should be in italics, such as Guinness Original or Guinness Draught. Company names should remain in standard script. So:

• Guinness (pronounced /ˈɡɪnɪs/) (also known as Guinness Draught and Guinness Original) is a popular dry stout made at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland by the Guinness company trading as Guinness & Co.

Following discussion (here and here), lists of products are to be discouraged. It is preferred for brands and style examples to be described in prose, and such comments to be supported by references to reliable sources. Also see Wikipedia:Embedded list.

It is important when deciding to write a standalone article a beer brand that the editor first checks to see that the beer is not already included on Wikipedia, either with its own article, or as part of a larger article. Most beer brands are discussed on the brewery page.

Secondly the editor must decide if the beer brand is notable enough to generate enough interest for its own article, or if it should appear as part of the main article for the brewery or brand owner. Convention and consensus has been that the majority of beers do not deserve their own articles.

If the editor does not know the name of the brewery making the beer brand, then a Google search or looking on a comprehensive beer database site such as RateBeer.com should be done. If there is an article on the brewery on Wikipedia, then the beer should be added to that article. If there is no article on the brewery, then a decision has to be made on creating an article for the brewery. See Wikipedia:Notability (breweries).

It is not recommended that a beer article be created without first having a brewery or brand owner article.

If the editor decides that a beer brand is notable enough to have its own article, and there is sufficient material to create more than a stub, then the following guidelines may be useful:

1. A picture of the beer brand logo, bottle, pump clip or advert should appear on the top right of the page.
2. A wikilink should be created in the first sentence to the parent brewery.
3. The region in which the beer is brewed should be mentioned in the introductory paragraph.
4. The beer style should be mentioned in the introductory paragraph.
5. The beer strength (abv) should be mentioned in the introductory paragraph.
6. The article should be given an appropriate regional (or multi regional) brewery category: Category:Beer and breweries by region

Article structure

The structures suggested in this section are intended to serve as a starting point for writing a good article; they are not meant to enforce a single, binding structure on all articles, nor to limit the topics a fully developed article will discuss.

The order and range of sections will vary according to need, although it is strongly recommended that articles conform to the basic structure of a lead section with infobox if appropriate, followed by a history section, main section(s) as appropriate, then finishing with See also (if appropriate), References, External links, and Nav boxes. Beyond that, editors are advised to come to a consensus that works best for the beer article in question. References are required for every article.

• Wikipedia:Layout

Appropriate sequence of items in lead section

• Disambiguation and redirection links
• Maintenance tags
• An InfoBox or image (also see MOS:IMAGES#Images). Consideration should be given to the benefits of having both an InfoBox and an Image in the lead section, and in which order they would appear. If there are no compelling reasons to do otherwise, the usual practice is for an InfoBox to be alone in the lead, but if there are both, then the InfoBox is placed above the image.
• NavBoxes are contentious, so should be used sparingly and with care. The Beer Project currently only uses two NavBoxes: {{Beers of the world}} and {{Beer Styles}} - both of these boxes should be placed at the bottom of appropriate beer related articles after the References section.
• Link to parent article. In the event that the article is a sub-article (or similarly linked article), that relationship should be clearly outlined just before the opening sentence, like so:

This is a sub-article to Parent article

• Introductory text.
• The table of contents (TOC) automatically appears on pages with more than three headings. Avoid floating the table of contents if possible, as it breaks the standard look of pages.

Brewery articles

Place a {{Infobox company}} Infobox at the top of the page, filling in as much information as possible.

The text below can be cut and pasted as a starting point.

{| class="wikitable"
|{{Infobox company
| name = 
| logo = 
| type = 
| industry         = [[Alcoholic drink]]s 
| products         = [[Beer]] 
| fate = 
| predecessor = <!-- or: | predecessors = -->
| successor = <!-- or: | successors = -->
| founded = <!-- if known: {{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} in [[city]], [[state]], [[country]] -->
| founder = <!-- or: | founders = -->
| defunct = <!-- {{End date|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->
| hq_location_city = 
| hq_location_country = 
| area_served = <!-- or: | areas_served = -->
| key_people = 
| owner = <!-- or: | owners = -->
| num_employees = 
| num_employees_year = <!-- Year of num_employees data (if known) -->
| parent = 
| website = <!-- {{URL|example.com}} -->
}}

