Talk: Manual of style

A manual of style is a common wiki page that details how things should be layed out. I created it so we can clarify some style issues.

Capitalization

This has been driving me crazy -- mainly because I'm not sure of the answers, but hopefully others can help figure it out. When should article titles be capitalized?

This is an important issue not only from a style perspective, but because links are case sensitive. Armor Class links but armor class does not. (Note: The armor class article has been changed, so these links work, but the issue remains. --The Krit 03:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC))

It seems clear that spell names are always capitalized, but that doesn't seem to be the case for skills and other abilities. Is it Pick Pocket or pick pocket? What about Hit Points and hit points? (Looks like I setup a redirect on that one, which is an option, but I'm not sure we want a capitization redirect on every single article.) (Actually, that's another issue, it should probably be the singular Hit Point or hit point).

Am I the only one who lays awake at night thinking about these things? :) -- Austicke 09:25, 12 Sep 2005 (PDT)

• I can see where you coming from, and most of this problem most likely come from my editting. I thought I did alright keeping check on those. I like the looks of Caps. Pick Pocket or Hit Points, if someone doesnt want caps all they really have to do [[Pick Pocket|pick pocket]] or [[Hit Points|hit points]]. Is there a simple way to looking into and fixing them all, and I just have to search. -- Pstarky 11:18, 12 Sep 2005 (PDT)

• This comment from Llandru was moved from Talk:Main Page#Nomenclature:

A number of articles on NWNWiki currently have capitalization that doesn't work well with the wiki software's searching facility. Specifically, searching is case insensitive if only the first letter in the article title is capitalized and the rest are lower-case (e.g. prestige class works, as the actual article is called Prestige class).

Otherwise, the search requires exact case, which is not always desirable (IMO). E.g. half-elf and even Half-elf fail because the actual article is called "Half-Elf" (the hyphen is treated as part of the word); nwscript fails because the actual article title is "NWScript"; red dragon disciple fails because the actual article is called Red Dragon Disciple. (Note: These examples have been changed or fixed. --The Krit 03:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC))

I think the exact-case titles can be defended sometimes (e.g. "Shadows of Undrentide"), because the official name requires case-sensitive titling, or for other valid reasons, but in those cases, a redirect should be created from the case-insensitive title form (like in the "shadows of undrentide" example).

Otherwise, articles should probably follow standard Wikipedia style for article titles (initial letter capitalized only). We should also avoid overloading article titles (e.g. if "My favourite Article" and "My favourite article" lead to different article, then I think there's a problem).

Reference: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization).

Note: I'm not the title police, I'm just bringing up some points for discussion, and to encourage people to think about these issues and consider what redirects are needed when starting an article. --Llandru 10:56, 1 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Good point, Llandru. As you can see, I raised this very issue not too long ago. I created the NWNWiki:Manual of Style so we can standardize these things. I think we should use lower case except for official titles. Shadows of Undrentide should be capitalized, but I'm still confused by things like Hit Point. It's an official term, but I often see it written as hit point in BioWare material. I wonder if WotC (look at those caps :)) has standards on this.... -- Austicke 11:44, 4 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Im having the same problem here, I dont know what to do too.(I hate to say it, but most of this has come from my editing. :( ) Caps in heading just look correct, but if it makes searching a real pain then I think we should really do something about it. One question: when you make a new article and you dont cap any of the words, does it not automaticly Cap the first character in the name? Eg. If you do search for hit point and the article was created with no caps. The search will find the article, and when you see the name of the article or heading of the article on the page, it will look like Hit point? -- Pstarky 05:34, 6 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Proper english wants us to capitalize each word in the title. OTOH, software doesn't always use proper english (to say nothing of some of the contributors to this wiki (ha ha J/K folks!). In an encyclopedia, the titles are capitalized. In the dictionary, the entries are not capitalized. This thing is sorta both isn't it? For searching, it seems clear that an uncapitalized search should always work, regardless of circumstances. Klingon Mage 05:03, 6 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• Thanks for moving my comments, Austicke. Yes, if you search for "hit points" then it will show the article as "Hit points", and it would fail to find "Hit Points" (though in this case there's a redirect). It's a tough problem, and one that plagues Wikipedia as well (ex. "timon of athens" (notice it turns up "Timon of athens") vs. "Timon of Athens"). Proper English rules are actually a bit more complicated than simply giving each word initial caps (ex. Hordes of the Underdark is proper English). Also, different "flavours" of English encourage more or fewer capitals, and different style guides offer different rules.

