The OCV Style Guide is used for our handbook and public-facing materials. It provides guidelines to keep our content and communications consistent and effective. It is a living document and should be referenced often for the latest guidance.
Content Philosophy
Content at OCV is dynamic and iterative. Our public communication channels (handbook, blog, social media) are transitional spaces that are constantly evolving as we gain new information and insight. Our approach to creating content reflects our values.
Boldness: Our content is opinionated and confident. We iterate quickly based on feedback.
Example: Our handbook guidance is constantly changing and evolving.
Example: We published a blog post taking a stance on the AGPL software license. After receiving feedback and counterarguments via social media, we updated the post with our adjusted stance.
Resourcefulness: We follow the good/better/best framework and default to speed over perfection. Public-facing content should always include accurate information and be free of typos but may include ephemeral thoughts and opinions.
Example: We update our handbook in real-time with imperfect information.
Example: We published a blog post on recruiting a startup CEO. The blog post reflects our current opinion on when and who to hire. OCV may change its opinion in the future and contradict the blog post. The business goal of the blog post is to help us attract and recruit CEOs matching our current demand today. We’re comfortable with editing or retiring the piece as our business model shifts in the future.
Inclusion: We acknowledge that OCV’s approach to content is atypical and we are open to different perspectives. We prefer to be agile and experimental in our approach to content and encourage contributors to find creative and effective ways to work to meet our business needs.
Describing Open Core Ventures
- Always spell out “Open Core Ventures” on the first reference. Use “OCV” for all following instances.
- Don’t use “invest” to describe OCV. OCV starts companies, it does not invest in existing companies.
- Use the term “OCV companies” or “companies” when referring to our portfolio companies. Don’t use “portfolio” or “PortCo”.
Voice and tone
- Plainspoken: Write like you speak. Avoid needless words.
- Professional: Be brief and focused.
- Polished: Identify your audience and be consistent in addressing the same audience unless you specify otherwise.
Style conventions
Use the most popular U.S. English spelling and phrasing.
Active voice
Whenever possible, use active voice instead of passive voice.
Active voice identifies the subject that performs the action. In the example below, “Contributors write the handbook,” it’s easy to see who is doing what. Active voice is closer to the style used in conversation and is especially important for localization.
In passive voice, “The handbook is written by the contributor,” the subject receives the action. This sentence uses more words and takes longer to identify the subject.
The table below shows more comparisons between active and passive voice.
Active | Passive |
Contributors write the handbook. | The handbook is written by the contributor. |
Remove your shoes before entering the house. | Shoes should be removed before entering the house. |
The cat dropped the phone on the floor. | The phone was dropped on the floor by the cat. |
Acronyms
For clarity, spell out acronyms at first use. For example, “POC” can mean either “proof-of-concept” or “point-of-contact”. Use the format “proof-of-concept (POC)” on first use.
Capitalization
- Use title case for handbook page titles and sentence case for all headlines.
- Use sentence case for titles and headlines on the blog.
- Capitalize brand names unless the brand name uses unusual capitalization (eBay, GitLab). In general, default to the preferred capitalization of the brand unless the entire brand name is lowercase. In these cases, capitalize the first letter (example: Reddit, Lego).
- Capitalize work titles when they precede a name. For example, “General Partner Sid Sijbrandij.”
- Use lowercase for work titles when there is a comma separating the subject from the title. For example: “the graphic designer, Dakota Jones” and “Dakota Jones, senior graphic designer”
Title case versus sentence case
Sentence case is our preferred convention for titles and headlines. Sentence case is when only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. It’s easier to read and comprehend quickly.
Title case is when all words except articles, conjunctions, and short prepositions are capitalized. It’s generally reserved for names of works (books, manuscripts, movie titles, etc.) and can be complicated to get right.
Headings
Headings should be descriptive enough to suggest the corresponding context when they are seen out of context.
- Use sentence case for headings.
- Use headings liberally.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Don’t use FAQs.
Names and titles
On the first reference, introduce the subject by full name and title. See capitalization guidelines for work titles.
When using names in quotes or throughout an article and after the first reference, use their first name only as in the example below.
External Secrets co-founders Lucas Severo Alves and Gustavo Carvalho played pivotal roles in shaping the ESO project’s inception and growth. “The vision was to grow the project to be the de facto solution in the Kubernetes secret management space and donate it to the CNCF,” said Lucas.
Numbers
- Spell out numbers one to nine. Use digits for 10 and above.
- Use digits and the percentage symbol (%) for writing statistics.
- Spell out numbers and the word “percentage” when used as the first word in a sentence. For example, “Ten people saw the balloon in the sky,” and “Eighty percent of people think open core is the best business model.”
Present tense
Use the present tense instead of the future tense as shown in the table below.
Present | Future |
There is a time limit for the candidate to submit the project. | There will be a time limit for the candidate to submit the project. |
Procedures
Use a numbered list to reference and distinguish between steps. Start each step with a capital letter. Use complete sentences or incomplete lists as shown in the table below. End complete sentences with a period. Do not include a period in a list because it is an incomplete sentence.
Procedure: Sentence | Procedure: List |
1. Use the numbered lists for procedures and instructions.
2. Be consistent with sentence versus list procedures.
3. Don’t mix sentences and incomplete sentences in a list. | OCV job recruiting includes:
1. Candidate job posting
2. Recruiter outreach to the candidate
3. General interviews |
Serial commas
Use Oxford style before the coordinating conjunction in a list of three or more items. In this example, “writing style, mechanics, and voice”, add a comma after “mechanics” and before “and”.
Word list
How to use, spell, and style commonly used words.
- directly responsible individual (DRI)
- commercial open source software (COSS)
- Open Charter: (proper noun) OCV’s legally binding corporate formation document stating a company’s commitment to open source and includes a series of objectives for meeting its open source commitment.
- Open Core: Capitalize. Always two words, no hyphen. Capitalize when part of a proper noun (e.g. Open Core Ventures).
- open source: always two words, no hyphen. Capitalize when part of a proper noun (e.g. Open Source Initiative).
- single source of truth (SSoT)
- system of record (SoR)
Writing resources
Strunk, William Jr. and White, E.B., The Elements of Style, 4th ed, New York City: Pearson, 1999
Wikisource contributors, "The Elements of Style," Wikisource , https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_Elements_of_Style&oldid=10777295 (accessed March 6, 2023).
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