User:Stl1234/MoS
Manual of Style is the style guide for the Don't Starve wiki. It is enforced in accordance with the Editing Rules.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or complaints, please post them on the comment section.
Please do not introduce or alter guidelines on this page without consensus.
General Editing
Before more detailed guidelines are specified there are some common rules. There are 3 types of content in the wiki from a styling perspective:
- Formal Articles: All articles on the wiki about the game, except informal articles specified below.
- All of the guidelines are required to be followed in articles in this category.
- Informal Articles: Player created guides. Wiki help and policy pages.
- All of the guidelines are strongly recommended to be followed in the articles in this category.
- User Content: Comments, Forum content, Blog posts, User Pages and sub pages.
- Style guidelines do not apply here.
Please note that regardless of whether style guidelines apply or not, Rules still apply to everything.
If you are new to editing, you may want to read the tutorial on Wikia Help.
Titles, Headings and Sections
- Do not use H1 (single '=' on both sides).
- Only use header tags to create headers. Bold and/or oversized text is not acceptable.
- Titles are not sentences, they are short descriptions identifying the content below them.
- Headers use Title Case, where every word starts with an capital letter, unless that word is definite or indefinite articles, or conjunction. basically: "a", "an", "the", "and", "or" etc. Note that these do not appear in the standard titles.
- Do not apply special formatting such as links or italics to headers.
- Exception: References are allowed in version history to link to the release notes for a released update.
- Use the standard headers specified below.
- Exception: Rarely there are unique cases where the standard headers do not create a complete organization. The exceptions will be evaluated and approved case by case basis.
- Most sections have a specific icon. See below.
Article Contents
- Conversational or instructional wording is not accepted. The article should never directly reference the reader, and it should not tell reader to something. Similarly smiley/emojis, slang, test/IM abbreviations, lack of punctuation or capitalization, references to author or specific people, and personal opinions are not acceptable. The articles should use formal style of communication, stating just the facts. Sometimes there are community accepted recommendations for well known mechanics in the game, it is acceptable to mention these as recommendations without a source.
- Bad Examples: "yo, you should trap rabbits cuz theyre the best food ever ;)" "I recommend using a Thermal Stone in Winter."
- Good Examples: "Players can trap Rabbits to obtain food." "Using a Thermal Stone in Winter is recommended."
- Exception: While it is recommended to avoid it, Guides can contain instructional language, and first & second person pronouns, while other content is still unacceptable.
- The title of the game, game updates, and DLCs are always italicized.
- Bold text is used when the subject of an article is introduced. If other alternate English titles are also used to introduce the subject, they should be bold as well. Subsequent mentions of the same title(s) should not be bold.
- Whenever any article name is mentioned, it must be capitalized, if the usage of the word is a reference to the related article. This applies to articles that have common English words as names.
- Example: First use does not mean the Grass in the game, so it is not capitalized, second and third uses are reference to the related article so they are capitalized: "This biome has a grassy appearance. Twigs and Grass are abundant resources in this biome. The abundance of Grass makes this biome good for settling in."
- The partial names are not capitalized.
- Example: "Volcano Altar of Snackrifice is found in the Volcano Biome. The altar can be used to sacrifice food to delay Eruptions."
- When using acronyms, write out both the full version and the abbreviation at first occurrence. The acronyms are acceptable for lengthy words and phrases that are used many times in the article. Avoid abbreviations when they would be confusing to the reader, interrupt the flow, or appear informal or lazy.
- Example: you can write "Reign of Giants (RoG)" the first time that subject was used in an article, and then use "RoG" in subsequent references.
- The HP, Sanity and Hunger meter templates should only be used when it is described a change in the stats instead of a fixed value.
- Example: Wolfgang ate Taffy to restore 15
putting him at 120 Sanity.
- Example: Wolfgang ate Taffy to restore 15
- Strong emphasis that isn't adequately conveyed by an article's wording may be underlined, but other formatting such as bold or capitalized text is not acceptable. Use emphasis sparingly and only when absolutely necessary, which very rare.
Links
- A given page should only contain one link to any other page, unless the are more than 2 pages between a usage and the previous usage with the link. If a page links to Pig in one place, then that should be the only link to Pig on that page for the next two pages. This link should be the first instance of the term in the article.
- Links being used by pictures and info boxes are exempt to this rule, and should always be linked regardless of other links. They also do not count as a link in the article.
