Star Citizen:Style guide

Note: This style guide is essentially in a Request For Comments stage. Feedback is welcome on the Talk page. - User:Czenstar

This article is the Star Citizen Wiki (SCW) style guide. The objective of this style guide is to standardize the writing style that will be used in different pages; ranging from the fast-talking in lore to neutral explanations of ship features. The following guide is intended as a reference for general situations, and cannot cover every situation that may come up. For a more complete manual of style, the Wikipedia Manual of Style may be useful.

Article Titles
Article titles are intended to be short but descriptive, allowing a reader to gain a general sense of the page's content while remaining "to the point". Generally, article titles follow sentence case rather than title case, meaning that the first letter should be capitalized while the others are lower-case. Exceptions include proper names, news article titles, and other media.

General Writing Style
The writing style of the wiki is prominently third-person wherever possible. Personal ideas and opinions should be avoided in favour of neutral, factual information. For example: "I think The Avenger Stalker is the best ship in the game" would be replaced with "The Avenger Stalker's primary function is bounty hunting with its loadout of EMP Suckerpunch cannons." Writing in this neutral tone will take practice, but it provides the readers with the most information and the least confusion.

Bold text, italics and | links are all useful formatting tools to draw the reader's attention to important information. They should be used carefully with the intention of improving readability.

For emphasis, italics should be used over bold or CAPITALS. Bold should only be used for table headers, definitions, notices, example call-outs, or name highlighting.

Abbreviations
Acronyms and abbreviations are tracked and linked by redirect. The redirect page itself is placed into Category:Abbreviations.

If two or more different meanings for the abbreviations exist, there would have to be a page instead of the redirect.

Example: UEE

To edit a redirect:

Click the page and note the "redirected" line, just under the title. In our examples case that says "(Redirected from UEE)". Click the term after the "from", then select edit (or edit source) on the resulting page.

Date Formats

 * Standard date format for this wiki is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:DD. (More general to more specific, dropping any unneeded precision on the right.)
 * In lore dates are usually done in Standard Earth Time (aka SET), "today" tracking with real life date + 930 years.

Lore Writing Style
Lore on the Star Citizen Wiki is largely written by CIG with the intention of "filling-out" the universe with characters, stories, and locations. These lore posts are documented as part of the Comm-Link Archive Project.

The writing style of these posts is vastly different from that of the other neutral posts you may find on the wiki. They include first-person accounts, human interest stories, and news bulletins. As a result, many lore posts use slang, unfriendly language, and strong opinions. These should not be taken as guidelines for the writing style on other Star Citizen Wiki content.

The loreposts are taken "as-is" from CIG's website and other CIG-official sources. As such, they should not be modified to suit the Star Citizen Wiki's tone and style. Any such pages will be documented and logged on the SCW for reference with minor edits for formatting.

Community Writing Style
The writing style on community pages, such as Talk pages and  User pages, are more informal than content pages. This allows for easier, more friendly communication and a more familiar tone.

As with any personal-related content, respect is paramount when dealing with other editors and users. Insults, releasing personal information, or personal attacks will not be tolerated; even on your own userpage. Please treat other editors with respect, they're people too!

Disambiguation
Wikis must resolve ambiguous references, when a link is to a term that has more than one distinct meaning. This process is called disambiguation.

When one term is clearly the more expected result, it can remain the primary link and a "For" entry should head off the article. (See Template:For for examples.)

When it is not so clear, the term becomes a disambiguation page, linking to the possible meanings.

Alternate meanings take the form of "Term (other meaning)". (Note lower case for disambiguation meaning.) Alternate meanings should also have a for statement at the head of the article.

Example: Orion (ship), Orion (system)