The Sims Wiki:Manual of Style/proposed


 * New or changed sections are higlighted . Changes are not complete.

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.

Non-article content
Non-article content (such as disambiguations and article message boxes) should be located above the lead.

Infoboxes
Infoboxes, boxes which summarise data relating to the article, should appear at the top-right corner of the article content.

Lead section
Unless an article is very short, it should start with an introductory lead section, before the first subheading. The lead should not be explicitly entitled == Introduction == or any equivalent header. The table of contents, if displayed, appears after the lead section and 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.

If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article. For example, write "Bella Goth is a character in The Sims series."

The first time the article mentions the title, put it in bold using three apostrophes — article title produces article title. Avoid other uses of bold in the first sentence, except for alternative titles of an article; for example: The Sims: Livin' Large, also called The Sims: Livin' It Up in the United Kingdom. ..

Do not put links in the bold reiteration of the title in the article's lead sentence. For example, "Mystery Sim  is a sim only seen in memories . . ." versus "Mystery Sim is a sim only seen in memories . . ."

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—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: tocright

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.

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.

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 wikicode 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.

Infoboxes are available for articles on a game, a Sim, a family or household, a pet, an object, and a neighborhood.

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.

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.

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