Help:Manual of Style

The Manual of Style is a short primer describing the policies for creating and writing Wiki articles on the site. It is highly recommended that these be followed, as these explain the format we want to use on the Wiki. Not following these policies does not lead to any punishment however, as they are not rules.

General

• Use the "Preview" button before saving a page.
• Follow the format of existing pages as much as possible.
• Use proper English, preferably American English.
• Don't use internet shorthand.
• Test your wiki code in multiple browsers if possible!
• Add a descriptive summary, as appropriate, when editing a page.

Talk Pages

The Talk Page of each article is useful for discussion on the article itself. If you must note that you're not done with the content of the article, for example, then do not reference that point inline within the article itself, but make a note of it in the article's Talk Page (an exception to this is using the Todo template.) Some uses for the Talk Page include noting editors of information about the content and asking for opinions. They are not for the general discussion of the article subject, however, unless that discussion is useful for gaining information on the subject.

When using the talk page, sign each of your posts with two dashes and then four tildes, like so: "--~~~~". Note that you should never do this in regular articles. When starting a new discussion, use the + link at the top of the page and add a description of the discussion topic as the title.

Talk pages are declared to have a less strict standard on language than regular articles. The style guidelines don't have to be as closely followed, as Talk pages are a social exchange of ideas. Just so long as words are comprehensible, Talk pages are more open in how words may be portrayed.

Description	Code
Comment topic discussion content --Digiku talk 17:45, 9 December 2007 (PST) reply --DarkWarrior Talk • Contribs 17:50, 9 December 2007 (PST)	==Comment topic== discussion content --~~~~ reply --~~~~

Article and Section Titles

Conciseness

Form titles concisely, not conversationally. "How to Make a NiGHTS Map" is conversational and unacceptable, while "NiGHTS Tutorial" is concise and a more acceptable way of forming the title.

Singular vs. Plural

For article titles, the general rule is that singular titles are for informational pages, while plural titles are for lists. For example, "Linedef" would refer to the Linedef page, which explains what a linedef is all about in map structure. "Linedefs", on the other hand, would refer to the Linedef Types page, which is the list of linedef specials that exist in SRB2. Here are some other examples of hypothetical differences between article names:

• "Level" - An article explaining what a level is in SRB2.
• "Levels" - A list of levels in SRB2.

• "Cutscene" - An article on the structure of a CUTSCENE SOC entry.
• "Cutscenes" - A list of cutscenes that are available in SRB2.

• "WAD Editor" - An article describing what a typical WAD editor does.
• "WAD Editors" - A list of WAD editors that exist.

• "MusicSlot" - An article on SRB2's sound system and its relation to music.
• "MusicSlots" - A list of the used MusicSlots in SRB2.

• "Map Header" - An article detailing the structure of a map header.
• "Map Headers" - A list of map headers that SRB2 uses.

When a page is both informational and a list, the priority is given to the purpose that is more prominent. For example, the page WAD Editors explains in brief what a WAD editor is, but its main purpose is that of a list. Therefore, the plural is used for the title. When in doubt (which shouldn't be often), use singular.

If only one of the two forms in used, you can also create a redirect page for the singular to point to the plural, or vice versa:

#REDIRECT [[MusicSlots]]

Capitalization

Capitalize titles as you would the title of a book. This goes for both article titles and section titles. This means that every word should be capitalized expect the word "to", prepositions, articles and conjunctions (unless they are more than four letters long or the last word of the title).

• Example: This Is an Example

Test Pages

When making test content that's not ready for real articles, you can create a page as a "folder" in your user page. This helps keep the main namespace clean. To create such a new page, simply enter its hypothetical address into the title bar and you will be prompted to create it.

• Example: User:Digiku/Test Main Page

Section Header Levels

When heading page sections, start with the second header level, like so: ==Header==, and then progressing downward. Don't use the first level to start heading, as that's reserved for the article title. Also, don't skip header levels.

Disambiguation Terms

Titles can be accompanied by disambiguation terms, encased in parentheses. For example, "Crawla (Blue)" is the page about the blue Crawla. "Crawla (Red)" is the article about its red variation. The main use of disambiguation terms is to differentiate one page from another if their title is the same. Note that these are not used for outdated version and modification pages, where the hierarchy system is used.

Article Content

Images

Use whatever format works best. PNG files are the best choice for most SRB2 graphics. This is typical:

Code	Result
[[Image:Title.png|frame|Image caption]]	Image caption

Tutorials

Tutorials can consist of both prose and step-by-step instructions. For prose, use paragraphs. For steps, use bullet points (or unordered lists). Make sure to not only give instructions, but also to explain the logic behind them. The SRB2 Doom Builder Tutorial is an example of such a tutorial.

Description	Code
Making a level is tricky, but fun. Here's how you do it: step 1 step 2 step 2 note step 3	Making a level is tricky, but fun. Here's how you do it: * step 1 * step 2 ** step 2 note * step 3

It's helpful to incorporate images into the tutorial, as well.

Game Version

Concentrate on writing articles for the latest version of SRB2 (Version 2.0), not any future or past versions. Version 2.1 should consist of information relating to the next SRB2 version and In Development should consist of information relating to SRB2 development beyond that. Information regarding past versions of SRB2 should be included in their respective article (e.g. Demo 4 for information on Demo 4). Versions 1.08 and 1.09.4 have a separate namespace dedicated to them. Articles that pertain only to 1.08 or 1.09.4 should be included in their respective namespace. For example, the list of levels in 1.09.4 can be found under 1.09.4:Levels, while the list of levels in the current version can be found under Levels.

Writing on mod-specific features is reserved to their respective articles (e.g. SRB2Morphed) or sub-articles (e.g. XSRB2/Levels) normally, but if such information is important enough to include elsewhere, then feel free to include it.

American vs. British English

Since the majority of the SRB2 community lives in the US, American English is the preferred dialect of the Wiki (e.g. "color" instead of "colour".) In fact, editors may even edit British English rules into American English ones unknowingly, so American English is preferred for consistency.

Inserting Common Templates

Templates, such as

{{{Stub}}}

This article is a stub. It already has some of the necessary information on this topic, but it could be expanded upon. You can help the SRB2 Wiki and its users by expanding it!

are often used on the site. A list of common templates to use can be found in the when you edit the page, below the page textbox. A complete list can be found in Help:Editing/List of Templates.

Add article to a category

Add your page to a category or more if appropriate. This makes searching easier. You can find a list of existing categories here: Special:Categories. Place the code at the very bottom of the article.

[[Category:Categoryname]]

However, you should first check what kind of article is using the category already - for example Category:Single Player Levels is only for articles about Single Player levels in SRB2 itself, specifically, not for any level-related articles. The idea is if users want a simple "unpolluted" list of Single Player levels, they will go to the category.

Citing Sources

Rarely are sources needed. However, such as the case with the SRB2 In Development page, citation is needed for sources.

If the source is an IRC log, it should be placed here, and the reference formatted as such in the article:

<ref>[[SRB2Fun/Irc Logs#{Insert name of the IRC log here}|Irc log]]</ref>

If the source is an external website, then the format is as follows:

<ref>[{insert URL of forum post here} Forum post]</ref>

The <ref> tags should come immediately after the place in the article where the citation is meant to be placed. The source will automatically appear at the bottom of the page once the article has been saved.

At the bottom of the page, <references /> will display a list of all the references.

Templates

Templates have their own style rules. See Help:Editing/Templates for more information. Remember that it's best to look at existing templates to see how they're formatted!