glossary

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A glossary is a part of a post or site that defines terms used therein, usually as part of a footer, sometimes as a separate page on a site, and occasionally sprinkled into sidebar content.

If you’re looking for a glossary of IndieWeb terms, that’s the IndieWeb wiki itself! If you want to help improve the IndieWeb "glossary" as it were, see:

definition

Why

Using an explicit glossary can avoid the need to hyperlink jargon or other rare or unobvious terms inline, reducing the chance that such hyperlinks may distract from the flow of reading.

How to

Patterns and best practices for post and site glossaries are still being researched and in development. For now, take a look at IndieWeb Examples and Brainstorming sections for ideas and experiment with your own site.

IndieWeb Examples

Kevin Marks has included glossary-like definitions of terms in a sidebar near the use of said terms in the flow of the prose, since 2022-07-31:
- The Quest for a Memex 2022-07-31
Tantek Çelik has included post glossaries in some post footers since 2023-02-05:
- 2023-02-05: In recent posts I’ve used ASCII footnotes like "^1" to indicate more information about a subject in a footnote…
- 2023-02-06: Taking a closer look at both my syntax and use-cases of footnotes in posts¹ revealed that a post glossary would suffice in many instances.
  - explicitly puts footnotes section after post glossary

Brainstorming

Glossaries should be formatted similar to their print equivalents
Glossaries could use the HTML <dl> <dt> <dd> tags & elements

Posts

Posts about glossaries on posts and sites:

2023-02-06 Tantek Çelik: post-glossary
...

Beware

Deceptive redefinition

Beware of (and please avoid) using a glossary to (somewhat?) misleadingly/manipulatively define terms as something other than what they are commonly used for, or overly broad in scope.

Example of use of a glossary for such an "overly broad" redefinition:

2006-12-06 Kevin Marks in Gowers' biased rhetoric noted the problem of a press release redefining "piracy" far beyond customary accepted uses, and in a misleading way in an attempt to encroach and de-legitimize actual legitimate (and protected) uses.

Why