Content & authoring

Wherever possible, content should be presented in simple English, with more detail available as an option.

A friendly, personal tone should be adopted in the writing style. Medical terminology should be kept out of the first-level content if at all possible.

The route map document we have produced is a good model for the medical section of the site, with the existing content available if more detail is requested. Making the route map available as a separate site, as was considered at one point, seems pointless, though apps may still be useful later.

Style Guide

We will follow the gov.uk style guide wherever possible. The most important points are:

• Write in the active voice ("Bob posted the letter" not "The letter was posted by Bob")
• Speak to the user directly (Use "you", "your", etc.)
• Be concise
• Avoid jargon and medical terminology except where unavoidable, or in content specifically intended for medical professionals.
• Use plain english - don't try to sound clever!

Don't duplicate content

There is no point duplicating information that can be found elsewhere (unless we can simplify it for people). We should concern ourselves only with the things that nobody else can provide.

For instance, if a government site provides a clear explanation of the statementing process, then we should link to that rather than providing our own. Similarly, if other charities such as Mencap provide information applicable to our families, we should link to that.

Content licensing

As the group exists to spread information as widely as possible, not to restrict access to information and charge for it, we will explicitly license our written content under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

This means that other organisations can use it and extend it, but cannot use it commercially and must release their changed version under the same license.

Other people will reuse our content if it's good enough. Licensing it in this way allows us to accept this, and be clear about what we do and do not allow.

External services

Wherever possible, we should use external services for content. For instance, photos can be hosted with Facebook, videos with Youtube, and so on.