UDWiki:Style Guide

This page is intended to be a place for the whole wiki community to come together and make decisions on stylistic matters so that we can apply them consistently across the wiki. Please add anything you think is useful, but suggestions for changes should probably be made on the Talk Page so we can thrash out a consensus. At this early stage, nothing here is intended as anything more than a suggestion for a rule we might like to apply in the future. The initial suggestions are meant to be descriptive of existing consensus practice, not prescriptive.

Locations

Detailed guidelines have been proposed regarding formatting of Location pages, and can be found at Location Style Guide, and the associate pages Block Style Guide and Category Style Guide.

Point of view

The Wiki follows the Wikipedia NPOV (Neutral point of view) policy for the most part. This means that articles should be written in such a way that everyone can agree they are factually accurate. Opinions should not be stated as fact, but rather the fact that the opinion exists should be stated.

eg:

• "DARIS are PKers."; -- opinion stated as fact
• "Some consider DARIS's actions towards non-members in their suburb make them no better than ordinary PKers" -- factual statement of the existence of that opinion

Wikipedia frets awfully about attributing opinion (that "Some consider" would get a good knuckle-rapping over there), but it doesn't seem important here. Still, if there is an identifiable subset of people that holds a particular opinion, identify them, because that's useful additional information.

The exception to NPOV comes on the group pages. As long as there is an introductory NPOV paragraph and the information in the groupbox is neutral, groups are allowed to post POV material in a section with a title that indicates its POV status, to give other players a better impression of the group (eg, DARIS's Declaration of Independence, the SLA's Manifesto). (More tenative suggestion: The POV should at all times be an in character POV.)

Singular/Plural page titles

Quoting John on the Main Page Talk:

I recommend using the singular wherever possible for the actual name of the page. The reason is as follows: If you want to use the plural form of a singular page, you do this: "[[Ranged Weapon]]s". To do the singular form of a plural page requires this: "[[Ranged Weapons|Ranged Weapon]]", which is obviously more work. People universally being lazy, I recommend everyone use the singular form for any new pages (and possibly move old pages).

Time Sensitivity

When referencing time-sensitive material, be as specific as possible about date(s) and other information. The word "currently" may be true when writing or editing the entry, but could become false within hours or days.

Examples:

Bad:

Bale Mall is currently completely overrun by zombies.

Good:

Bale Mall was a holdout for some fifty survivors when, on September 15, 2005, at approximately 10:00 BST, a group identifying itself as the Zombie Jamboree smashed through the barricades in the southwestern corner while singing Calypso songs. Several human members of the group revived those zombies that also possessed Free Running after the humans were exterminated. These newly-revived agents sped to other corners of the mall, killing all they found. Those who defended the mall found that, when killed, they would simply stand up as more dangerous foes. Reports of tropical music coming from the mall have been received as recently as September 16, 2005.