This suggests two things to me (keep in mind these are merely my opinions). First, because of the limitations of the software, our highest priority should be to make article titles that are findable and linkable without needing proper case (ex. we should prefer titles "That are like this"); when a title must have case-sensitive capitalization, there should be a case-insensitive redirect. Second, because there is more than one "proper" way to capitalize, we should show tolerance for each other's stylistic preferences when a case-sensitive title is needed; the alternative is a lot of policing by the admins to enforce an arbitrary style, which I don't think anyone wants.

The only thing that remains is to decide what needs case-sensitive capitalization (with redirect), and what should simply use the case-insensitive form. I'm with Austicke in preferring case-insensitive form for everything except proper nouns and official titles. We should try to keep the wiki structure simple and easy to understand; to me that means the fewer redirects, the better. For things that are uncertain, like "Hit point", I think we should leave the article in case-insensitive form by default. Probably for those we'll have to decide on a case-by-case basis, which can be worked out on the article's talk page. What do you think?

--Llandru 18:33, 9 Oct 2005 (PDT)

• I agree that following the Wiki standard (uncapitalized article titles) is a good idea. I thought I would also add a thought on why things like "Hit Points" are sometimes capitalized. The capitalization makes these terms stand out as having a special meaning in D&D. (A similar tactic is used in legal documents. Does "The Software is licensed to you, not sold, by Infogrames, and its use is subject to this License." look familiar? Note the capitalized "Software". The word is explicitly defined in the beginning of the EULA.) Thus, when a character enters Rage, you know that character is not simply angry. In the Wiki, a similar effect can be achieved by making use of links. (e.g. A character enters rage.) It might be best to set the standard for naming the articles, and let the individual authors decide what looks best within the articles.

So why is "Hit Points" only sometimes capitalized? When D&D first came out, "Hit Point" might have been a new phrase, so it got capitalized as a game term. (I'm not sure if it was new; that predates my gaming by a bit.) Now its game meaning has been largely accepted as its everyday meaning, so people will write it in lower case and never think twice about it being a D&D term. Does that make sense? I'm trying to say that "hit point" only has one meaning, while "rage" is both an emotion and a Barbarian's ability. I'm not sure if that tells us if we want to always capitalize it, but maybe that might help explain the inconsistency. --The Krit 20:25, 23 Nov 2005 (PST)

The Great Renaming

We've been pretty militant enforcing the capitalization rules with NWN2Wiki, and I think it works much better. It's nice being able to link to articles without having to unnaturally capitalize words so the link will work. It'd be a huge task, but I think we should go back and rename all articles to use lowercase unless they're proper nouns. Yep, all feats, spells, etc. Who's with me? (Waits for cricket sounds....) -- Austicke 10:02, 22 Dec 2005 (PST)

• If u do, make sure u update the "extenal links" we're putting up in NWN2Wiki--Defunc7 11:15, 22 Dec 2005 (PST)

• Good point, Defunc7. Actually, I think we'll want to keep all the redirects that are created ("Arcane Archer" redirecting to "Arcane archer"), because I've posted a ton of links to the BioWare forums and other external web sites. -- Austicke 11:26, 22 Dec 2005 (PST)

• Keep in mind y'all that the software forces all article names to be capitalised. Even it you write it hit points, it's still going to send you to Hit points. As far as the software is concerned, both of those are identical. Just something to be aware of. Evilphoenix 18:04, 22 Dec 2005 (PST)

• Understood. That's fine, because hit point connects with Hit point. The problem is that hit point and Hit point don't connect with Hit Point. That's the problem. Therefore, only proper nouns should be all caps. -- Austicke 18:21, 22 Dec 2005 (PST)

• I think Countess Terra has started the Great Renaming (see magic missile). She's either very ambitious or just plain crazy. :) -- Alec Usticke 15:16, 5 January 2006 (PST)

• Come back in a month or two and we'll find out. --Countess Terra 15:28, 5 January 2006 (PST)

• Nice job on the renaming so far. It looks like you got all the spells. What's next? Classes and feats? *ducks* -- Alec Usticke 01:48, 7 January 2006 (PST)

Typographical punctuation

Is the bit about not using typographical punctuation supposed to apply just to copying those characters? The Wiki software does provide a standard way to enter the various dashes: - from -, – from – and — from —. The way I understand it, "-" is for hyphenation (e.g. 20-sided), "–" is for ranges (e.g. pages 1–20), and "—" is for the occasional separating of clauses within a sentence. I don't see why you would want to prevent someone from using the standard punctuation, provided it was entered properly.--The Krit 01:24, 3 January 2006 (PST)

