Help:Style guidelines

Best practices and tips for writing articles on the Ashes of Creation Wiki.

• Everyone's responsibility to ensure that the information contained herein is factually accurate and presented in a neutral and concise manner.

• Please ensure that all substantial information is backed up with a citation from an official source.

• Please don't duplicate information.
  • Write content in templates. These can then be shared between articles.
  • Always check if information or images exist prior to adding new content.

• Nothing is set in stone, not even the wiki structure or these help pages. If you dispute anything in the wiki, make a comment on the appropriate discussion page, and/or, edit the article in question to correct the information.

These policies and guidelines apply to the main content pages of this wiki. Articles in the Help, Definition, and Community namespaces do not generally need to conform to the same content standards. All pages do, however, need to comply with our legal and copyright policies.

This guide is based on Wikipedia's simplified manual of style.

Capital letters

SMOS:CAP

• Use sentence case for article titles and section headings – Tips and pointers, not Tips and Pointers.
• Capitalize the significant words of proper nouns, such as Intrepid Studios and Ashes of Creation.

Citations (References)

Help:Cite

Every major piece of information in Ashes of Creation Wiki should reference the official Intrepid Studios source where the information was obtained. This is most likely a video or livestream or a quote from a "yellow" Intrepid staff member on the official Discord.

• Please don't source info from non-official sources. The information provided may be based on interpretation or opinion.
  • Official citations are generally not required in the Help, Definition, and Community namespaces.

• Unless you are creating a verbatim transcript or quotation, please don't transcribe exactly what was spoken or written. The language used in this wiki should be neutral and in accordance with the style guidelines.

• It is fine to cite reputable news sources from within articles, so long as the articles themselves aren't news pieces. A wiki should be an encyclopedia rather than a newspaper.

• A citation should immediately follow the text to which it applies, including any punctuation.

• When using citations, place the following at the end of the article in question. Citations used in the article will appear in this section.

== References ==

<references/>

Citing livestreams, videos, interviews and podcasts

• {{livestream|2018-01-22|1h22m33|YOUTUBID}} is short for

  <ref name="livestream-2018-01-22-1:22:33">[https://youtu.be/YOUTUBID?t=1h22m33s Livestream, January 22, 2018 (1:22:33).]</ref>

• {{video|2018-01-22|1h22m33|YOUTUBID}} is short for

  <ref name="video-2018-01-22-1:22:33">[https://youtu.be/YOUTUBID?t=1h22m33s Video, January 22, 2018 (1:22:33).]</ref>

• {{podcast|2018-01-22|1h22m33|YOUTUBID}} is short for

  <ref name="podcast-2018-01-22-1:22:33">[https://youtu.be/YOUTUBID?t=1h22m33s Podcast, January 22, 2018 (1:22:33).]</ref>

• {{interview|2018-01-22|1h22m33|YOUTUBID}} is short for

  <ref name="interview-2018-01-22-1:22:33">[https://youtu.be/YOUTUBID?t=1h22m33s Interview, January 22, 2018 (1:22:33).]</ref>

Example:

Leaders of [[Guilds|guilds]] that occupy [[Guild castles|guild castles]] are referred to as [[Kings and Queens]].{{livestream|2017-05-26|37m17|JtG9mB2bREI}}

Citing quotes from images

Use the {{quote}} template to capture screenshot quotes, such as "Steven quotes" from the official Discord.

1. Upload the screenshot. For example: yourfilename.png
2. Place the following in the article.

   {{quote|yourfilename.png}}

3. Add an optional parameter, for example a hyperlink: link=URL

Example:

[[Leveling]] won't follow a traditional linear path, although classic mechanics for leveling exist.{{quote|leveling.png|link=https://discordapp.com/channels/256164085366915072/256164085366915072/281088406002597889}}

Citing quotes from web pages

Use the {{web}} template to capture external website references, such as links to Ashes staff being interviewed on other sites.

{{web|URL|Description}}

Example:

Encompassing each [[Servers|server]] are carefully placed points of development called [[Nodes]].{{web|https://web.archive.org/web/20170404005015/https://www.ashesofcreation.com/a-reactive-world-nodes/|A reactive world - Nodes.}}

General citations

Use <ref> (ref tags) to create footnote citations.

• The markup <ref> Citation text </ref> produces a footnote with the citation text.

