Guild Wars 2 Wiki:General formatting
This article documents common formatting practices and processes across pages of all types (excluding the user namespace).
General page layouts by content type[edit]
Different types of content ingame uses different layouts and wiki-templates. To start you off, the following basic layout pages are available to copy/paste from:
Usage of text[edit]
Capitalization[edit]
Written text conforms to English capitalization rules. Page titles and section headers use normal sentence case, capitalizing proper nouns only.
In particular, note that races, professions and item descriptors are not proper nouns, and should follow common noun capitalization. (This is also consistent with ArenaNet's own house style.)
The exception to this rule is that the names of skills will remain capitalized as they appear in-game. For instance, Healing Rain will remain capitalized regardless of its placement in a sentence.
English[edit]
American English is preferred. However, British English is still acceptable, so only update to American English if (a) you are editing something else and/or (b) the spelling/grammar used in the article is inconsistent.
Hyphenation and dashes[edit]
- A hyphen links an adjective to a word it modifies, e.g. the focus is an off-hand weapon or a two-year old idea.
- An em-dash (— or
—or Alt+Num 0151) separates a phrase from the main sentence, e.g. ANet—an abbreviation for ArenaNet—is the creator of…. - An en-dash (– or
–or Alt+Num 0150) specifies a range, e.g. 10–20.
- Hyphen usage
Use of the hyphen to link words always depends on the context. For this wiki, the most common point of confusion is referring to types of weapons/skills (generally hyphenated) and the hand it is used in (not hyphenated).
- Main-hand weapon skills are available when a equipping a weapon in the main hand (i.e. the right hand).
- Off-hand weapon skills are added after equipping a weapon in the off hand (i.e. the left hand).
- Two-handed weapon skills require wielding a weapon with both hands.
Or, in a complex example:
- A character has access to many off-hand weapons that can never be equipped in the main hand (they are not main-hand weapons). These weapons are also known as off-hand only weapons.
Sort order[edit]
By default, use alphabetical order for sorting lists.
For professions, sort first by armor class (Soldier → Adventurer → Scholar) and then alphabetically by profession. This also applies to lists that are substantially tied to profession, e.g. List of specializations (since traits are always profession-dependent).
Links to other pages[edit]
Internal links[edit]
The first use of the page's own title, and any terms that are in need of explanation should be linked. Note that links to the currently viewed page will appear in bold.
A link is generated by wrapping text in double opening and double closing square brackets, e.g. [[Main Page]] produces a link to the Main Page when the edit is previewed/submitted.
If the page exists, the link will be blue, if not it will be red. E.g. Lord Faren's fancy panties.
Red links are not automatically bad, and can in fact be a valuable tool in identifying the areas in which the wiki is lacking. Leaving something unlinked just so as to avoid a redlink is to be discouraged, as when the article in question is finally created it becomes a pain to track down where all the links should have been before. That said, in many cases, such as the example above, such an article would not be within the scope of the wiki project and should not have been linked to begin with. Deciding whether something should be linked or not is usually left to the discretion of the editor.
Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, or once per section for longer articles. However, if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, and image captions. Unnecessarily frequent linking is known as "overlinking" and is discouraged.
Avoid linking to a redirect, instead simply link to the destination page, e.g. instead of linking to "PvP" (a redirect), it is better to directly link to "Player versus Player" and change the display text to "PvP" - [[Player versus Player|PvP]].
Language interwiki links[edit]
Using [[de:German page]], [[es:Spanish page]] and [[fr:French page]] creates interwiki links in the "other languages" sidebar to the specified article on the official German wiki, the official Spanish wiki and the official French wiki respectively. To create the list in alphabetical order, specify de: first, es: second and fr: last. For clarity, these links should be placed at the very bottom of the page, one per line, preceded by the empty line. For example:
[[de:Mithrilbarren]] [[es:Lingote de mithril]] [[fr:Lingot de mithril]]
External links[edit]
To link to the Guild Wars 1 Wiki, use the following format:
[[gw1:Example]]
To link to sites outside the wiki, an external link can be used. External links have a blue box with an arrow after them. These are constructed with a single opening square bracket, the url, a space, the displayed text, and a single closing square bracket. E.g. [https://www.guildwars2.com/en/ The Official GuildWars2 Site] produces the following link The Official GuildWars2 Site.
External links generally appear at the bottom of articles in their own dedicated section named "External links", and are not frequently used in prose.
Links to YouTube are made via the {{YouTube search}} template which links to a search page on YouTube with given search terms. This is to avoid fan made video favouritism and reduces linkrot. A special case is made for videos created by ArenaNet, for which a direct link is permitted.
Templates[edit]
- Primary article: Help:Templates
Templates are pages or sections that may be transcluded in other pages by linking to them using double curly brackets: {{example template}}. Some of them are customizable using parameters: {{example template|parameter=customizable option}}. Many different templates are used on this wiki. Below are some of the more common ones:
Infoboxes[edit]
- See also: Category:Infobox templates
Infoboxes are used in the majority of articles on the wiki. They appear on the right-hand side of the page and provide a summary of important details, including images. There are many different types of infoboxes with many different parameters; see the formatting guides in the table above for details.
[edit]
- See also: Category:Navigation templates
Navigation templates are used to enable smooth navigation between related articles. For example, there is a navigation template called {{Wiki help nav}} at the bottom of this page. Navigation templates are typically placed at the very end of the article.
