Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Requests for comment/Capitalisation of skills and professions
I've seen some different capitalisation usage around, especially with skills. See Elementalist as an example - the links for the attunements are capitalised even though the page names aren't. On the official site, the skill names are capitalised (hover over the icons); however, the attunements aren't. The capitalisation used in interviews like Gamespot is different - skill names aren't capitalised.
In order to keep our pages consistent, I think we need to decide on some preliminary guidelines - easily changeable but enough to provide guidance on how we should capitalise things like skill names and professions, since we've got quite a few already and will be getting more. (I don't want to get bogged down in any policy/guideline meta-discussions, this is a case of organising and presenting the information we have consistently.)
On GWW, skills and attributes were capitalised, professions and skill types were not. We didn't just follow ArenaNet - "There is no need to follow in-game capitalization where it does not make sense" (gw1:Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting/General#Capitalization). Personally, I'd prefer to do something similar here, probably since I'm used to doing it this way and I think it makes better sense. I think some of that has carried over here already, so that's something to consider.
Anyway, what do you think? -- pling 
14:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I think links should be capitalised. Because it gives more of an emphthasis towards the link, and I think it just looks better. Also, Its GW2, not GW. A brand new start, things can be changed. But thats just my view. --
aut (t) 14:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that we need guidelines; seeing red links all the time just because where light armor wasn't capitalised, Medium Armor is is annoying. And of course stuff like this can be solved on the talk pages of the pages in case, it's a waste of time to do that all the time. I don't see much wrong with the gw1 guidelines. NilePenguin 14:41, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- "On GWW, skills and attributes were capitalised, professions and skill types were not." I like this format. I support standard English capitalization, except for when things are bulleted.-- Shew 14:43, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- The professions seem to be capitalized for now, no doubt about that. They most likely changed this like the races (but the other way round). Considering skills, which are capitalized, and attunements, which aren't — we aren't actually sure whether the attunements are really skills, as far as I know. And if they are, they probably meant something like that you are attuned to earth via the skill Earth Attunement (or so). In any case, we will definitely be assured later (obviously, which will not help us now...). · LOQUAY · 14:50, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- Erm, yeah, I kinda started capitalizing the names of the professions, as they are capitalized on the GW2 website. -- Arduin
15:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC) - I think profession names have always been capitalised by ArenaNet, for example see the manual text on gw1:Elementalist, but we still didn't capitalise when not quoting verbatim.
- Shewmake, how would you want things when they are bulleted? Capitalise each word or just the first letter of the first word? -- pling
15:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- I would prefer a simple language focussed solution as we did on GWW. When referring to an in-game state (skill, item, location etc.) then capitalize the same way as in-game. Otherwise stick to the capitalization that makes most sense in the english language. So for example armor should generally be written lowercase, same with professions I think. They are common enough to not need to capitalize them
(and we didn't do it on GWW either Pling). - Regarding attunements I am actually not hundred percent sure if a "Fire attunement" is actually a skill or not. Or just some special elementalist thing that really attunes (the real english word) to the fire element, in which case it should be written lower case. But we'll probably see sooner or later.
- "I support standard English capitalization, except for when things are bulleted" – What do you mean? We have to differ between two types of bullet lists here. The one type that is a list of sentences (such as those lists in notes sections) where each bullet should start a new sentence which should also end with a dot; and the other type which is part of a text or just a general listing (skills for example, in which case the skill casing would apply though) where a normal cased word follows after the bullet (and no dot ends the line). poke | talk 21:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- I think skills (and attunements, since they are also skills) should be capitalized (since that helps readers to understand when the article is talking about a skill, as opposed to a creature or something like that), and everything else shouldn't (per Arena Net's recent guidelines). Erasculio 14:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- To quote myself: "When referring to an in-game state (skill, item, location etc.) then capitalize the same way as in-game.". If now the game writes a skill name in lower case, we shouldn't write it upper case just to make it visible that it's something special. If we need to highlight a special part of the game, we just create a link. poke | talk 17:27, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- I think skills (and attunements, since they are also skills) should be capitalized (since that helps readers to understand when the article is talking about a skill, as opposed to a creature or something like that), and everything else shouldn't (per Arena Net's recent guidelines). Erasculio 14:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- I would prefer a simple language focussed solution as we did on GWW. When referring to an in-game state (skill, item, location etc.) then capitalize the same way as in-game. Otherwise stick to the capitalization that makes most sense in the english language. So for example armor should generally be written lowercase, same with professions I think. They are common enough to not need to capitalize them
- Erm, yeah, I kinda started capitalizing the names of the professions, as they are capitalized on the GW2 website. -- Arduin
- The professions seem to be capitalized for now, no doubt about that. They most likely changed this like the races (but the other way round). Considering skills, which are capitalized, and attunements, which aren't — we aren't actually sure whether the attunements are really skills, as far as I know. And if they are, they probably meant something like that you are attuned to earth via the skill Earth Attunement (or so). In any case, we will definitely be assured later (obviously, which will not help us now...). · LOQUAY · 14:50, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- "On GWW, skills and attributes were capitalised, professions and skill types were not." I like this format. I support standard English capitalization, except for when things are bulleted.-- Shew 14:43, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that we need guidelines; seeing red links all the time just because where light armor wasn't capitalised, Medium Armor is is annoying. And of course stuff like this can be solved on the talk pages of the pages in case, it's a waste of time to do that all the time. I don't see much wrong with the gw1 guidelines. NilePenguin 14:41, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
