As a wiki, SWGames has a certain standard of grammatical correctness and uniformity of articles. This Manual of Style will help users know that standard.
For basic writing techniques and styles, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
Layout guide
All articles should be structured as below:
- Title/Eras/Infobox
- Main article
- See also
- Appearances
- Sources
- External Links
- Stub template
- Category
Naming
While naming the articles, there are several things to consider:
- Article names should be in singular form (eg: Sith trooper instead of Sith troopers)
- Titles are not included in names (eg: Leia Organa instead of Princess Leia Organa)
- The name should use proper capitalization; only proper nouns are capitalized (eg: Sith trooper instead of Sith Trooper)
- If the title is the name of a game or vessel, such as the Tantive IV, then the title needs to display in italics through the use of the template title.
Headings
Use the == (heading) markup for article sections, not '''bold''' markup. When using heading markup, a table of contents is automatically created underneath the article introduction. If bold markup is used, however, a table of contents is not created and the article is more difficult to edit/read.
Usage, spelling and grammar
As on Wookieepedia, SWGames uses American English spelling and grammar for consistency's sake, even though there are several dialects of English spoken around the world. British/Canadian/Australian spellings of the same word should be redirected to the correctly spelled page (eg: Lightsabre redirects to Lightsaber). Titles of games and vessels (e.g. Tantive IV) should be in italics when mentioned.
Abbreviation
Abbreviation is not to be used on SWGames in articles. Redirecting from an abbreviation is fine (such as KOTOR) but using abbreviations, even as a link, in articles is not acceptable.
Tense
All in-game articles should be written in past tense, as the events have already happened "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."
If the article is out of the gaming perspective, however, it can be written in the present tense, such as if the article is discussing a game (ie: "Battlefront II is" instead of "Battlefront II was").
Capitalization
Several basic capitalization rules follow:
- Jedi and Sith are always capitalized
- Where the Force is always capitalized, the light side and dark side of the Force is never capitalized. Note: Force is only capitalized in reference to the Force, not a force.
- Species: The names of all species are capitalized (eg: Human, Twi'lek, and Rodian would be capitalized, as opposed to human, twi'lek, and rodian).
- Ranks and titles: Ranks and titles are only capitalized if attached to a name (eg: Admiral Karath's title is capitalized all the time, while the admiral commanding the fleet is not capitalized).
Source vs. Appearance
This can be confusing, and has been in the past. To clarify:
Source: Specific information about a character/weapon/vehicle
Appearance: Somewhere the character/weapon/vehicle is seen