- Links should be internal links with the [[Article]] format. When using the visual editor, the link is the article name, not the URL to the article.
- Links that point to sub pages should use the appropriate redirect instead: [[Summer]], instead of [[Seasons/Summer|Summer]]. This allows articles to be moved easier. If the sub page must be linked, the link must always be renamed with the target article name, and should not show the sub page separator.
- Links that start from other forms of the word should use the short format instead of renaming where applicable: [[Flint]]s, instead of [[Flint|Flints]].
Section Descriptions
The articles consist of several section. Here, each section and their style is explained.
Header Templates and Notifications
These include {{Stub}}, {{Upcoming}} and {{Removed}}, as well as version exclusive templates. There is no title for this section, and it always appears on the top of the page.
- {{Stub}}: This template is used when the article is missing major or critical information about the subject. It should be added to every new page generated that covers a game subject. If it was removed, adding it back requires specifying what is missing in the article, which can be done as part of the template.
- {{Upcoming}}: This template is used when the entire content of the article is about a feature that is not released and is only accessible through opt-in beta/alpha programs. If there are changes to behavior of an existing feature, the differences are instead captured in a version specific information section.
- {{Removed}}: This template is used when the entire content of the article is about a feature that is was once in the game, and has since been entirely removed. If there are changes to behavior or parts of the feature is removed, the differences belong to Trivia section.
- {{Instructional}}: This template is required on top of every guide. It should not be used anywhere else. If the articles that are not guides use instructional language, they need to be reworded to avoid such language.
Disambiguation
Disambiguation section has no title, and appears above article content. This section is only used when the name of the subject is ambiguous, or readers may reasonably land on this page while they were searching for something else, or something related. This section uses 2 templates:
- {{For}}: Used to link to another page that has different topic with a similar name.
- {{See also}}: Used to link to another page that has a similar or related topic.
Infobox
Info boxes offer quick information about an item. There are a few info box templates to use based on the article type:
- {{Item Infobox}}: Used for items.
- {{Structure Infobox}}: Used for structures.
- {{Object Infobox}}: Used for non-structure objects.
- {{Food Infobox}}: Used for food items.
- {{Mob Infobox}}: Used for mobs.
- {{Character Infobox}}: Used for character pages.
Quotes
Quotes are the relevant in-game character quotes. This section does not have a title. For article subjects that can be examined, the quotes section contains {{Quotes}} template. For article subjects that cannot be examined directly (e.g. game mechanics), a single relevant quote using {{Quote}} template. If the examined object/mob has several states or variants, the quotes section can contain up to two section of quotes, each explain the conditions for the quote using the "source" parameter of the template. If there are sections for quote variations, quotes instead should be placed at the top of those sections. If there are more than 2 quotes at the top of the article, new sections should be created for the variants and the quotes should be moved there.
Body
Main body of the article. It contains basic information about the subject, as it applies to the first game or DLC the subject appears in. If the behavior is changes in subsequent DLCs the behaviors differences are captured in the Downloadable Content section. The content of this section vary based on the subject. For different subjects, following information should be included:
- Items, Mobs, Structures: What kind of item/mob/structure is it? If it wasn't present in base game, when was it introduced? How is it obtained/found/crafted? What is special/unique about it?
- Crockpot foods: What kind of food is it? If it wasn't present in the base game, when was it introduced? How is it cooked? What are the other recipes that can be cooked without breaking the requirements for this recipe (e.g. recipes that have higher priority).
- Characters: Who is it, how do they behave, when were they introduced?
Downloadable Content
Captures the differences between various DLCs about subject of the article was first introduced.
Usage
Usage section applies to items and other functional objects. It specifies how the item is used to achieve the function described in the body section. This section also captures all the recipes that specifically use this item using the {{Recipe}} template, and mentions the recipes that allow the item as an alternative in the section text.
Behavior
Behavior section applies to Mobs. It specifies what the mob does under various conditions, such as when it is idle, when it is attacked, or during various mob specific conditions, such as sleeping at night, or changes due to other game events. This section is limited to explaining behavior, and should not contain information about how to fight or utilize the mob.
Tips
Tips contain various ways to utilize or deal with the subject of the article. These are community consensus or non-obvious factual conclusions derived from the basic information about the subject. If a tip cannot be concluded by looking at the article or other articles, it isn't a tip, it belongs to main content of the article. Conversely, if a conclusion is already reachable by other content, it should not be in the main content, it should be in the tips section. The tip needs to be meaningful and helpful to players.