• Good point, The Krit. I added that section mainly because I was seeing a lot D&D material on NWN2Wiki with the typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. I added the dashes more due to my ignorance than anything else. I will review the Wikipedia documentation and update. Thanks! -- Alec Usticke 08:40, 3 January 2006 (PST)

• when I press my ' on the keyboard I geta ' not the typog thing that looks alot similar. doesn't make any visible difference normally except for links. since it's a different character Owl’s Wisdom != Owl's Wisdom --Defunc7 09:20, 3 January 2006 (PST)

• I don't see a problem with allowing dashes, so I simply linked to Wikipedia's article.

For typographical quotes, Wikipedia says [1]:

There is currently no consensus whether typographic (“ ” ‘ ’) or typewriter (" ') quotation marks and apostrophe should be preferred. If curved quotation marks or apostrophes should appear in article titles ensure that there is a redirect with straight glyphs.

My preference would be to just say not to use them. How does that sound? -- Alec Usticke 12:13, 3 January 2006 (PST)

• Looking at the above after the move to Wikia, I'd say not using the typographical marks would have been a very good idea. ;) --The Krit 20:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

• I think I figured out some of the conversions to get back what was originally there. I listed them on my user page, in case someone (like me) needs to look them up. I'll add more if I recognize any other symbols. --The Krit 04:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Links in headings

Should we put links in headings? I see that Countess Terra has added some links to the headings in some articles (like Epic Spell: Hellball). When Pstarky and I originally added all the spells, feats, etc., we decided it looked better if headings like Caster level, Innate Level, Spell school, etc. didn't include links. We figured the user would do a search if they didn't understand a term. However, I can understand the convenience of having links, so I'm not sure what's best. (I do think there should never be links in section titles -- that looks bad.) Any thoughts? I wonder how they do it on Wikipedia.... -- Alec Usticke 14:39, 5 January 2006 (PST)

• I like the convenience. By the way, there have been links in the headings for the various skills since late September. --The Krit 13:46, 9 January 2006 (PST)

• Yeah, we did a lot of things "wrong" when we started. That's why it's important to pin down this manual of style. That being said, it's up to us (our community) to decide how we want things formatted -- even if it's a change. -- Alec Usticke 15:12, 9 January 2006 (PST)

• I'm not fond of that kind of linking. many of the links are confusing and redundant. stuff like spell school: evocation. a link to evocation is warranted, but the page for evocation also explains spell schools with an appropriate link. as a user I'm not sure which I should be clicking, but both lead you to the same place by different routes. save reflex 1/2 is similar. the link for reflex has all the needed information. the link for Spell Resistance does not have any useful info (effect or spell doesn't apply, since from the perspective of a spell the concept is reversed). Also on that page the evasion feat text. I don't see any reason to link "feat" in that case. The fact that evasion is a feat is not relavant to how it will affect the spell. clicking the evasion link will also provide this information if the user is curious about what evasion is. I think generally, I'm not a fan of having multiple links adjacent to each other when both links are closely related and explain each other (which is the case for most adjacent links, it seems). Anyways, this is all imho. -- Jjjhhhlll 21:22, 9 January 2006 (PST)

• No, that's a very good point, Jjjhhhlll. If you look at NWNWiki:Manual of style#Wiki links, you'll see that we addressed this issue:

Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up.

I'm very guilty of overlinking. I'm probably the one who did [[reflex]] [[save]], and it's stupid. If you're linking reflex, which references that it's a save, why in the world link the word save too? Duh.

I pretty much link every recognized word, and I gotta stop it. It just makes the article more confusing and cluttered. Thinking about it, I've been linking [[character]] all over the place, which is kind of dumb. When someone is reading an article about a specific feat, do they really need help understanding what a character is? That's such a basic concept. Duh again.

I'm glad you brought it up, Jjjhhhlll, because I need to do a better job making high value links instead of linking every single word under the sun. Very good point! -- Alec Usticke 21:44, 9 January 2006 (PST)

What goes in a category?

CID-78 raises a good point on his talk page:

i have noticed that there is a few help topics among the normal topics. is it possible to move them to a separate section. i think they disturb the look. i mean in the feat category i expect to find feats and only that. links to the help category or rule category would be good instead.

