The Sims Wiki:Manual of Style/proposed


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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.

Article titles, headings, and sections
These policies govern the titles of articles and section headings on The Sims Wiki.


 * Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources.
 * Titles should match the article contents, and should be neither too narrow nor too broad.
 * Titles should be short—preferably fewer than ten words.
 * Capitalize the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in article and heading titles, but leave the rest in lower case ( Life leading up to The Sims 2, not Life Leading Up To the Sims 2 ).
 * Avoid special characters such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), braces ({ }), and square brackets ([ ]); use "and" instead of an ampersand (&), unless the ampersand is an accepted part of a name
 * The final visible character of a title should not be a punctuation mark, unless the punctuation is part of a name (Ridiculous D.O.G.), an abbreviation is used (Rip Co.), or a closing round bracket or quotation mark is required (Malcolm Landgraab (console)).

Article headings also adhere to the following guidelines:


 * Change a heading only after careful consideration, and if doing so use an anchor template to avoid breaking section links to it within the same article and from other articles.
 * Section and subsection headings should preferably be unique within a page; otherwise, after editing, the display can arrive at the wrong section (see also below) and the automatic edit summary can be ambiguous.
 * To avoid accessibility problems, headings should not normally contain links, especially where only part of a heading is linked.

If the topic of a section is also covered in a dedicated article, show this by inserting Article name directly under the section heading.

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.

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.

Layout template
Basic info about the topic. If this topic also exists outside of The Sim 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.

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.

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.

Gallery
Gallery of images relevant to the topic.

Grammar and spelling
Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep close to correct grammar and spelling standards to ensure clear communication.

Capitalization
Titles such as mayor or detective start with a capital letter when used as a title (followed by a name): Detective Dan D. Mann not detective Dan D. Mann. When used generically, they should be in lower case: Dan is a detective.

Traits, aspirations, life stages, life states, careers, skills, motives, talent badges, interests, etc., likewise should only be capitalized when used as a proper noun, i.e. as someone's name.

Do not use capital letters for emphasis; where wording alone cannot provide the emphasis, use italics.

When using "The" mid-sentence, generally do not capitalize the definite article. However, some exceptions, including most titles of artistic works, should be quoted exactly according to common usage.


 * Incorrect (generic):
 * Correct (generic):
 * Incorrect (title): Bella Goth appeared in the Sims.
 * Correct (title): Bella Goth appeared in The Sims.
 * Correct (title): Bella Goth's image is on the Bella Squared wall hanging.
 * Incorrect (exception): A community lot in The Urbz: Sims in the City is the Foundry.
 * Correct (exception): A community lot in The Urbz: Sims in the City is The Foundry.

Italics
Italics may be used sparingly to emphasize words in sentences (whereas boldface is normally not used for this purpose).

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 The Sims.

Tense
Most articles should be described as facts, so use the present or future tenses. "The Gypsy matchmaker is in The Sims 2: Nightlife." "This skill can be learned by swimming." Works of fiction are generally considered to "come alive" when experienced. They exist in a kind of perpetual present tense, regardless of when the fictional action is supposed to take place relative to "now." Thus, generally you should write about fiction using the present tense, not the past tense.

The major exception to this rule are undocumented patch notes. The tense used should match how Electronic Arts's official patch notes are written. For the most part, past tense should be used, "Fixed an issue where ghosts could become stuck in vehicles." For new features, future tense can be used as well, primarily used in conjunction with now, "A Bay Window will now appear in the game," "Players may now use the Tattoo feature to customize Sims when in Create a Sim." Other tenses should be converted. For example, "Story progression will be improved" should be "Story progression has been improved."

Punctuation
Where footnotes (ref tags) are adjacent to most punctuation, such as a comma or period, place them after the punctuation, with no intervening space.

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 (Dates, names, etc.) to avoid confusion.

Regardless, 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.

Related articles

 * The Sims Wiki:Project Sims/Manual of style