Tribes Wiki:Style guide

Note: As most of the data on this wiki has been collected from various other wikis, many pages might not conform to this style guide. Please make corrections on the pages if that's the case. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post on the discussion page.

This style guide is made to make the Tribes Wiki easy to read by having the same standard across pages. The following guide is intended as a reference for general situations. It may not cover every situation that may come up.

For a more complete manual of style, the Wikipedia Manual of Style may be useful.

Article titles

TL;DR: Use in-game name and title case for the title.

A title should always be exactly the same as the in-game name of the subject, except when multiple subjects have the same name (and thus disambiguation parentheses are required). In cases where other CIG sources are inconsistent with in-game names, in-game names and sentence case should be used, with redirects utilized for other names.

• Use the same capitalization as the in-game listing if possible. Most items should be in Title Case ([Tribes 3: Rivals/Heavy Armor|Heavy Armor]), not sentence case (Heavy armor).
• Block capitals should not be used in titles (Article titles, not ARTICLE TITLES).
• Use italics if needed, conforming to Tribes Wiki:Style guide#Italics.
• Do not use articles (a, an, or the) as the first word (Children of Phoenix, not The Children of Phoenix), unless it is an integral part of a name (The Flower That Fades).
• Use full name instead of abbreviations if possible (Blood Eagle, not BE). Use a redirect if the abbreviation is common.
• Use straight quotation marks or apostrophes, create a redirect for curly ones if needed (|Gast's Rifle, not Tribes: Ascend/Gast’s Rifle).

Sometimes technical restrictions of MediaWiki prevent editors naming pages after their in-game names:

• The subject name does not begin with a capital letter.
• The subject name includes a /.
• The subject name includes a character that cannot be used in page names, including # < > [ ] | { } _.
• The subject begins with a string that would put the page in the wrong namespace. Such strings might include: Project:, File:, or User:, etc.

In such cases, problem characters should be replaced substitutes of left out altogether. Generally, replace | with -, and : in namespaces with -; leave out "#"". False subpages should be at the same name.

Layout

A simple article should have at least a lead section, references, short description. The rest can be added when needed

1. Before the lead section
   1. Parser functions (e.g.: Short description, display title)
   2. Related articles templates
   3. Maintenance templates
   4. Infoboxes
   5. Images (if no infoboxes)
2. Body
   1. Lead section (also called the introduction)
   2. Content
   3. Trivia
   4. Gallery
   5. See also
   6. Notes
   7. References
3. Bottom matter
   1. Navplates
   2. Stub templates
   3. Categories

Sections and headings

TL;DR: Keep headings short, concise, in plain text, and in sentence case.

Separating articles into sections makes them easy to read and navigate. Headings are used to split articles into sections.

Markup

• Use equals signs around a section heading: ==Title== for a primary section, ===Title=== for a subsection, and so on to ======Title======, with no level skipped.
• =Title= is never used.
• Spaces around the title are optional and ignored, e.g. == Title ==.

Wording

• Keep heading short
• Use sentence case (capitalize only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns).
• Not redundantly refer back to the subject of the article (e.g., Early life, not Smith's early life or His early life).
• Not refer to a higher-level heading, unless doing so is shorter or clearer.
• Not be numbered or lettered as an outline.
• Not be phrased as a question.
• Avoid the use of color or unusual fonts that might cause accessibility problems.
• Not wrap headings in markup, which may break their display and also cause additional accessibility issues.

To avoid technical complications:

• Be unique within a page, so that section links lead to the right place.
• Avoid links, especially where only part of a heading is linked.
• Avoid images or icons.
• Avoid templates.
• Avoid citations or footnotes.

Lead sections

A lead (introduction) summarizes the most essential points of an article, creating interest in the topic.

• Subject should be defined within the first 250 characters.
• Should be limited to a few paragraphs.
• Subject should be mentioned as early as possible in the first sentence and should be bolded.
• Certain information, such as strategies and trivia, should be in a separate section instead of in the lead.

Text elements

Internal links

• Don't link the same article more than once, except if the article is too long or the link is in a template. For example, Firetruce may be mentioned five times. You only have to link to Firetruce once.
• Piped link formats for simple plurals (s, es) are generally unnecessary. For example, use [[sensor]]s instead of [[sensor|sensors]].
• On the other hand, use pipe symbols for complex plurals. For example, [[Starwolf|Starwolves]] instead of [[Starwolf]]s.
• Do not place the last letters of a plural outside of a link that already has alternate text.

Font colors

Colored font should be avoided except for templates. If you need to use a colored font, you might want to create a template instead.

Bold

TL;DR: Bold the first mention of the subject and its alias.

