White Wolf:Manual of Style

&laquo;- White Wolf: Policies and Guidelines

WWWiki's Manual of Style is a collection of guidelines and rules of thumb that are designed to set a rough standard for the appearances of all articles. Although style is generally not considered the most important factor in the writing of an article, it is an important factor in the writing of good articles (or even the perfect article). The manual of style is designed to make articles easier to read and comprehend, to make articles better organized and easier to edit.

Above all, realize that these rules are not set in stone! They are considered guidelines for making an article appear more attractive to the reader, to make them easier to work with. If you think you have a better way of writing your article, by all means go ahead and be bold! Copyediting Archivists will come along later and start the weeding process, and rework pages to better conform to the guide if necessary. Better yet, add your own idea to this guide as an additional option for adding style to an article. (However, please don't remove existing guidelines, just add your own new ones.)

If you're looking for information on how to write an article in wiki markup, please see how to edit a page for instructions. As that article is more about how to use markup, this article is concerned about the when, where, and why of using specific markup. Please also read the Guide to Layout for suggestions on how to organize your article.

In all cases, examples of styles will be indented from the main margin for emphasis.

Introducing an article
At the beginning of every article, the title or subject of that article should be bold in the first line. Even though the article title is already listed, it's useful to emphasize the article's subject for the reader. (Don't forget to also use italicized text when necessary. See Manual of Style (titles) for further information.)


 * The Sargon Fragment is a manuscript used by the Antediluvian Cappadocius as part of his desire for apotheosis.

If the subject of the article has more than one name, each new form of the name should be in bold on its first appearance.


 * Nova Fôrça de Nacionales, also known as Norça...

In most cases, it's useful to establish context in the first line or two of the article.


 * In the Storytelling System, Vitae is an Advantage...

Characters and actors
There are two different methods available to indicate the actor or actors who play a character. First, the actor's name may be added at the beginning of an article, immediately after the character's name.


 * Julian Luna (played by Mark Frankel) was...

Alternatively, the actor's credit may be placed at the end of the article. In this case, the credit should be placed on a separate line, italicized, and indented.


 * Lillie was played by Stacy Haiduk.

Books
For White Wolf books (including fan books), you should place the book's title in bold. Other companies' books and other media (such as the name of a computer game) should be placed in italics.


 * Kindred: The Embraced is based loosely on Vampire: The Masquerade...

Headlines and sections
To create a new section in an article, surround the text with two or more  ==  (equal signs). When you have the header, there is no blank line needed beneath the header.

The wiki engine will automatically create a table of contents based on the headers in an article.

In all cases, you should capitalize the first word and all proper nouns of the header, and leave all other words lowercase.

Avoid using links in headers. Depending on the browser's default settings, some users may not be able to see the links properly. It is much more useful to place the appropriate link in the first sentence after the header.

See also: Manual of Style (headings)

List style
See Manual of Style (lists)

Title style
See Manual of Style (titles)

Quotations
When quoting a person in an article, and the quote is at least a full sentence, the quotation should be italicized.


 * Justin Achilli said, "Try to think of someone more boring than Jennifer Garner. It can't be done."

However, if the quote is less than a sentence or just a single word, it should not be italicized.


 * Justin said he was "rushed."

For uniformity and to avoid problems with the wiki software and the searching utility, use straight quotation marks and apostrophes, and avoid curved marks such as the backtick (the so-called "smart quotes").

Background information and comments
On occasion, it is necessary or appropriate to include commentary about an unusual or contested point of information in an article. If there is a sufficient amount of information, it should be contained in a separate section, named ==Background information==. Alternatively, comments and information may be described in a short paragraph (no longer than three sentences) that is indented and italicized.


 * The green marble Vampire texture designed by Chris McDonough.

See also: Canon Policy

See also and Related topics
Informational references to related articles that have not been linked to from free links in the article itself are best handled by the "see also" header.


 * See also: heretical dharma, bodhisattva

(Note that you shouldn't indent the "see also" line in actual use.)

Alternatively, you can use "related topics" to list the links in a more explicit fashion as a section of the article:


 * ==Related topics==
 * * Wan T'ian
 * * Teomallki

If an article consists of several sections and a "see also" refers to the entire article, making it a separate section helps emphasize that the links refer to the entire article, rather than simply the last section alone.

Other styles
There are undoubtedly styles that this tutorial does not cover. Although we try to keep this article simple, consider adding a new section to help new (and old!) readers out in creating styles for articles.

When all else fails, we recommend referring to the "official" resources for styles, such as The Chicago Manual of Style or Fowler's Modern English Usage.

Keep it simple
Above all else, you are encouraged to keep your articles simple! Don't try to get too fancy with your markup (like embedding tables within tables). The easier the markup is, the easier it will be for anyone to edit the article later on. Our first goal is to reliably and accurately display the information. The goal of wiki markup is to keep the articles simple and to emphasize the information as much as possible. We prefer content over form!

For this and other reasons, HTML markup should be avoided in most circumstances.