Help:Style guide: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 14:51, 3 January 2014

This an intermediate guide on writing readable, effective articles for Project: Redcap. It emphasizes layout and organization.

Before You Begin

This article assumes you know the basics of editing Project: Redcap pages. Please be sure you are familiar with the following:

There are Only Two Rules

There are only two firm rules on Project: Redcap:

Follow our copyright policy
Make the page better for one or both of the site's purposes.

Everything else is just a guideline, to be followed when it's helpful and disregarded when it's inconvenient.

Write an Informative Lead

Write a brief lead for the page that explains exactly what the page is about. This enables the reader to quickly determine if he has found what he's looking for.

Use Headings and Sub-Headings

Most users of Wikis are searching for specific information. Headings help users quickly find exactly what they are looking for, which makes the site more useful overall. They also break up long passages of text, making it more readable.

MediaWiki will automatically generate the "Contents" block at the top of the page, using your headings as the links.

Use Categories

Project: Redcap uses Categories to organize pages and make them discoverable. It would be a big help to us if you could include categories in your new article. The Wiki automatically maintains a list of categories on the Special:Categories page.

Please use only the existing categories. If you think we need to add a new category, please contact us or use your article's Talk page to discuss it. Although it might not be apparent, we've put quite a bit of thought into our categories and we want to think carefully before adding new ones.

Use References

Include references to Ars Magica books (or other authorities, such as history books or other Web sites) to show where important facts come from. References make a page credible and help the reader find important context related to the topic.

Please see Help:References for information on how to create references.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Category:Help]]
-This is a brief guide on how to design articles for Project:Redcap, emphasizing layout and structure.
+This an intermediate guide on writing readable, effective articles for Project: Redcap. It emphasizes layout and organization.
 == Before You Begin ==
-Please read our article on [[Copyright]] and do not post copyrighted material to this Wiki. The moderators will remove unauthorized copyrighted material immediately.
+This article assumes you know the basics of editing Project: Redcap pages. Please be sure you are familiar with the following:
+* [[Project Redcap:Copyrights]]
+* [[Help:Editing]]
+* [[Help:Basic formatting]]
+* [[Project Redcap:Content guidelines]]
-== When to Create a New Article ==
+== There are Only Two Rules ==
-Before you create a new article, please check to see whether there is an existing page that covers the same or a similar topic. Use the search box, which appears in the upper-right corner of every page on Project: Redcap, to search for key words.
+There are only two firm rules on Project: Redcap:
-You can find a list of articles we'd like people to write on the [[Special:WantedPages]] page.
+# Follow our [[Project Redcap:Copyrights|copyright policy]]
+# Make the page better for one or both of the site's [[Project Redcap:Purpose|purpose]]s.
-== How to Create a New Article ==
+Everything else is just a guideline, to be followed when it's helpful and disregarded when it's inconvenient.
-The easiest way to create a new article is to click on an existing link, on any page, that links to a non-existent page. Such links appear red in most Web browsers (though this may vary according to the preferences you've set for Project:Redcap and/or your browser). You can find a list of such links on the [[Special:WantedPages]] page.
-Another way to create a new article is to search for it. If the article does not exist, the search results will include a link you can use to edit (create) it.
+== Write an Informative Lead ==
+Write a brief lead for the page that explains exactly what the page is about. This enables the reader to quickly determine if he has found what he's looking for.
-== Follow our Naming Convention ==
+== Use Headings and Sub-Headings ==
-Article titles in [[MediaWiki]] are case-sensitive, with the exception of the first character. Thus, [[Magus]] and [[magus]] are the same page, but "Troupe Style" and "Troupe style" would point to different pages. It's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself|very important] that we have only ''one'' article about each topic. To achieve that goal and make Project: Redcap usable, we have to adhere to a strict capitalization convention.
+Most users of Wikis are searching for specific information. Headings help users quickly find exactly what they are looking for, which makes the site more useful overall. They also break up long passages of text, making it more readable.
-Our capitalization and naming rules are:
+MediaWiki will automatically generate the "Contents" block at the top of the page, using your headings as the links.
-# Capitalize proper nouns normally.
-# Capitalize the titles of books as they appear on the cover: [[Realms of Power: The Divine]]
-# Capitalize game terms as they appear in the latest edition of the rules: for example, [[Casting Total]], [[Botch die]], [[Grand Tribunal]], [[Lesser enchanted device]].
-# Prefer the singular form for nouns: [[Magus]] not "magi," [[Virtue]] not "Virtues". We make a few exceptions to this rule: for example, the [[Covenant concepts]] article because it is inherently a list of ideas contributed by fans; similarly [[Products]] is a page about many products, not just one.
-# Drop leading articles (such as "the" or "a" at the beginning of an article title) because they make pages hard to find by name
-# For titles with multiple words, capitalize the title as if it were appearing at the beginning of a normal sentence. If your article is about learning to play Ars Magica, "Learning to play" would be correct and "Learning to Play" would be incorrect (because "play" is not a proper noun and should not be capitalized)
-If you follow these rules, it will be easy for other writers to link to your article. If you don't follow them, a moderator will probably re-name your article.
-== Dealing with Name Collisions ==
-Name collisions occur as soon as two or more pages claim the same name. This is particularly probable for simple words that bear two or more in-game meanings. Name collisions are also likely for common names that have different meanings in different contexts, such as »Bonisagus« — a term that applies to the singular person, the denotation of the [[House]], as well as any member of that [[House]].
-The suggested procedure to deal with name collisions is as follows:
-# At first, keep page names as simple as possible, and try to avoid additional specifiers where possible.
-# When this is not possible any more, a page fork should be performed that creates two or more additional pages.
-For example, the page »John« might be split into »John (actor)« and »John (writer)«. While the latter two continue to grow, the former is discontinued, and contains just a list of connecting links:
-<pre>The term '''John''' is ambiguous and refers to one of the following specific pages:
-* [[John (actor)|The actor]]
-* [[John (writer)|The writer]]
-</pre>
-Additional links can be included as soon as the need arises. Page »John« is tagged as »Ambiguous«.
-The advantage of this scheme is that
-* Page »John« continues to exist.
-* Referrers may remain unchanged, but can be changed at any time.
-* In the former case, the reader is gently notified of the name collision.
 == Use Categories ==
@@ Line 58: / Line 29: @@
 Please use only the existing categories. If you think we need to add a new category, please [[Special:Contact | contact]] us or use your article's Talk page to discuss it. Although it might not be apparent, we've put quite a bit of thought into our categories and we want to think carefully before adding new ones.
+== Use References ==
+Include references to Ars Magica books (or other authorities, such as history books or other Web sites) to show where important facts come from. References make a page credible and help the reader find important context related to the topic.
+Please see [[Help:References]] for information on how to create references.