The Sims Wiki:Manual of Style

On The Sims Wiki there are a few rules of style to create a standard feel to all of our articles. The formatting described here is a guideline and can be overridden where circumstances warrant it. However, please try your best to keep to the advice outlined in this article so others may use your edits as an example when creating and editing their own articles.

These guidelines are a summary of the most important guidelines for this wiki, but a more expansive set of style guidelines can be found on Wikipedia at Wikipedia Manual of Style.

Naming conventions
The Sims Wiki follows Wikipedia's naming conventions, which state that each word in the title and headers should be lowercase unless it is the first word or it is always capitalized (Such as names, for example: "Sims", "The Sims", "Will Wright", "Maxis"). The same rules apply to categories, section headings, etc. They also state that nouns should always be in singular and verbs in gerund-form (verb + -ing: "making a cake") unless the words are only used in one particular form ("Scissors", for example).

Articles should be named in such a way that each has a unique title. Articles' titles usually indicate the name of the topic. When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. This can be done by adding a disambiguation tag in parentheses (or sometimes after a comma); however in certain cases it may be done by choosing a different form of the title in order to achieve uniqueness.

Articles about in-game objects
Generally, an article written about an object that appears in one game should have a name which matches the name given to the object in the game. If an object appears in multiple games with different names, a more generic article name should be used instead. In both cases, redirect pages should be created to direct links and searches to the correct page. This guideline was adopted as the result of a community discussion.

Article layout
Designing a template for the layout of all pages helps to keep things organized and working well so that information can be found more easily. Remember that an outline is generated based on which headings you use (Headings range from level one to six, and are represented as a section title with as many equal signs on either side as the level). The article title is level one, so you should only use level two and higher.

Before editors save an article, particularly before adding a new one, the following points should be considered:
 * Does the article title and headers comply to naming conventions?
 * Does the article have a logical structure?
 * The article should be divided into sections and the sections into paragraphs in a way that makes sense to the reader.


 * Is the article user-friendly?
 * The article should not contain a large amount of images, at least not clumped together (Use galleries for that). Only images which are directly relevant, or the most relevant image if there are several, should be used. It is also important that the article is compatible with all the big browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari).


 * Is the article grammatically correct?
 * Choice of words, spelling, punctuation...


 * Is the article correctly categorized?
 * A descriptive category makes it much easier to browse information about a certain subject.

Layout template
Basic info about the topic. If this topic also exists outside of The Sims series, a link to Wikipedia might be in order.

Section
A description of this section. A section should be about a certain aspect of the topic at hand. If there is only one main aspect, the basic info above should suffice.

Sub-section
More details about a certain subject of the current section. More than one sub-section may occur.

Sub-sub-section
Should rarely be needed, but in some cases further division of a subject may be required.

Grammar
Articles on The Sims Wiki should follow standard English grammar when applicable. However, The Sims Wiki holds special guidelines for use of specific elements of grammar on the wiki.

Point of view

 * Rule of thumb: All articles on The Sims Wiki should be written in.

Articles on The Sims Wiki are intended to all share the same ; point of view is here defined as the perspective from which the narrative (i.e., the topic of the article) is viewed. Having a cohesive point of view across all articles encourages more well-written, encyclopedic articles, and aids in audience understanding of a particular topic. Articles on The Sims Wiki should not use first-person or second-person points of view, but should instead only be written in third-person point of view (except in directly quoted text).

Many editors make the mistake of writing articles or article sections in the wrong narrative point of view. Some editors may write as if they themselves are speaking on behalf of the article. For example, read the following statement:
 * Examples of different narrative perspectives


 * "The gallery is an in-game exchange feature, allowing me to share my Sims, families, and buildings with other Sims players."

The example above is written in first-person point of view. Articles on the wiki should not use this point of view, as it makes the article appear to be written from a single player's experience, rather than the experience of all players. To that end, avoid using first-person s such as I or me (unless used in a quotation).

Additionally, many editors mistakenly write in this manner:


 * "The gallery is an in-game exchange feature, allowing you to share your Sims, families, and buildings with other Sims players."

This example demonstrates second-person point of view. Second-person point of view is often informal and ambiguous, and should not be used in main namespace articles. However, this point of view is allowed for articles appearing in the game guides namespace.

