Project:Style guide

When editors are contributing to this project they should follow the guidelines provided below so that articles have a consistent style and feel.

Quoting exemption

Quotes must be verifiabily attributed and faithfully reproduced. In the event there is a good reason to adjust quoted text, it must be bracketed; for example, "AdamsApple told them about the troll" may be adjusted to say "AdamsApple told [BlueIceicle] about the troll".

General conventions

Section titles

Section titles should follow sentence case (See also) and not title case (See Also). Note that proper nouns should still be capitalized (Rise of the Bluefaced Eagles in gaming).

American spelling

All pages must use American spelling (e.g elevator, not lift; center, not centre).

Point of view

All pages in mainspace should be in third person (they, their) and not first person (I, me, myself, you). The point of view in the Project: namespace may switch between either point of view but must remain consistent on the page.

Capitalization

Capitalization should only occur if:

• Punctuation demands it.
• The word is a proper noun.
• The word is an acronym.
• A page is being spoken of from the perspective of it being a page, in which case the capitalization should match that of the page name.

Common incorrect uses include:

• Capitalization of The without it being attached to the proper noun (e.g in the United Kingdom, not in The United Kingdom).
• Common abbreviations (e.g etc., e.g, i.e, not Etc., E.g, I.e).

Dates

Dates should only be in 2 formats:

• January 5, 2001 (January 5th, 2000 is incorrect, the th should be omitted)
• 01/05/2001 (2000/05/01, 05/01/2000, and 01/05/01 are all incorrect; it should MM/DD/YYYY)

The 1st format should be preferred to the 2nd; the 2nd should only be used when attempting to reduce space.

etc v. etcetera

The abbreviation for etcetera should be prioritized over spelling it out. (e.g Sally got apples, oranges, etc., not Sally got apples, oranges, etcetera).

Wikilink frequency

Generally speaking a link from one page on Online Communipedia to another should be done once per article, though this isn't a hard and fast rule. A page in mainspace should never link to Project: space.

Numbers

Use the digit, not the word (e.g 5, not Five).

Video game names

Italicize all uses of the title for a video game (e.g. Among Us, not Among Us). If an abbreviation for a game exists (e.g SCP:SL for SCP: Secret Laboratory), it should not be italicized, and on first use should immediately follow the fully spelled out version of the name (e.g SCP: Secret Laboratory (or SCP:SL)). It may be used freely elsewhere on the page.

Oxford / Serial comma

The oxford / serial comma is to be used at all times (e.g I like apples, oranges, and pears, not I like apples, oranges and pears).

Contractions

Avoid all contractions (e.g There was not an announcement, not There wasn't an announcement).

Pronouns

Gender neutral pronouns should be used when referring to individuals (e.g they/them, not he/him/she/her).

Currency

The currency of the community's origin country (if applicable and relevant) should be preferred first, followed by the default currency used for donating. If neither apply, editors should default to the United States dollar. The currency used should remain consistent on the page.

When the currency is first mentioned on the page the full abbreviation should be used (e.g US$200, JP¥45) with all subsequent uses just having the symbol (e.g $, £, €, ¥).

i.e v. e.g

i.e is used when providing further explanation for prior text; for example, "The behavior of BlueIcicle resulted in sanctions (i.e they were banned permanently)".

e.g is used when providing examples from prior text; for example, "A member of management (e.g an administrator) is empowered to punish staff members".

A good rule of thumb is to interpret i.e as "in other words," and e.g as "for example,".

Punctuation inside or outside

The logical quotation style is to be used at all times.

The following is correct:

"Carefree", in general, means "free from care or anxiety".

The title of the song was "Gloria", which many already knew.

She said she felt "free from care and anxiety".

The following is incorrect:

"Carefree," in general, means "free from care or anxiety."

The title of the song was "Gloria," which many already knew.

She said she felt "free from care and anxiety."

Attribution

At least one revision of this page incorporates text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_marks_in_English which is released under CC BY-SA-4.0. (view authors)