Dragon Age Wiki talk:Manual of Style

Additional points
This page still needs more work to fully orient it around this wiki, but at least it actually has some references to Dragon Age: Origins now. However, there are a few points that could be resolved.

1. Spelling

After a couple of months attempting to write in American, I honestly feel the wiki should accommodate both American and British English. The site has users from across the world and I think everyone should feel free to write in the dialect they feel most comfortable with. Perhaps the only exception should be when the game specifically writes something in American English in-game. Any armors, quests about honor etc., should be spelt how they are spelt in-game.

2. Capitals for Sub-headings

I’ve noticed there has been a bit of variance in whether sub-headings are capitalised or not. The article recommends first letter only, but personally I prefer them written with capitals for each new word. Maybe this is something where the policy should just be “use whatever style you feel is appropriate for your page, but be consistent”, though I’m not sure.

3. Referencing

After a bit of thinking, my personal standing is to try and reference things that players will likely not know after playing the game, so things like influences and trivia quotes, and to also provide a source where the article borrows heavily from developer quotes, or uses their words verbatim. As I think that a developer might feel a bit annoyed to see their words written down without any acknowledgement of who wrote them. I think when a page borrowing from the official page’s write-ups on creatures, characters and the world, it is less of an issue. Firstly no author is given and I also feel they were always intended to be a show-piece seen by a lot of people. I’m interested to see what other people think about this issue.

They’re the three main things I can think of, but there are also things like italicising titles of works, and we may as well get this page, and the wiki's rules, in order before the bulk of articles are written, so what do people think? Loleil 07:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Spelling: Definitely agree with that. American and English spelling should be allowed, with the exception of names and such.

Capitals for sub headings: I prefer all words capitalised

Referencing: Agreed 100%

--Selty 08:09, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Re: Spelling


 * I have no problem with pages written in BrE (British English), as long as they're entirely written that way. I do not want to see articles that look like pages out of Overlord 2's user manual. (e.g. Using 'armor' and 'defence' in the same sentence.) It looks horrible, and is entirely unprofessional. If I see stuff like this, I'll make the articles comply fully with AmE (American English).
 * Once you go American... you never go back. ;)
 * -- Xavier Grimwand on Sunday, August 9, 2009 @ 8:12 am (ET)


 * Personal preference: title standards (first-letter-capitalize first word and all other words excepting 'and', 'the', 'in', 'of' et al.) Is the official style still "no non-proper-noun capitalization after the first word"? --Yeti magi (talk) 11:00, January 16, 2012 (UTC)


 * The current style has not changed. --D. (talk · contr) 21:04, January 16, 2012 (UTC)

The Warden
I was visiting the KOTOR II wiki and they use "The Exile" or "the Exile" to describe the protagonist. Mass Effect uses "Commander", Fallout, "The wanderer". I propose this is something we should add to the manual, seeing as I have stumbled upon many articles referring to "the Warden/The Warden" as "you", "PC", or "the player". I think it should be uniform when referring to the Warden.

These other wikis also have a separate article devoted to style in their respective universes, i.e. Mass Effect:Style Guide, discussing gender neutrality or lower-case races. I feel if it grows to the point where we need one, it should be considered.


 * Good idea. I will add something in. A DA:O specific guide us something I'd like to consider, as is some sort of Code of Conduct, but there's so much to do and so little time :(. Loleil 05:59, November 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the game was only released a weeks ago. I know I haven't even finished the game yet, I'm sure as time goes on.  Things will improve.


 * Not sure if anyone's still checking in on this, but if we need to use a possessive adjective to refer to the Warden, should we use the clunky but gender-inclusive "his/her" or should we use the gender neutral but incorrect plural "their"? Obviously neologisms like xe don't fit the universe, and I don't like using "his" though that is technically the gender neutral pronoun in English.  Similarly, how do we address gender of the player?  I see a lot of second-person use (e.g., "you control the Grey Warden"), which is somewhat casual but I think I prefer it in this case.  I'd like to go through a handful of general articles for consistency but need to determine the course of action first. -- Metaneira (talk) 03:16, November 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Any further developments here? I find I appreciate 'The Warden'... except in Origin/pre-Joining contexts, when I try to get by with minimized uses of 'the protagonist' (or 'you' in the case of walkthroughs)...--Yeti magi (talk) 11:01, January 16, 2012 (UTC)


 * You should look at the timestamps of these posts. See LEAD. --D. (talk · contr) 21:04, January 16, 2012 (UTC)
 * I always notice them... but when I haven't yet seen a resolution, or a more recent comment or iteration of the question, should I always start a new discussion of an old topic?--Yeti magi (talk) 11:58, January 17, 2012 (UTC)


