Witcher Wiki:Manual of style

This manual of style outlines a standard of clean, consistent formatting for articles on the Witcher Wiki. The following are guidelines for various aspects of writing article content about The Witcher franchise, established by consensus among editors. Please discuss them on the talk page if you have ideas or questions.

Article layout
One of the most important parts of wiki editing is how to structure an article. The structure is a powerful thing: it dictates what information the reader reads and when he or she reads it. It can influence what people contribute, where it goes, and how it might be written. Structure has the power to inform or confuse the same way good or bad writing does. Keep a well structured article, and you're more likely to have a high quality one.

Organize sections in an article in a hierarchical structure like you would an outline. Keep it logical, but feel free to forsake strict logic for readability. Wherever possible, try to have an introduction for each section. Just like the article as a whole, the section should start with an introduction and then have its subsections below it. Try using a shallow structure rather than a deep one. Too many nested sections usually leads to a confusing or unreadable article. See Section headings for more info on writing section headings.

Above all, keep your layout consistent. Don't throw your reader a curve ball too often. The following sections will offer some good advice on keeping your articles clean, consistent, and clear. They are presented in the order in which they should appear in an article.

Disambiguation
A disambiguation line is sometimes put at the beginning of an article to link to another article with the same or similar title. The line should be italicized and indented once. For example, in the Morenn article:


 * This article is about the dryad Morenn from the original game. For a similarly named character in the novels, see Morénn.

The template can be used for this purpose.


 * For an example where both an ambox and a disambiguation section is used, see Tomira's hut.

The disambiguation line should be in the very top of the article. If a reader has arrived at the wrong article, it should be known right away, without the need to scan down the page.

Article message box
An article message box, also called ambox, is generally a temporary notice on an article&mdash;it may flag up some issue or notify the user about some special aspect of the article. It should never be part of the article content, and should be placed at the top of an article, only after the disambiguation line (if present).

All article messages use Template:Ambox base template. The template is the most common, and other amboxes can be found here.

Infobox
Infoboxes, boxes which summarize data relating to the article, should appear at the top-right corner of the article content. Infoboxes should generally summarize available information. Speculation, as well as "unknown" or "n/a" rows, should be avoided.

Examples of infoboxes are the and  templates. Others can be found here.

Lead section
An article should begin with an introductory lead section, before the first subheading. The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, and explaining why the subject is interesting or notable. It should be between one or two paragraphs long, and should be written in a clear and accessible style so that the reader is encouraged to read the rest of the article. The lead should not be explicitly entitled  or any header with equivalent meaning.

If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article. For example, write "Decoctions are special, long-lasting potions created from unique mutagens" as the first sentence on the page titled "Decoction".

The first time the article mentions the title, put it in bold using three apostrophes&mdash; produces article title. Avoid other uses of bold in the first sentence, except for alternative titles of an article. For example, in the Aen Elle article:

The Aen Elle (Elder Speech meaning "People of the Alders", "Alder Folk") are elves who inhabit another world and are culturally distinct from Aen Seidhe elves.

Follow the normal rules for italics in choosing whether to put part or all of the title in italics. This will mainly apply to the titles of books and games:

Time of Contempt is the fourth book in the Witcher series. It directly continues Blood of Elves, which began the saga of Ciri and Geralt.

Do not put links in the bold reiteration of the title in the article's lead sentence. For example, use "Kikimore warriors defend workers and their queen from intruders" instead of "Kikimore warriors defend workers and their queen from intruders".

First sentence
The first sentence should tell the non-specialist reader what, or who, the subject is. It should be in plain English. Be wary of cluttering the first sentence with a long parenthesis containing alternative spellings, pronunciations, etc., which can make the sentence difficult to actually read. This additional information can be placed elsewhere.

Table of contents
A table of contents (TOC) will automatically appear in articles with a minimum of four headings (unless forced by the below options). By default this will be left-aligned above the first section heading.


 * To force a TOC position (left-aligned):
 * To completely remove the TOC from a page:

The table of contents can be right-aligned&mdash;but this should only be done if it is very long (over 15 entries) and an information box is not occupying the top-right corner of the article.


 * Right-aligned TOC that floats next to text:

Article content
For information on writing the article itself, see the Writing section.

Gallery
This section is used to show images in  tags. For example, you can show several pictures, and optionally supply captions:

Providing  with the file name is optional and isn't required to display the image in the gallery.

Videos
This section is used to show YouTube (and other sites) embedded videos using   for each video. For other video services, see here.

Categories and interwiki links
Categories and interwiki links should be added at the very end of the article, with category links followed by interwiki links. A full list of categories can be found on Special:Categories. They take the form, and should be named in the same fashion as articles. Ideally all pages on the wiki should be categorized.

