Help:Style guide
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.