Boldface is commonly used on the wiki, but restricted to several usages:

• First mention of the subject of the page. For example, the term Heavy Spinfusor is bolded on the Heavy Spinfusor page.
• First mention of the alias of the subject of the page. For example, the term VGS is bolded on the Voice Game System page.
• Pseudo-heading, when a heading does not form a section and use as a stylistic heading.
• Avoid using bold for emphasis in the article text, instead use {{em}}.

Boldface is sometimes applied automatically, either by MediaWiki software or by the browser:

• Section headings
• Description lists
• Table headers and captions (but not image captions)
• A link to the page on which that link appears called a self link

Italics

TL;DR: Use {{em}} to emphasize text. Some names and titles should be italicized.

Italics should be used in the following conditions:

• Emphasize text, but only through the {{em}} template or the <em>...</em> HTML tag.
• Certain names and titles both in real world and in-lore. Common examples on the wiki are mentioned below. For an exhaustive list, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style for titles.
  • Video games (Tribes 3: Rivals, CyberStorm 2: Corporate Wars).
  • Stories and writings (Prophecy of Tears, Newblood)

Quotes

• Use straight quotation marks ' " instead of curly quotation marks.
• Use {{Quote}} for quotes more than 40 words or more than one paragraph.
• Quoted sources should leave date formats in whatever the quoted source used. (So don't edit a quote to change the date format.)

Numbers

• Use comma as the thousands separator. Separators should be used for numbers greater than 1,000.
  • Do not use separators for template input, the template will format the number.
• Ranges should be indicated with an endash (–; –) rather than a hyphen ("1–5" not "1-5").

Grammar and spelling

Capital letters

Avoid unnecessary capitalization. It is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence. Use common sense to determine if it is a proper noun. Note that title text should always be ignored as they are often written in title case.

Spelling

While British English is generally acceptable, American English is strongly preferred. Everything in Tribes Wiki uses the American spelling, so does the wiki. If there is a spelling conflict between CIG and American English, use CIG spelling.

Abbreviations

TL;DR: Try not to use abbreviations.

Abbreviations should only be used if it is defined in the article, and it does not affect the readability. Additional rules apply for article title as stated below:

• Do not use abbreviations for article title unless there is no known full name.
• [Redirect acronyms and abbreviations to the article. The redirect page itself should be placed into Category:Abbreviations.
• Create Disambiguation page if two or more different meanings for the abbreviations exist, instead of a redirect page.

Identity / Point of view

• Third-person wherever possible
• Use neutral, factual information
• Avoid personal ideas and opinions
• Use the word "character" to describe in-game entities such as individuals, players, or NPCs.
• Use gender-neutral language

For example: "Compared to the other primary weapon for the Heavy Armor, the Heavy Spinfusor does less slightly damage on a direct hit (912 instead of 936), but it has a larger explosion radius." not "I think The Heavy Spinfusor is the best primary weapon in the game". Writing in this neutral tone will take practice, but it provides the readers with the most information and the least confusion.

File Names

File names (typically, the names of images uploaded to the wiki) should be descriptive and should contain the subject of the file to allow them to be easily found in searches. For example, file names like "C2 Hercules Cerberus Paint - Landed" should be used instead of "CI 1002305122021 slideshow small". Make sure that all words in the file name are spelled correctly to avoid the need to rename a file in the future.

Non-article styles

Disambiguation

Wikis must resolve ambiguous references when a link is to a term that has more than one distinct meaning. This process is called disambiguation.

When one term is clearly the more expected result, it can remain the primary link, and a {{for}} or {{about}} entry should head off the article.

When it is not so clear, the term becomes a disambiguation page, linking to the possible meanings.

Alternate meanings take the form of Term (other meaning). (Note lower case for disambiguation meaning.) Alternative meanings should also have a for statement at the head of the article.

Lore

Lore on the Tribes Wiki is largely written by Dynamix with the intention of "filling-out" the universe with characters, stories, and locations.

The writing style of these posts is vastly different from that of the other neutral posts you may find on the wiki. They include first-person accounts, human interest stories, and news bulletins. As a result, many lore posts use slang, unfriendly language, and strong opinions. These should not be taken as guidelines for the writing style on other Tribes Wiki content.

The lore posts are taken "as-is" from Dynamix's website, blog posts, in-game assets, and other Tribes sources. As such, they should not be modified to suit the Tribes Wiki's tone and style. Any such pages will be documented and logged on the SCW for reference with minor edits for formatting.

Talk and user pages

The writing style on community pages, such as talk pages and user pages, are more informal than content pages. This allows for easier, more friendly communication and a more familiar tone.

As with any personal-related content, respect is paramount when dealing with other editors and users. Insults, releasing personal information, or personal attacks will not be tolerated, even on your own user page. Please treat other editors with respect. They're people too!