Lead

Start with the common name of the brewery/brewing company, with the original language and/or legal name in brackets kept within the bold commas. Examples: Budweiser Budvar Brewery (Budějovický Budvar) and Fuller's Brewery (Fuller, Smith and Turner plc). The first sentence would state what type of company it is - brewery, brewing company, brewpub, or regional brewery; followed by (if known) date of founding, name of founder(s), place of founding, and name of original company if different to current name. Other information to include in the lead would be parent company (if any), current location, and most notable product(s). Other information to consider would be annual turnover, locations of brewing plants, and area of distribution. Mention should be made of significant material included in the main body; if there is a section on the brewer or an advertising campaign, this should be briefly included in the lead.

History

The history of the brewery should focus on the brewery itself, and only include the history of a parent company, a related brand, or the country, state, region, or city in which the brewery resides when absolutely necessary in order to understand the subject of the article. As much as possible, contextual information should be linked according to the Wikipedia Manual of Style on linking.

Brewery / Brewing plants

Brands/Beers/Products

Product names should be in italics, such as Guinness Original or Guinness Draught. Company names should remain in standard script. So:

• Guinness (pronounced /ˈɡɪnɪs/) (also known as Guinness Draught and Guinness Original) is a popular dry stout made at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland by the Guinness company trading as Guinness & Co.

Following discussion (here and here), lists of products are to be discouraged. It is preferred for brands and style examples to be described in prose, and such comments to be supported by references to reliable sources. Also see Wikipedia:Embedded list.

Subsidiary companies

Advertising

References, external links, categories, nav boxes, etc

Product articles

Lead

History

Composition

Style, abv, ingredients, etc.

Advertising

Sections that discuss some aspect of advertising, including images of advertisements, are perfectly appropriate for a brewery article. Take care not to cross the line into advertising, puffery, or anything that would seem to violate guidelines on maintaining a neutral point of view. Language that seems to cross the line from a discussion of advertising to actual advertising will likely be deleted.

References, external links, categories, nav boxes, etc

Formatting here should follow standard Wikipedia guidelines for citations, external links, categories, and navboxes. Items added to these sections should not contain links to breweries—only to sources of more information that will help the reader understand or contextualize the topic of the page.

"List of breweries in" articles

Lead

The sequence of items in the lead section should follow the general guidelines for a lead section in a beer article. The remainder of the text in the lead should include a very general introduction to the subject of beer in the place covered by the list. This can be as simple as a statement reaffirming the nature of the page, as in the list of breweries in Wisconsin, or it can be a more fulsome introduction to the subject, as in the List of Microbreweries.

Adding a brewery to the list

The criteria for adding a brewery to a "List of" follow the Wikipedia Guidelines for Adding Individual Items to a List, List Selection Criteria, Common Selection Criteria, and verifiability. Lists should be comprised of already-existing breweries, not breweries-in-planning or breweries that have not yet opened. Breweries that are no longer in operation, but don't have a Wikipedia page, should be notable beyond the fact of their one-time existence. As per WP:ORGIND sources as to the brewery's existence and notability should be independent of the brewery itself. Appropriate sources are indicated on WP:ORGIND.

In general, based on the above-linked guidelines, lists should only include breweries that are already open, and that have either a linkable Wikipedia page or a reference note to a verifiable, independent source. Links to the brewery's webpage are not acceptable as sources of notability.

References, External links, Categories, Nav boxes, etc.

Formatting here should follow standard Wikipedia guidelines for citations, external links, categories, and navboxes. Items added to these sections should not contain links to breweries—only to sources of more information that will help the reader understand or contextualize the topic of the page.

Checklist

Lead and sections

• The lead should adequately summarize the content of the article. (GA criteria)
• There should not be anything in the lead not mentioned in the rest of the article. (GA criteria)
• Only the first word in a section heading needs a capital letter (except in proper nouns).
• Short sections and paragraphs are discouraged. (GA criteria)

Images

• It is recommended not to specify the size of images. The sizes should be what readers have specified in their user preferences.
• Text should not be sandwiched between two adjacent images. (GA criteria)
• All fair-use images need a fair use rationale. (GA criteria)
• Images need succinct captions. (GA criteria)
• An image caption should only end with a full-stop if it forms a complete sentence. (GA criteria)

Links

• Wikilinks should only be made if they are relevant to the context. Common words do not need wikilinking.
• A word only needs to be wikilinked once within each section.
• Links within quotations should be avoided.
• Linking dates or dates with a day and a month are currently discouraged. The same applies to dates in the footnotes.