It's a good point. For example, the Feat article itself -- along with some other related articles like Difficulty class -- is in Category:Feats. Should we change how we handle these kind of articles? Should only actual feats be in the feats category and related articles (like Feat) be in Category:Game rules (or wherever)? Any thoughts? -- Alec Usticke 02:43, 7 January 2006 (PST)

• I'm having a hard time figuring out Wikipedia's rules on the subject, but check out how it's handled with Wikipedia:Category:Arcade_games. The Arcade games category does include related articles, like Arcade system board, Arcade game, Coin acceptor, etc. However, they're all sorted at the top of the list under * instead of alphabetized. They do this using the wikicode [[Category:Arcade games|*]] in the article. Pretty clever. That way, the category includes related articles, but they're not sorted amongst the list of actual arcade games. That's an interesting option. -- Alec Usticke 02:52, 7 January 2006 (PST)

• I think it'd be bad to remove the articles from the associated category (unless we start category linking). --Defunc7 05:56, 7 January 2006 (PST)
  

• Nother idea. How bout each category has a "definitions" subcategory specifically for the various things, the only prob I can see with this is a single item in a cat might be a bit strange--Defunc7 06:14, 7 January 2006 (PST)
  

• Messing about, u don't even need the * u can list [[Category:Blah| ]] and it just puts it at the start without a specified grouping--Defunc7 06:48, 7 January 2006 (PST)

• implemented this at NWN2Wiki:Category:Classes for example. I think it looks a bit odd since there's really enough for a sub-category and it's missing any explanation of why it's like that.--Defunc7 06:48, 8 January 2006 (PST)

• I like it. The info pages are all at top for easy viewing, and they're not classes (just articles about classes), so they're not intermingled with the rest of the list. -- Alec Usticke 11:29, 8 January 2006 (PST)

• Messed about a bit more... [[Category:Classes| ]] is a different position from [[Category:Classes| Class]]. i.e. they wont be listed within the same " " of the category article list. I've done it at NWN2Wiki:Category:Classes again, to move "class" to the front of the block and seperate it away from the additional definition articles like "base class" and "prestige class" etc.--Defunc7 03:32, 9 January 2006 (PST)

• It looks good, but I don't think Class necessarily needs to be seperated out, since it's already linked from the top intro text. So, what do you think? Should we go with this format for all categories? -- Alec Usticke 04:34, 9 January 2006 (PST)

• defently alot better --CID-78 04:51, 9 January 2006 (PST)

Official Descriptions

The policy for NWNWiki is that articles containing official descriptions should be quoted verbatim, even if they are wrong, and discrepancies should be outlined in the notes. I think this is a fine policy. New users, however, or casual "stopped by once and made a change" types might not realize this--I know I certainly didn't (and I'm still a noob). Has there been any consideration toward prefacing all such articles with a "disclaimer" that reads something to the effect of "The following description is as it appears in the documentation and in-game resources. It may not reflect the actual implementation. See notes below." Thoughts? -- Kato 11:45, 7 June 2006 (PDT)

• Good question, Kato. I was just thinking that we should add a hidden note in the edit screen with a big, bad warning about not changing the official description. For example, see Sandbox edit -- it's got a warning not to edit the {sandbox} template. You're idea to make it viewable to everyone is a good idea too though. We could easily create a short warning box template or something. What do others think? -- Alec Usticke 13:22, 7 June 2006 (PDT)

• Sounds good, as long as people keep to it too. And of course as long as all the official descripts have not been copied wrong in the first place :) GhostNWN 13:57, 7 June 2006 (PDT)

• Copied wrong? I've never seen anyone copy and paste incorrectly into the Wiki... ;) -- Kato 14:31, 7 June 2006 (PDT)

• Of course people won't "keep to it" -- that's why we're here. Hopefully it'll help a little though.

As far as official descriptions copied wrong, the tireless Pstarky did most of the initial setup. I believe he got most of the information from the Neverwinter Grimoire (not to be confused with Syrus Greycloak's Grimoire :) ), and I believe Lord Xyphus got most of the Grimoire information from the NWN talk table; so, in theory, it should be correct, but I'm not sure that's always the case. Also, the Grimoire may have come from an earlier patch. I've tried to update any changed descriptions when each patch was released, but I wouldn't be surprised if we missed something. -- Alec Usticke 14:52, 7 June 2006 (PDT)

British vs American

I noticed that 2 recent changes by an anonymous user changed British spelling in articles' descriptions to an Americanized one. Is there supposed to be some uniformity? -- GhostNWN

• Yeah, I think we want to stick to American for consistency. -- Alec Usticke 03:53, 16 June 2006 (PDT)

