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 no rules.

Very Important Rules

General

• 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.

Discussion

• Discussion and editor's commentary belongs on the Talk pages only.
• Sign your name at the end of your post by adding 4 tildes (~~~~)
• When starting a new discussion, use the + link at the top of the page.

==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. Compare Sector and Sector Types.

When a page is both informational and a list, then choose the title showing what the main point is. WAD Editors briefly describes what a WAD editor is, but it's mainly a list of common WAD editors, so its title is plural.

You can also create a redirect page for the singular to point to the plural, or vice versa:

#REDIRECT [[Levels]]

When in doubt (which shouldn't be often), use singular.

Capitalization

Capitalize titles as you would the title of a book. This goes for both article titles and section titles.

Test Pages

When making test content that's not ready for the real pages, you can create a page as a "folder" in your user page. This helps keep the main namespace clean. 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.

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.

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 manual pages for the latest version of SRB2 (Version 2.0), not any future versions. In Development should consist of information relating to the next SRB2 version.

Writing on mod-specific features is reserved to their respective articles normally (SRB2Morphed and XSRB2 both consist of mod-specific features), 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 (i.e. "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!