For example, the Yennefer article can have:

Yennefer Γιενέφερ Yennefer Yennefer Yennefer

Writing

 * "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs"
 * – Stephen King

We now come to the meat of an article: the words themselves. When you're editing wikis, you're both academic and artist. You have to be accurate, but you also have to be interesting. Neither one can dominate; you have to skillfully balance both.

Style

 * Keep your writing concise. Don't use two words where one will do. Keeping your writing simple will make it easy to understand and easy to expand on. Use complete sentences whenever possible. When you write, use grammar as a toolbox: know the rules, but only break them on purpose.
 * Check your spelling and grammar. Do not use 'u' in place of 'you' or '2' in place of 'to'. Write the way you would for a class paper or a newspaper article. This makes it easier for all readers to understand, not just the ones accustomed to the same conventions you are.
 * Write from an impersonal perspective. Do not use "I." For example, do not write, "Margarita Laux-Antille is a sorceress, and a rector of Aretuza, as far as I know ." Avoid drawing attention to the author (yourself) as much as possible.

Content
Keep the following general guidelines in mind when considering what to include in the article:


 * Keep all of the topics you cover within the scope of the article. What that means is, you don't need to give a detailed history of the dryads on the page about Morenn. Consider the article's title as your point of origin and write from that perspective. Make use of the wiki's ability to link to more detailed articles or external sources for more information.
 * Avoid repeating other sources verbatim. In general, prose in wiki articles should be original. If you use a direct quote from a source, you must clearly label it as such with a citation and avoid using any more than is necessary.

Grammar
Grammar is a writer's toolbox. You can't build good sentences without knowing how to use your tools. Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all of the people reading it, editors must maintain a high level of adherence with the rules of grammatical use to ensure clear communication. Note that a sentence that seems grammatically incorrect, may not be depending on context.

This cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Numerous edits to the Wiki have to be performed, which are purely for the purpose of correcting truly atrocious grammar. Do not use a native language other than English as an excuse – there are any number of grammar tutorials and references available on the Web, so you should be doing your utmost to make your contributions correct while improving your command of the language. If you still struggle with grammar, there are programs that detect grammatical errors in your typing.

Capitalization
Capitalization generally follows the rules used in-universe, even in cases where the term could be used in both in- and out-of-universe contexts. This provides a consistent standard without bogging down editors in trying to figure out which is correct in every individual case. When in doubt, follow the precedent set by other page titles.

Tense
Most articles should be described as facts, so use the present or future tenses. "The quest starts at Kaer Trolde." "This recipe can be found near Kaer Morhen."

There may be exceptions, such as when describing changes to a game brought about through patches or other updates. "The weight for ingredients was removed."

Titles of works
Italics are used for the titles of works, such as books and games. The titles of articles, chapters, and other short works are not italicized but are enclosed in double quotation marks.

For example, italicize Blood of Elves and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and use quotes for "Forces of the Elements" since the former two are real-world works and the latter a fictional in-universe work (part of Ciri's curriculum).

Dates
Shorthand dates (used in tables and templates) should be written in the form YYYY-MM-DD (for example, 2009-04-01), to aid alphanumeric organizing. Dates in longhand (as written in article sentences) should be written in the form D M YYYY (for example, 1 April 2009), or M D, YYYY (for example, April 1, 2009). D M YYYY is preferred because it is most commonly used (see here), but both are acceptable. However, please be consistent and use only one form throughout an article.

The Witcher Wiki does not use the formats MM-DD-YY[YY] (04-01-2009) or DD-MM-YY[YY] (01-04-2009), as use of either format may be confusing.

Quotations
Format a long quote (over four lines) as an italicized block quotation, which will be indented from both margins. Do not enclose the block quote in quotation marks.

Tables
Tables should use the "wikitable" class design when possible, and should include as little "fancy" formatting as possible. Tables can also be made sortable by adding a "sortable" class.

More information about wiki tables can be found at advanced tables.

Section headings
Use the   (two equal signs) style markup for main headings, equivalent to.

Do not use a single . This is because a single   creates an   heading. The page header already uses an h1, and to use further h1s would be poor semantics. In addition, do not use wikilinks in subject headings. When edited, these sections become confusing in the edit history because of the link code. Consider instead putting the word in the first or second sentence of the section and linking it there.

Capitalize section headings consistently across the entire wiki. Follow sentence style capitalization, not title style, so only the first letter of the heading and proper nouns are capitalized.

Avoid special characters in headings, such as an ampersand, a plus sign , curly braces , or square braces. In place of the ampersand, use the word "and" (unless the ampersand is part of a formal name, such as Rhett & Link)

Always keep headings short and simple. Headings are guidelines to the page's structure and should inform the reader rather than confuse. To keep it short, avoid unnecessary words or redundancy in headings. Avoid a, an, and the, pronouns, repeating the article title, and so on. Also, try to avoid giving identical titles to different sections.