 * For old and new topics, unless you don't think it's necessary to make a new one (e.g., a month later is generally acceptable), I would suggest making a new topic in the forum rather than here (it's not that no one looks here—but your topic is given more exposure than here).
 * Regarding this particular discussion, it's been resolved as per the addition of DA:LEAD, it's just that no one "closed" the discussion. Before Metaneira's post, it wasn't as clear. It was expanded in another discussion (scroll to "Some questions" on this page). --D. (talk · contr) 14:53, January 17, 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a note: the err-"issue" wasn't about reviving an old topic (to be honest, I'm fine with them). It's just that these posts were, well, really old! :P You do not have to create a new topic, but if the related page has been updated, it's generally safe to say that it's been resolved. --D. (talk · contr) 15:01, January 17, 2012 (UTC)

Characters and Minor Characters?
Is there a guideline for which minor characters should be a different page. For example, I thought Kaitlyn in Redcliffe was significant because she is the quest giver and ender, despite not having any great significance as opposed to Valena who is a part of "Lost in the Castle" quest, and not seen much afterward.


 * Nothing official. I think we have to use our own judgement to some extent. If everything we know about a character can be said in one or two sentences it is a good sign that there shouldn't be an article. Loleil 05:59, November 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * I dunno, I'm still nursing a craving for a Dying Soldier page... ;) --Yeti magi (talk) 11:03, January 16, 2012 (UTC)

Tables
I think we should include some of the styles, especially css classes, currently in frequent use. For example, User:Hollowness (among others) has made good use of a standard info presentation table (e.g. in Merchants at-a-glance table), to wit, {| class="wikitable sortable daotable"
 * - style="background: #333333; text-align: center; vertical-align:bottom; "

For this article, would it be okay to replace to boilerplate wikia table styles with various permutations of wikitable, daotable, sortable, collapsible, etc? &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 02:49, February 7, 2010 (UTC)

Question about Quest Walkthroughs
In reading through various quest walkthroughs I am noticing that some use the second person (you) and others don't. After scouring both the style guide and editing guidelines, I couldn't find a decision one way or another. My preference would be that walkthroughs are written in the third person, but the consistency of person (and tense) in the walkthroughs is more important to me. Is there anyway we could get some sort of declarative statement either way so I don't feel guilty about going in and making changes based on personal preferences alone? Thanks! Sophea 04:56, March 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * There isn't a definitive rule about the use of second person in walkthroughs. I personally prefer third, but with our nameless, genderless, race-less protagonist in can be quite difficult to produce smooth flowing sentences without resorting to "you". So both second and third person are allowed, but if in the course of improving the readability of a page you remove second person you don't have to feel bad ;). 00:11, March 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * You just said the magic words! :) And thanks for getting back to me. Sophea 00:37, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

Some questions
Italics for titles. Are "Origins" or "Awakening" supposed to be in italics? It isn't the full title, but it has sometimes been italized in some pages (e.g., companions). Also, do we italize the titles if they are the section header?

Links in section headers. It's specifically said that section headings should not use special characters, in particular the squares braces. They are sometimes used for linking. I'm just wondering if it's an acceptable use or section headings should not have links? --D. (talk · contr) 04:16, October 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * Would love for someone to give input on this. I'm in favor of italicizing it, though it would be some work to do.  Unless someone's gifted at writing bots, of course. -- Metaneira (talk) 03:18, November 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * @Metaneira, D-day has a bot and he's usually very good with these sort of things. I also have one but I'm usually very bad with these sort of things :) As for the style, I'm going to find Loleil because she's the best of us and knows everything there is to know about style. She'll know. -- 03:36, November 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay! While Loleil is being awesome and looking at that, perhaps she can also look at my other question about possessive adjectives with respect to the Warden and the player?  -- Metaneira (talk) 03:48, November 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * I can answer that question. Dragon_Age_Wiki:Editing_guidelines says that the protagonist should be referred to as "the Warden" or "the Warden-Commander" in DAO and Awakenings respectively. In DA2 I believe it is alright to refer to the protagonist as "Hawke". -- 04:11, November 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Right, but do we say "The Warden and their companions" (using a plural adjective for a singular subject) or "The Warden and his/her companions"? We try to avoid using a gender to refer to the Warden but in some cases we say "his" and some cases we say "their" -- I'd like it to be consistent.  Similarly, do we say "The player may choose his or her appearance" or just try to keep it in the second person (e.g., "You may customize your character's appearance")? -- Metaneira (talk) 04:13, November 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I would say "The Warden and companions". There should be gender neutral pronouns available. -- 05:46, November 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I would say "their" instead of "his/her" in my opinion. Using "his" or "her" should only be used when a certain action can only be done by a female or male Warden (e.g., romancing Alistair).
 * As for the usage of "the Warden" (and others), in my opinion, walkthroughs and guides should use "you", but other articles that are of an encyclopedic nature should use "the Warden". Also, "the player" should only be used when it's specifically refers to the player (still for encyclopedic articles), e.g., "The player may customize their character's appearance". There's currently a lot of inconsistencies in regards to that, e.g. The Battle of Denerim uses "the Warden" in the first section, but switches to "you" for the rest of the article. --D. (talk · contr) 16:32, November 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's my view too D-day, I'll alter the Manual to include that. 02:19, November 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * I see I've been paged, so allow me to say that I believe that we should italicize titles in both the full and short form, because it's technically correct, the best kind of correct . 06:13, November 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm still wondering if we should or not use the bracket braces for the section headers as they are special characters. If we do, the MoS should be updated to reflect this change. There's no pros or cons to use it, other than the section header being in a different color when it is a link. --D. (talk · contr) 16:32, November 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * As you suggest, there's no real pros or cons either way, but as quite a few of our pages use links in headers I think it makes sense to allow headers to be links. 02:19, November 7, 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Head Quotes
At present, the rules regarding head quotes state they can be used only on main quest pages and character pages. In my view, these rules should be expanded upon to include the following:  King Cousland |  Talk  22:30, July 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * Groups, such as the Grey Wardens (a logo and the motto was removed, but I felt that it added flavour)
 * Races (The elves have a quote)
 * "Dialogue" Objects (Such as the Anvil of the Void (which has a headquote) and Eluvian)
 * History pages (which are basically conflicts).


