This is a lighthearted post with a serious undertone. Kind of like the Cialis commercials. This is most definitely a SharePoint best practice.
What is in a name? And how does this relate to SharePoint?
I am very proud of the name my parents gave me. I inherited Peter from my Uncle who I loved. And how long do oranizations labor over what to call their intranets, site collections, and sometimes even sub sites?
Think about it, how many times have we developers labored over what to call variables in our programs. I don't think I am dissing anyone reading this (all two of us) when I say we are not the most creative lot when it comes to naming conventions.
So the heart of my best practice: The other day I was doing some testing at a client and was working with their collaboration engineer. A fantastic lady with a "different" sense of humor. Kind of like mine.
I told her I needed a site collection for testing and to ensure that I am a just a visitor (I can't create one at this enterprise client but she can). She very creatively named the site after my first name. No problem.
A few hours later while testing I realized I needed contributor rights. So I went up to her desk to ensure it got done quickly rather than IM.
She quickly went to site actions, showing me how quick she was going to do this for me, then site settings, and then people and groups....are you following...
Looking at the quick launch, she turned beet red and then started laughing. Quickly seeing what she was laughing about, embarrassed and deflated (sorry about my vernacular choice here), I walked away.
Moral of the story: Never, Ever, name a site Peter.