Example:

Receive an invitation to tour [[Intrepid Studios]].<ref name="1star">Travel and lodging not included.</ref>

Trivia sections

WP:TRIVIA

Trivia sections should be avoided. If they must exist, they should in most cases be considered temporary, until a better method of presentation can be determined. Lists of miscellaneous information can be useful for developing a new article, as they represent an easy way for novice contributors to add information without having to keep in mind article organization or presentation: they can just add a new fact to the list. As articles grow, however, editors encountering such lists may feel encouraged to add to them indiscriminately, and these lists may then end up becoming trivia magnets which are increasingly disorganized, unwieldy, and difficult to read. A better way to organize an article is to provide a logical grouping and ordering of facts that gives an integrated presentation, providing context and smooth transitions, whether in text, list, or table.

Abbreviations

SMOS:ABB

• In general, try to avoid using abbreviations unless they are commonplace.
• To indicate approximately, the non-italicized abbreviation c. (followed by a space) is preferred over circa, ca., or approx.
• Write US or U.S., but not USA.
• Use "and" instead of the "&" sign, except in tables, infoboxes, and official names like AT&T.

Punctuation

Apostrophes and quotation marks

SMOS:A&Q

• Use straight quote marks " and apostrophes ' as available from the keyboard, and not alternatives such as “ ” and ‘ ’.
• Italicize names of books, films, TV series, music albums, paintings, ships, and video games—but not short works like songs or poems, which should be in quotation marks.
• Both James' house and James's house are correct.
• It is desirable but not necessary to correctly punctuate transcriptions.

Periods and commas

SMOS:P&C

• Place a full stop (a period) or a comma before a closing quotation mark if it belongs as part of the quoted material; otherwise put it after.
• An ellipsis should be written as three separate dots (...): not spaced (. . .), and not using the single-character option (…).
• The serial comma (for example the comma before and in "ham, chips, and eggs") is optional; be sensitive to possible ambiguity from thoughtless use or thoughtless avoidance.
• Avoid comma splices.
• Picture captions should not end in a full stop (a period) unless they are complete sentences.

Dashes and hyphens

SMOS:D&H

• Avoid using a hyphen after a standard -ly adverb (a newly available home).
• A hyphen is not a dash. Hyphens are used within words or to join words, but not in punctuating the parts of a sentence. Use an en dash (–) with   before and a space after; or use an em dash (—) without spaces. See How to make dashes. Avoid using two hyphens -- to make a dash; and avoid using a hyphen for a minus sign.
• Use an en dash, not a hyphen, between numbers: pp. 14–21; 1953–2008. An en dash is also to connect parallel terms: red–green colorblind; a New York–London flight. Use spaces around the en dash only if the connected terms are multi-unit dates: January 1999 – December 2000.
• For quotations use {{ndash|Author's Name}}.

Dates and numbers

SMOS:D&N

• Write number 1 or No. 1, but not #1. Comic books are an exception.
• Write 12,000 for twelve thousand, not 12.000.
• Both 10 June 1921 and June 10, 1921, are correct, but be consistent within an article. A comma is not used if only the month is given, such as June 1921.
• 400 AD and 400 BC are correct; but so are 400 CE and 400 BCE. As always, use one style consistently in an article.
• Use one, two, three, ..., eight, nine in normal article text, not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (although there are many exceptional circumstances; and some other numbers may be written as words also).

Markup

SMOS:MKP

• Instead of an ordinary space, use   (a hard space or non-breaking space) to prevent a line from ending in the middle of expressions.
• It does not matter how many spaces come after a period, because extra spaces will not show, although blank lines will create one extra line.
• Use wikilinks, but only for words and phrases that are most likely to be helpful if clicked. Make sure each link goes to an article on the intended subject, and not to a disambiguation page or incorrect destination.

Usage

SMOS:USG

• Ashes of Creation Wiki prefers no major national variety of the language over any other. These varieties (e.g. U.S. English, British English) differ in vocabulary (soccer vs. football), spelling (center vs. centre), and occasionally grammar.
• Avoid words like I, we, and you, except in quotations and names of works.
• Avoid phrases like note that and remember that (which assume "you" for the reader); and avoid such expressions as of course and obviously.

Internationalization and localization

Help:Translation

• All pages on Ashes of Creation Wiki are candidates for translation into multiple languages.
• Please see the translation guide for more information.

See also

• Starting a new page
• Editing pages
• Creating and editing translations
• Uploading media
• Embedding images and videos
• Creating and editing transcripts
• Using templates
• Formatting content
• Categories
• Ashes of Creation Wiki's TODO list

External links

• WP:SMOS Wikipedia's simplified manual of style
• WP:MANUAL Wikipedia's manual of style
• mw:Documentation/Style guide MediaWiki's documentation/style guide