This document codifies the quality bar for the PaulMaxwell.dev wiki. Read before writing any content. Use the self-review checklist before declaring a page done.
The non-negotiables
Reference voice, never edification. The wiki is an encyclopedia. Third-person, descriptive, scholarly. Never address the reader ("For anyone working on X", "if you're leaving religion...", "this is useful for your career"). Never label content with what it does for the reader ("Hook", "Takeaway", "What this means for you"). Never use second person.
Section headings are descriptive, not on-the-nose. Use "Introduction", "Founding moment", "Core doctrines", "Reception", "Internal debates". Never use "Hook", "Why it matters", "The big idea". The headings should be what an academic reference would call them, not what a marketer would call them.
No reader-addressing tags anywhere. Strip "For Career:", "For Deconversion:", "For Philosophy:", "For practitioners:", "For anyone working on X". These break the reference voice instantly.
Prose discipline
Ban filler modifiers. Strike all instances of these unless they carry real information:
- substantial / substantially (the worst offender — it almost never adds meaning)
- significant / significantly (usually filler)
- very, really, quite, rather, somewhat
- clearly, obviously, of course, naturally
- in many ways, in some sense, in a way
If removing the word changes nothing about the meaning, the word should not be there. Substantially developed means developed. Significant influence means influence. A substantial body of work means a body of work (or, if there's actually a quantitative claim, name the size: over forty volumes, a thirty-year corpus).
Prefer concrete to abstract. Instead of substantially shaped subsequent philosophy, write shaped the Vienna Circle and the early analytic tradition. Instead of substantial influence, write influenced Kant, Hegel, and the German Idealists. Specificity is what makes a reference page useful and what makes it rank in search.
Use verbs, not noun phrases. Produced the development of → developed. Made a contribution to → contributed to. Engaged in critique of → criticized. Every nominalization is an opportunity to shorten.
Avoid hedging that contributes nothing. Can be seen as, might be considered, in some sense, to some extent. If the claim needs hedging because it's contested, hedge with substance: The standard reading treats X as Y; resolute readings (Diamond, Conant) argue instead that... If it doesn't need hedging, just make the claim.
Don't repeat the title in the opening sentence. Start with the substantive claim, not with X is the figure who... repeated for every page.
No throat-clearing. It is important to note that, one might say that, it should be observed that — cut all of it.
Structural requirements
Pillar concepts: 2,000–3,500 words. Required sections: Introduction (or The problem it answers), Core claim/doctrines, History in one paragraph, body sections specific to the concept, Common confusions, Live debates, Contemporary engagement, Further reading.
Satellite concepts: 1,200–1,800 words. Required sections: Definition, Problem/origin, Core thesis, body sections, Common confusions, Contemporary engagement, Further reading.
Traditions: 3,000–4,500 words. Required sections: Introduction, Founding moment, Core doctrines, Major figures, Major texts, Internal tensions and rival schools, Legacy, Internal debates within the tradition, Texts and transmission.
Figures: 2,500–3,500 words. Required sections: Introduction, Life, The problem he/she worked on, Contributions (with subsections), Key works, Influences and influenced, Reception, Continuing engagement, Further reading.
Publications: 1,800–2,500 words for secondary, 2,500–3,500 for canonical. Required sections: Introduction, Composition and publication, Central doctrines (with subsections), Reception, Place in the wiki, Further reading.
Every page ends with Further reading — 4–7 internal wiki links to related Pillar concepts, key figures, founding publications, and the parent Tradition. Each link annotated with one phrase explaining the relation.
Every page ends with a one-line italic summary under the closing horizontal rule.
Scholarship requirements
Name living scholars, name critical editions, name journals. Every page should anchor the contemporary engagement in actual people doing the work now — not just "contemporary scholarship" in the abstract but Robert Pippin on Hegel, Cheryl Misak on Peirce, Dan Zahavi on Husserl. Name the standard editions (Leonine Aquinas, Pléiade Sartre, Husserliana). Name the journals (Mind, Hegel Bulletin, Husserl Studies).
Dates are non-negotiable. Every figure has birth/death years; every publication has a year; every founding moment has a year. Around the eighteenth century is not acceptable.
Internal debates are required for pillar pages. Any tradition or pillar concept worth writing about has live scholarly disputes. Name them, name the disputants, identify what's at stake.
No invented quotes, no fabricated attributions. If a figure didn't say it in this form, don't put it in quotes. If a doctrine isn't theirs, don't attribute it. Wittgenstein didn't precisely formulate Ockham's razor; say so.
SEO requirements
Crosslinks everywhere. First mention of any wiki entity (Figure, Concept, Publication, Tradition) gets a link. Subsequent mentions in the same page don't need to repeat the link.
Slug discipline. Lowercase, hyphenated, no leading articles, no diacritics. Critique of Pure Reason → critique-of-pure-reason. Søren Kierkegaard → kierkegaard (figures use last name only unless ambiguous).
Hook field (database property) is the SEO meta description. First sentence under 160 characters. Specific, substantive, no marketing language. This is the snippet Google shows.
Summary field is a one-line thesis. What the thing is and why it matters in one sentence.
Self-review checklist
Before declaring any page done, walk this list:
- Substantial check. Search the page for substantial and substantially. For each occurrence, ask: does removing this word change the meaning? If no, remove it. If yes, often a more precise word exists.
- Filler check. Same for significant, significantly, very, really, clearly, obviously, in many ways.
- Reader-addressing check. Any second-person (you, your)? Any "For X:" headings or sentences? Any if you're working on X? Strip all of it.
- Specificity check. Are claims about influence grounded in named people? Are dates present? Are critical editions named?
- Scholarship check. Does the contemporary engagement section name at least three living scholars and at least one journal?
- Crosslink check. Does the first mention of every wiki entity have a link? Are all referenced traditions, figures, concepts, publications real (no broken links)?
- Length check. Does the page meet the word-count band for its tier?
- Voice check. Read the opening paragraph aloud. Does it sound like Britannica, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or a Cambridge Companion? If it sounds like marketing copy, rewrite.
- Further reading check. Are there 4–7 internal links at the end, each annotated?
- Closing italic check. Is there a one-line italic summary under the final rule?
What the user actually said (verbatim, for reference)
- "the wiki should be for the purpose of reference not edification"
- "it's important not to call it a 'hook' in the text itself as this is on the nose and tells the reader we are 'hooking' them"
- "the quality is clearly dipping here from a length / academic rigor perspective"
- "i want this to be SEO GOLD"
- "ensure quality doesnt drop"
- "make sure we are standing on solid ground here before we move forward"
- "create quality standard based on critiques you think i would make"
The through-line: encyclopedic, scholarly, specific, no marketing voice, no filler.
Quality bar for the PaulMaxwell.dev wiki. Read before writing. Walk the checklist before declaring done.