Otheruses template[edit]
Sometimes, two or more pages will have a similar name, or otherwise be likely to be confused for each other — for example, Nightthistle Blossom and Nightthistle Bloom. The {{otheruses}} template is placed at the top of such articles to help direct users to the article they were looking for. The format is as follows: {{Otheruses|what this article is about|What alternate article is about|Name of alternate article}}
Images[edit]
- Primary article: Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Image formatting
Most images on the wiki use the .jpg file type, this is particularly true of screenshots. Icons are however uploaded in the .png format.
In the upload window, after selecting a source file, make sure that you're using a descriptive name - e.g. Caithe.jpg instead of gw123.jpg. Names can contain spaces.
The image licensing will often be {{ArenaNet image|screenshot}}, but different categories are available, for example each weapon type has its own category.
Tables[edit]
- Primary article: Help:Tables
Tables are formatted with a special template, {{STDT}}. See Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Table formatting for details on how to use it.
Dialogue[edit]
- Primary article: Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Dialogue formatting
Chains of dialogue with NPCs or interactive objects have a common format across all pages they are placed upon. As a rule of thumb, the dialogue section of an article may use one of three titles: Dialogue (for NPC articles), Text (for interactive object articles), or Ambient dialogue (for locations with ambient dialogue).
Dialogue is indented using nested colons :, and dialogue chains are nested beneath the response they follow. If a response leads to a dialogue already recorded earlier, it is followed by a small text stating which response has the same dialogue.
Interactive dialogue spoken by the NPC or the interactive object, ones which bring up the dialogue window, are formatted in plain text without quotation marks. The NPC's name is not shown unless the dialogue changes to a different NPC (to denote a different character speaking). Player responses are written in italics. Dialogue response icons are produced using {{dialogue icon}} template. Conditions for the display of certain dialogue responses should be indicated in small text above the dialogue icon(s) for that response; these conditions should not be formatted in bold, however.
Ambient dialogue spoken by NPCs, without player interaction, is formatted differently. The NPC's name is shown in bold and the text is formatted in italics without quotation marks. Normally it does not go on NPC pages, unless it is seasonal (such as Winterday or Halloween) and would not occur otherwise.
Instances in the dialogue where the player character's name is used should be replaced with <Character name>. It is also perfectly acceptable for dialogue to contain links to other articles if a link to that article has not occurred earlier in the article. Spelling errors, grammar mistakes, and incorrect content must be transcribed exactly as it is written in-game; these mistakes should be followed immediately by {{sic|[correction]}} to indicate that the original text has been transcribed verbatim (with [correction] used to show how it should have been written).
Quotations[edit]
Text taken directly from in-game or other sources is transcribed verbatim. Any errors in spelling, punctuation or grammar remain unchanged and are tagged with {{sic}}.
When providing flavor quotes and in-game descriptions for a page, {{Quotation|<source>|<text>}} is used. A page whose only purpose is to host transcribed information is tagged with {{ArenaNet article}} and {{Official source}}; see Ecology of the Charr for an example.
Prose written by wiki contributors is preferred to quotations because it provides context and flow which most quotes do not provide.
References[edit]
- Primary article: Guild Wars 2 Wiki:References
Any information which cannot be readily verified in-game or from the official website may be given a reference. The reference takes the form of a superscript link to a section at the bottom of the page containing a link to the source.
For example, a superscript link could be added using Flashpoint was released 2nd May 2017 <ref>[https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/ ArenaNet releases page]</ref>, and the footer is added with <references/>.
Stubs[edit]
A stub is an article that has missing or incomplete information — this has nothing to do with length: short articles are not necessarily stubs and long articles are not necessarily complete. When possible, add missing information yourself instead of using {{stub|page type|reason}} or {{section-stub|page type|reason}}.
- New articles don't need the tag, since people will be updating them.
- Use the stub when an article appears substantially complete, but isn't.
- Include the things that are missing from the article, e.g.
{{stub|Missing list of NPCs.}}
- Include the things that are missing from the article, e.g.
- Remove tags without a stated reason, unless you can update the template to include what the article is missing.
Naming new articles[edit]
Consideration should be given to the name of new articles. Names are documented as seen in-game, keeping the original capitalization. Therefore, the correct form is "Ray of Judgment", as opposed to "Ray of judgment" or "Ray Of Judgment". Redirects to different capitalizations are usually avoided, so keep in mind the proper form when linking to a page.
When multiple features share the same name, the following rules should be followed:
- If a skill name is shared by a profession and by a bundle, such as for example the elementalist skill "Burning Retreat" and the Lava Axe skill "Burning Retreat", we adopt the format:
Original Nameis given to the profession skill. In the example above, Burning RetreatOriginal Name ("bundle name" skill)for the bundle skill. In the example above, Burning Retreat (Lava Axe skill)
- If a skill name is shared between a skill and a trait, such as the elementalist skill "Cleansing Wave" and the elementalist trait "Cleansing Wave":
Original Nameis given to the skill. In the example above, Cleansing Wave.Original Name (trait)for the trait. In the example above, Cleansing Wave (trait).
- If a skill name is shared by two professions, such as the thief skill "Smoke Bomb" and the engineer skill "Smoke Bomb", we use the format:
Original Nameis given to a disambiguation page. In the example above, Smoke Bomb.Original Name ("profession" skill)for each profession. In the example above, Smoke Bomb (engineer skill) and Smoke Bomb (thief skill).
The goal is to keep article names as simple as possible, for easier documentation and so readers may find those pages more easily.