 * Pages with a head quote that are not main quests and characters are simply not updated with the MoS, as this was decided a while ago. I suggest making a post on the forums instead to re-open this issue since there wasn't really an elaborated discussion as to why head quotes should be limited to these articles. --D. (talk · contr) 02:09, July 25, 2011 (UTC)

Uncertain information
I often come across details in walkthroughs that are incomplete or occasionally even contradictory to what I see in the game. I'm hesitant to simply "correct" them because, just casually playing through the game, I don't know what conditions might affect what I see; I can include obvious variables like platform and patchlevel, but there are plenty of others like previous game actions that I cannot exhaustively describe. So far I've just tended to add my observations parenthetically beside the relevant section, but is there established criteria for when something should be stated as unqualified fact? For example, must article authors decompile the game scripts to determine the effect of actions? (That would seem necessary to establish certainty, but the quality of what I see suggests that practice is not universal, and perhaps not even common.)

No, we are not expecting authors to do any kind of decompiling the game scripts. -- 08:27, August 19, 2011 (UTC)


 * Certainly inaccuracies make their way into articles and if something is clearly incorrect, please go ahead and correct it. If you are unsure what has caused the difference between your observations and the page there is always the talk page to discuss the discrepancy. Not all editors have the ability to decompile game scripts, but if you are able to do so to provide more complete information, it would be welcome. One quick tip for the future for your edits is not to use first person in articles. 01:18, August 20, 2011 (UTC)

Formatting extraordinarily long articles
I understand the need for consistent wiki formatting, but perhaps a special variation could be used in rare instances when an article is both extraordinarily long and contains massive amounts of text. For example, The Urn of Sacred Ashes: Articles such as these are, in my opinion, monotonous, and somewhat intimidating and/or unpleasant to the eye. I suggest breaking up the text a little bit by including two blank lines between subsections rather than one. Even if the overall page length would appear longer, some blank space and/or relevant pics within a lengthy article is far more reader-friendly. 18:13, July 31, 2012 (UTC)

I agree. A quick solution which I have seen it elsewhere is that sub-quests have their own pages where they will be listing all the needed details while the main quest page will just list them along with a quick summary. Afterall all these long quests usually entail lots of smaller quests inside them. 00:32, August 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * I find it ironicaly unfortunate that the wiki articles with the most content & that have received the most hard work by community members also appear as condensed & unpleasant to read as they do. I'm not trying to troll or step on anyone's toes here; the standard formatting works well for 95%+ of the wiki articles, it's only the most rarely voluminous ones that are of concern and could use additional spacing (or other modification).
 * 04:21, August 1, 2012 (UTC)

Tenses
The MOS says nothing about tenses to be used in writing, specifically in character biographies. I know some wikis follow the Wikipedia example and use present tense in summaries, while others, like Wookiepedia, specifically use past tense. What is the policy on this wiki? --Koveras Alvane (talk) 16:18, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * There is no policy about it, so it's assumed to be up to the editors (and the tense should be kept roughly the same on the article to keep the article's flow). Perhaps it is worthy of a discussion on the forums if you'd like to add it in the MoS, since that's a lot of things to change. 17:47, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * I've never used Wikia forums before. Where would I ask such a thing? --Koveras Alvane (talk) 20:29, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * Go on Forum:Wiki Discussion to create a topic. You can either ask start a discussion, or propose to choose one tense over another (with reasons for doing so). We give about a week for discussing changes like these, but it can be longer if there's not enough activity or the discussion is particularly stagnant. 22:30, January 8, 2013 (UTC)


 * Started the discussion: Forum:MOS: Tenses... --Koveras Alvane (talk) 18:18, January 9, 2013 (UTC)