Referencing

• Statements that are likely to be challenged and statistics need inline citations. (GA criteria)
• Book references need the author, publishing date and page number. (GA criteria)
• Book references preferably should include the publisher and ISBN.
• Web references need the author, publisher, publishing date and access date. (GA criteria)
• Web references preferably should include the language (if not English) and format (if not HTTP).
• Blogs and personal websites are not reliable sources, unless written by the subject of the article or by an expert on the subject. (GA criteria)
• Dead web references should not be removed, unless replaced.
• Inline citations belong immediately after punctuation marks. (GA criteria)
• External links that are not references belong only in the External links section.
• Portal links belong in the "See also" section. (GA criteria)
• "Further info" links belong at the top of sections. (GA criteria)

Lists

• Lists should only be included if they can't be made into prose or their own article. (GA criteria)
• Lists within prose should be avoided. (GA criteria)

Following discussion (here and here), lists within beer article are to be discouraged. It is preferred for brands and style examples to be discussed within the text, and such comments to be supported by references to reliable sources. Also see Wikipedia:Embedded list.

Grammar

• Logical quotation should be used, i.e. final punctuation belongs outside the quote marks, unless the punctuation is part of the quote and the quote starts a WP sentence. For example – He said, "France is a country". "Paris is a city."
• Rather than hyphens, en dashes should be used for ranges, eg. 5–10 years, and unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes should be used for punctuation, eg. The building—now disused—was built in 1820.
• Page ranges in the footnotes, and sports scores should use en dashes.
• " " (non-breaking space) should be typed between numbers and units, and other numerical/non-numerical components, e.g., "10 miles", "Boeing 747"
• Imperial measurements should be accompanied by the metric equivalent in brackets, and vice versa. If possible, use a conversion template, eg. {{convert|5|mi|km|0}}.
• Whole numbers under 10 should be spelled out as words, except when in lists, tables or infoboxes.
• Sentences should not start with a numeral. The sentence should be recast or the number should be spelled out.
• Ampersands (&) should not be used (except when in a name, eg., Marks & Spencer)
• "Last few years" has ambiguous meaning; "past few years" is preferable in some contexts.
• "Within" has a different meaning to "in". "Within" should only be used when emphasing that something is inside something, eg. "the town is in the county", "the town is within the county boundaries"
• Periods and spaces are needed after initials in people's names, e.g., P. G. Wodehouse
• Compound adjectives need hyphens.
• A hyphen shouldn't be placed after an -ly word if it is an adverb, e,g., widely used word; except if the -ly word could be mistaken for an adjective, e.g., friendly-looking man.
• "Century" doesn't need a capital, e.g., "15th century" rather than "15th Century"
• "While" should only be used when emphasising that two events occur at the same time, or when emphasising contrast. It shouldn't be used as an additive link.
• Using "with" as an additive link leads to wordy and awkward prose, e.g. "the town has ten councillors, with one being the district mayor" → "the town has ten councillors; one is the district mayor"

Avoid

• Avoid beginning a sentence with "there", when "there" doesn't stand for anything, leads to wordy prose, e.g. There are ten houses in the village could be written more directly as The village has ten houses.
• Avoid the words "current", "recent" & "to date" as they become outdated. (GA criteria)
• Avoid using "not" unnecessarily, eg. "songs previously not heard" → "songs previously unheard"
• Avoid contractions, such as "can’t", "he's" or "they're".
• Avoid weasel words, such as "it is believed that", "is widely regarded as", "some have claimed". (GA criteria)
• Avoid peacock terms, such as "beautiful", "famous", "popular", "well-known", "significant", "important" and "obvious". (GA criteria)
• Avoid informal words, such as "carry out", "pub", "though", "tremendous" and "bigger".
• Avoid vague words, such as "various", "many", "several", "long", "a number of", "just", "very" and "almost" - get the facts.

General strategy and discussion forums

• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Beer/Strategy
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Beer/Examples - Use this to test or demonstrate anything you're working on.

Suggestions

1. Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Beer brand article suggestions
2. Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Brewery article suggestions
3. Wikipedia:WikiProject Beer/Beer style article suggestions