Coding rules

In order to ensure consistency for the data in WeSIS as well as the documentation in WeSISpedia, several coding rules and documentation standards have been established.

Data Collection

Date Time: Dates, e.g. the introduction of laws, election dates etc. shall be entered as YYYY.MM.DD.

Country Codes: Several rules apply when assigning country codes to the data:

1. COW country codes are preferred over V-Dem and ISO codes.
2. Whenever possible, data should be collected for each entity separately.
3. Whenever possible, all country codes should be added to ensure comparability.

Note: V-Dem country codes aim at providing a consistent time series for an entity (e.g. Korea is subsumed under South Korea). This way, disassociating data for both entities becomes cumbersome if they should be analyzed separately. Instead, WeSIS' aim is to provide data as "disaggregated" as possible allowing for a flexible case selection and aggregation afterwards.

Spelling

BE or AE: In WeSISpedia American English shall be used.

Capitalization of indicator names: Indicator Names (and hence page titles) shall be capitalized.

Name Scheme for Variable Names: Technical variable names follow a common scheme. The first up to six characters indicate the topic followed by an underscore. Afterwards, each project is free to assign any meaningful variable name. Words must always be separated with an underscore. Example: natpol_elec_date (not natpol_elecdate!).

Citation

Hier Abschnitt zu APA-Stil