The following example demonstrates a correct point of view usage:


 * "The gallery is an in-game exchange feature, allowing players to share their Sims, families, and buildings with other Sims players."

The example is written in third-person point of view. This point of view refers to the subject in an objective manner and from an external perspective.

Tense
Articles on The Sims Wiki should, by default, be written in. Past tense is permissible when writing about past events or about subjects that existed in the past but no longer exist, or about people, companies or other entities that are no longer alive or operating. Individual sentences or paragraphs within an article may be written in tenses other than present tense as the need arises.

When describing a game that was released but is no longer available for sale, the article should still be written in present tense. The only exception to this rule is if the game is no longer playable, as in The Sims Online, which is no longer available to purchase and is no longer available to play. Other past games, such as The Sims are still playable, even though the game is not available for purchase in most locations.
 * Examples

Future tense is permissible when describing, among other things, upcoming content packs, as well as features, families, Sims, or objects included therein, as well as upcoming events. If possible, sentences in these articles should be worded to either eliminate issues with tense, or to make it easier to change from future to present tense once the game is released or the event has occurred.

Capitalization
It is advisable that all editors follow these guidelines to avoid inconsistency and unnecessary capitalization. While can generally be used in most cases, there are specific guidelines for the most common capitalization issues on The Sims Wiki.

Common uses in the article format include the following:
 * 1) All capitals are not to be used for emphasis. Use italics instead.
 * 2) Article titles, headings, and captions must use sentence case.
 * 3) Only the initial letter in sentences and list items is capitalized.
 * 4) Words that follow hyphens should not be capitalized.

Certain words and terms must be capitalized in articles. The words include the following:
 * 1) Proper nouns and proper names:
 * 2) *Personal names (Bella Goth, Bob Newbie)
 * 3) *Geographical names (Champs Les Sims, Three Lakes)
 * 4) *Names of unique objects (Mysterious Mr. Gnome, Eclectic and Enigmatic Energizer, but not wishing well)
 * 5) *Names of unique animals (El Bandito, Claire the Bear, but not deer)
 * 6) *Names of institutions and facilities (Sacred Spleen Memorial Hospital, Brittlebush Academy, but not police department)
 * 7) *Titles of books, musical pieces, paintings, or sculptures
 * 8) Names that refer to specific instances, such as opportunity and moodlet names
 * 9) Game titles and their short derivation
 * 10) Titles and positions of people (Vacation Director Kana, Nancy the Paper Girl)
 * 11) The words "Sim," "Sims," and "WooHoo," (this is a long-standing house style)

Common terms, even if they're capitalized in-game, should not be capitalized in articles:
 * Motives (Hygiene becomes hygiene)
 * Traits (Animal Lover becomes animal lover)
 * Skills (Nectar Making becomes nectar making)
 * Talent badges (Toy Making becomes toy making)
 * Hobbies (Arts and Crafts becomes arts and crafts)
 * Careers and career titles (Architectural Designer becomes architectural designer, Test Subject becomes test subject)
 * Majors (Economy becomes economy)
 * Emotions (Energized becomes energized)
 * NPC titles (Witch Doctor becomes witch doctor)
 * Social classes and social groups (Jock becomes jock)
 * Life states (Plumbot becomes plumbot)
 * Life stages (Children becomes children)
 * Interactions (Rally Forth becomes rally forth, Plan Outfit becomes plan outfit, Try for Baby becomes try for baby)
 * Game modes (Edit Town becomes edit town, Buy mode becomes buy mode)
 * Rabbit holes and lot types (Bistro becomes bistro)
 * Names that are not proper names:
 * Plants (Crystal Plant, Money Tree, Flame Fruit, Forbidden Fruit, Life Fruit, Kona Bean, Ginseng, etc.)
 * Food (Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich, Lobster Thermidor, Crepes Suzette)
 * Fish (Robot Fish, Deathfish, Red Herring)

Descriptions that are found in the game strings should be kept as they appear in-game. Terms that remain questionable and are deemed exceptional should be brought up to discussion in the respective talk page or community discussion forum.

Categories
Adding categories to an article makes it easier for the reader to find information within a specific area. Categories are added by putting  in an article. An article may be in more than one category, but the editor should make sure not to put an article in categories just because it might be remotely related to them, but rather because it is directly related to them. Many categories are automatically added by templates added to the article.