Articles in article names

Would it be OK to modify the part reading

Avoid the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name.

to allow these articles when part of a title (of a book, etc.)? I was thinking of something like the Wikipedia guideline

If the definite or indefinite article would be capitalized in running text, then include it at the beginning of the page name. This would be the case for the title of a work such as a novel. Otherwise, do not include it at the beginning of the page name.

and maybe including a link to Wikipedia's conventions for more explanation. --The Krit 00:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Official descriptions and damage types

While generally I see the wisdom in preserving the official descriptions for feats, spells, etc., I think we should have one specific exception. Spells that inflict damage often just say something like "d6 damage" in their descriptions. For several of these spells, I've added a link to indicate the damage type, as in "d6 damage", but people still asked what the damage type was, so I guess this was too subtle. According to official policy, the less-subtle way to address this is to add a note like "The damage type is fire damage." Not bad, but kind of inconvenient for a reader when realistically, it is just one word missing from the official description. (Are we taking this principle too far?) I think we should allow the official descriptions to be modified for the sake of adding the damage type.

The above is why I think this would be good. As for why I think it would not be bad, consider the reason for sticking to the official descriptions in the first place. The intent is to head off the well-intentioned person who comes by and unfixes a description by restoring what they read in-game (thinking that the wiki needed updating). I just don't see someone deciding to delete the name of the damage type (e.g. "bludgeoning") in an attempt to correct information. So I think this exception could work. A little emphasis: part of the reason I see this working is that we are talking about a single word addition. Another part is that this is the only exception. I do not want to stray too far from preserving the official descriptions, but I think this could work. (And it is already done in some places. For some reason I thought I brought this up before, but I cannot recall where.)

Any thoughts? --The Krit (talk) 04:32, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

• I can see a concern that well-intentioned readers who hadn't read the style guide might see non-official text in the description and decide to revert it back to the original. Another concern is that those readers seeing the edited version would infer that small edits that clarify the original are generally okay.
  It's unclear that small edits to clarify damage type are more justified than other small edits a reader might make to clarify or add useful detail to the official description. For sure, there are dozens of articles where adding damage type to the official description would improve it. But, there are likely hundreds of official descriptions that might see similar improvement with other small alterations to their text. So, a natural question becomes: If there is an exception for damage type, why not for other small edits that benefit a description?
  It's a close call, but I would come down on the side of not mixing the goal of having the official description in the article with the goal of having that description be the most clear description. Having links that clarify what a word means is helpful. And, most articles will have notes anyway, so readers have to get used to reading them. I would rather know that the description is the same text that I would see in the game/toolset/documentation and know that the notes are there to clarify when that description needs amplification. - MrZork (talk) 22:10, November 20, 2012 (UTC)

d6 vs 1d6

Just two quick things I'm wondering here that I haven't seen specifically mentioned anywhere. First, for your equipment listings, why is additional damage listed as "+d6" instead of "+1d6"? It's correct form both in game as well as in general D&D terminology to specify the "1" when single-die-roll situations arise. It just looks uneven to omit the one when every other source makes it explicit. Daft inquisitor (talk) 06:19, August 6, 2018 (UTC)

• The person who wrote those articles apparently preferred omitting the "1". It's also a correct form, so I don't see what the issue is. While this manual of style does not address that specifically, I would file it under the idea that you should not start an edit war over personal preferences in writing style. If there is a real reason to change it, sure, but some things are not worth making a fuss over. --The Krit (talk) 10:11, August 6, 2018 (UTC)

Level requirement?

Note: this was originally combined with the preceding section. I split it off and renamed the sections to help keep things organized. --The Krit (talk) 10:09, August 6, 2018 (UTC)

Secondly, also on equipment listings, I see "Level Requirement" listed for a lot of magical gear, yet that doesn't seem to be an actual regulation at all, at least in the single-player game. If it's something for online mode only, I think it should be listed as such, and if it isn't, then why is that (seemingly incorrect) information there? Daft inquisitor (talk) 06:19, August 6, 2018 (UTC)

• It seems like this question is more directed at the content of the articles rather than the style being used. So maybe you meant to ask in the talk page for one of those articles, or perhaps in category talk:items, to cover all of them at once? (In brief: the default for single player level requirements is "off" but you can turn it on with an .ini file setting.) As far as the involved writing style goes, there should be a link from the text "Level Requirement" to the article item level restrictions, where that concept is explained. That's not really covered by this manual though; it's more of a "how wikis work" type of thing. --The Krit (talk) 10:16, August 6, 2018 (UTC)