Trivia
Trivia should be accurate (not speculation), interesting, not directly related to the gameplay, and preferably little-known. Trivia about Character quotes pertaining external references not related to the game, should go to the respective Quotes page. Unless it is confirmed by the developers, or an obvious direct reference to a very well known subject, the trivia should be worded as a possibility, not as a certainty. Anything related to the game play is not trivia. Trivia also includes more specific historic behavior of the article subject, such as the specific update it was introduced, or a previous behavior that has been since changed.
Bugs
Bugs section lists common issues players may encounter about the subject of the article during their common play, and their workarounds. The wiki is maintained by fans of the game, not by developers, therefore the bugs section is only exists to inform players, and is not a way to report issues. The issues should be reported in official Klei forums.
Gallery
Gallery section is a collection of images related to the subject of the article. It contains screenshots, official promotional posters, and other images published by Klei. Fan fiction is not allowed in the gallery section. Images uploaded to the Gallery section should have meaningful file names, allowing them to be managed easier.
Every article should contain at least one navigational template that contains the subject of the article. Navigational templates allow browsing through similar items.
Article Layout
Depending on the type of the article, articles follow a specific layout to be consistent within the wiki. This section explains the order and contents of the sections in each layout.
Items/Structures
- Header templates and notifications
- Disambiguation
- Infobox
- Quotes
- Body
- Downloadable Content
- Usage
- Tips
- Trivia
- Bugs
- Gallery
- Sounds / Music
- References
- Navigational templates
Mobs
- Header templates and notifications
- Disambiguation
- Infobox
- Quotes
- Body
- Behavior
- Breeding
- Hunting
- Usage/Farming
- Naughtiness
- Downloadable Content/Shipwrecked
- Quotes
- Tips
- Trivia
- Bugs
- Gallery
- Sounds
- References
- Navigational templates
Characters
- Header templates and notifications
- Disambiguation
- Infobox
- Quote
- Body
- Special Power
- Disadvantage
- Downloadable Content
- Tips
- Trivia
- Bugs
- Gallery
- Sounds
- References
- Navigational templates
Upcoming and Removed content
- All information about upcoming content will use special Templates (e.g. Upcoming Item Infobox) in order to not mix it with category articles about objects already in the game. Upcoming changes to existing objects will be listed in the main article of the expansion until it fully releases and not in the existing article about said object in order to prevent confusion and unnecessary edits.
Images
- If possible, each article should include at least one image that appropriately presents its subject. It is not required to upload an in-game picture that shows the same thing that's shown in infoboxes, unless it's to show it's scale in the game.
- Fan art is not permitted on articles, though representation of one's self by means of themed images is permissible for avatars, signatures or user descriptions.
- Animated images should be used sparingly, as they increase page load time for users with slow internet connection.
- Images should be tagged with their license type.
- Images should not be used excessively to the point that they crowd out and distract from the textual contents of an article.
- More than one image that shows the same thing is not required.
- Images should associated to a category to help find them better.
- Pngs are preferred over other image file types.
- When naming images, use the main subject of the image as the first word, then add a brief description for it.
- All words should be capitalized to better find them, unless it's a title or an in-game name. (e.g. Wilson Map Icon.png, Reign of Giants Icon.png)
- Certain images have naming paterns which are used in templates, so it's best to view existing examples when naming a new picture and apply the pattern. Some examples include :
- (In-game name).png = Image of an item/structure as seen in the inventory or crafting menus. Must be 64x64. (Used in templates) (e.g. Spiderhat.png)
- (Character Name) Portrait.png = Image of a Character's portrait. Must be 64x64. (Used in templates) (e.g. Willow Portrait.png)
- (Official DLC name) Icon.png = Image of the DLC icon. (Used in templates) (e.g. Shipwrecked Icon.png)
- (In-game name) Build.png = Image of an structure as seen in the game. (e.g. Science Machine Build.png)
- (In-game name) Map Icon.png = Image of the minimap icon for the object. (e.g. Wilbur Map Icon.png)
Categories
- Categories are used for both organizational and navigational purposes. When adding categories, make sure that the category belongs in the article. Also, always check the description for each category before adding it.
- Always pay attention when adding a category. Categories need to be written and capitalized properly in order for them to work.
- Categories don't work like "tags" do on other sites.