User:LostInRiverview/MOS

The Manual of Style (often abbreviated as MoS or MOS) is a style guide, to be applied to articles on The Sims Wiki. This MoS lists accepted precedents and guidelines regarding how information is presented on articles, and is meant to ensure a coherent, cohesive, understandable style throughout the site. The Manual of Style is not intended to be the ultimate authority on every stylistic question on every article on the wiki; rather, it is intended to be a starting point. Ultimately, a Manual of Style serves to create a wiki that is easier to contribute to and understand.

Titles and section headings
Article titles should use the name most commonly associated with the topic of the articles. Usually, this name is established within the game itself. If a name is not established, an article title should be devised which most succinctly represents the topic being covered. Likewise, section headers should use the name most commonly associated with the sections or which most succinctly describe the topic of the section.

Title uniqueness
Articles should be named in such a way that each article has a unique title. 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 disambiguating 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.


 * Example: The Sims 3 (Wii) and The Sims 3 (mobile) are differentiated by the use of the disambiguating tag after the article name.

Often, several articles may share a similar title, but one article will be more well-known or "important" than the others. In these cases, the key article should not receive a disambiguating tag. If all articles with a similar title are of the same importance, they should all be given unique titles or all receive disambiguating tabs, with the main article title being set up as a disambiguation page.
 * Examples: Bella Goth is the main article for the Sim. Other, less prominent, versions of the Sim appear in other neighborhoods, so those articles are disambiguated - Bella Goth (Lunar Lakes) and Bella Goth (Strangetown).


 * The article for Downtown is a disambiguation page, that links to the two main pages for Downtown - Downtown (The Sims) and Downtown (The Sims 2)

Capitalization and word use
Generally, only the first word of an article or section title is capitalized. However, there are a couple exceptions to this. If an article or section title is of a Sim, the Sim's first and last name are capitalized.
 * Examples: Bella Goth, Bob Newbie, etc.

Additionally, ff an article or section title is also the title of a game, expansion pack, or stuff pack, then title case rules apply, and all "important" words are capitalized, including all proper nouns
 * Examples: The Sims 2: Apartment Life, The Sims 3: Into the Future (note that 'the' is not capitalized)

The titles for expansion and stuff packs in The Sims series are given a colon between the base game name and the pack name.
 * Examples: The Sims 3: Late Night, The Sims 2: Teen Style Stuff, The Sims: Unleashed

The titles for in-game object articles should be the same as the name used for the object in the game, unless the object appears in two or more games, with different names.
 * Examples: Genuine Buck's Famous Counterfeiting Machine is an object unique to one expansion pack. Dance sphere is an article about an object that appears in two expansion packs; in both expansions, the object is given a specific name, but the generic title is used instead.

Article titles should not include definite or indefinite articles (specifically, the words the, a, or an), unless removing the article causes the title to have a different meaning, or unless the article would be capitalized when using stating it in running text.
 * Examples: The Sims includes the definite article 'the;' if the article were removed, the title would no longer specifically refer to the game, but would refer to characters in the game. The page about the Eclectic and Enigmatic Energizer does not have an article in its title, though the object in-game has a 'the' in the title, because 'the' is not capitalized when the object name is used in a sentence.

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 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?
 * Wikipedia's naming conventions 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, et cetera. 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.


 * 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 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.

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.

If the family appears in several games, use, following with any combination between  ,  , and  , and ending with

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.

Related articles

 * The Sims Wiki:Project Sims/Manual of style