Many categories are themselves categorized into higher-level categories. When adding categories to an article, choose the most specific categories available for the article. For example, the article "Takemizu Village" is about a neighborhood that appears in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage. The page is not categorized directly in Category:Neighborhoods, but is instead categorized in Category:Neighborhoods in The Sims 2.

Topics that have many related articles may benefit from having a dedicated category. This category can organize several articles about a particular topic together, to make it easier to find related pieces of content.

All categories should be part of at least one higher-level category. Avoid creating orphaned categories whenever possible. In practice, each and every category should be able to be reached from Category:Browse, The Sims Wiki's top-level category. Each article should belong to at least one category, meaning that each article on The Sims Wiki should be accessible from Category:Browse as well.

Galleries
If your article has a large amount of images that are clumped together, making a gallery is generally a good idea. The syntax for a gallery is simple:

Galleries should be left-aligned, including captions and width set to either 120 or the default (no defined setting)
 * See also
 * Detailed list of gallery parameter

Using templates
A template in wiki-code is basically an inclusion of another article. However, templates are specifically designed to be included, and may take parameters to change their content. There are many templates available to make it easier for the editor when writing an article.

Stubs
An article that is a stub is an article that is incomplete and/or too short. To tag an article as a stub, simply add  to the bottom of it.

You can find more specific stubs in the stubs category.

Articles that are blank or contain no useful information will be deleted.

Sim Biographies
There are several templates that can be added to a Sim's page so that a lot of their biography can be displayed easily.

For information on which templates to use and how to use them see Project Sims/Manual of style.

Families
Use,  ,  , or   to add an infobox to a family article with their respective games. Use  to add additional information for the family.

Games
Articles about game titles in The Sims series use  to display condensed information about it.

Unreleased and newly released
If an article contains information about an unreleased or newly released product, the under development template should be used. To tag an article, add.

Tagging articles for deletion/merging
If you come across an article which does not stand on its own (It is too short and cannot be expanded, or it contains very similar information to another article) you may want to tag it for merging with another article. If merging is not possible, then tagging it for deletion might be required.

To tag an article for merging with another article, use Other article where Other article is the article which the current article should be merged into. To tag an article for deletion, simply add reason for deletion.

U.S. English and Commonwealth English
Cultural clashes over grammar, spelling, and capitalisation/capitalization are a common experience on wikis. Remember that millions of people have been taught to use a different form of English from yours, including different spellings, grammatical constructions, and punctuation.

Where possible, the preferred use on The Sims Wiki is U.S. English for spellings. Where certain words might cause confusion (see American and British English differences), it is preferable to avoid the word or phrase altogether. Where possible, international standards are to be used for dates, names, etc. to avoid confusion.


 * Note: The standard format for all-numeric dates in the United States is month/day/year, while in many other parts of the world, dates are listed as day/month/year. This can cause confusion if a date is valid in both formats; for instance, 5/10/13 is read as May 10th for Americans, or as the 5th of October for others. It is best to avoid use of purely numerical dates; listing a date as 5 October/October 5th or 10 May/May 10th avoids this confusion. If a numerical date is necessary or preferred, please follow ISO standards regarding dates (YYYY-MM-DD format).

Articles should generally follow the same style throughout. Each article should have uniform spelling and not a haphazard mix of different spellings, which can be jarring to the reader. For example, do not use center in one place and centre in another in the same article (except in quotations or for comparison purposes).

Bear in mind that some words shared by all English speakers are spelled one way by Americans (and at times Canadians and Australians) but are spelt differently in most other English speaking countries; it is generally acceptable to leave an article alone where the style is consistent throughout the article - though changes to important articles to adapt them to house style are occasionally useful, please don't make a point of changing an article to your preferred style. Also, please remember that a spell-checker dictionary made for one form of English may not include spellings used in other forms; a dictionary which recognises "centre" and "neighbourhood" as correct may not recognize "center" and "neighborhood", and vice versa.

Blond and Blonde
When referring to a Sim's hair color in an article, the term blond should be used when referring to a male Sim, and blonde when referring to a female Sim, with blond also used in gender-neutral contexts. However, as stipulated above, it is acceptable to leave an article alone if the spelling is the same throughout the article, even if its current usage does not match this guideline. This guideline was adopted as the result of a community discussion.

Related articles

 * The Sims Wiki:Project Sims/Manual of style