TF Vendetta:Manual of Style

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TFV:MOS
Template:Policies
The **Manual of Style** (**MOS**) is one of the core article policies on TF: Vendetta Wiki. It regulates the style and formatting of TF: Vendetta Wiki articles and covers rules specific to TF: Vendetta Wiki. Basic writing rules of the English language are not covered by the Manual of Style.

For rules regarding the *layout* of TF: Vendetta Wiki articles, refer to the Layout Guide.

# Grammar and spelling

## Language

Though the readers and editors of TF: Vendetta Wiki speak many varieties of English, we mandate standard American English spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word usage. This is the variety of English Spoken by the wiki's founder.

* If a word has two acceptable variants in American English, the one that is considered "more American" is to be used. Such example is the spelling of *judgement* as *judgment*. The only exception of this rule is the spelling of words ending in *-ogue*: while *dialog* is an acceptable version of *dialogue*, the latter is preferred.

## Apostrophes and possessives ending in "s"

While plural nouns ending in "s" should be made possessive by adding only an apostrophe, singular nouns ending in "s" can be made possessive by adding either an apostrophe followed by another "s" or simply an apostrophe, providing each article is consistent throughout. Users are encouraged, but not required, to use only an s' for possessive nouns ending in a Z-sound. For example, while discussing the weapon of multiple Decepticons, one would write "Decepticons' weapons"; but while discussing the creations of Primus, one could write "Primus's creations" or "Primus' creations."

## Capital letters

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TFV:CAPS
### Headings

Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all of the other letters in lower case. Do not employ title case.

## Punctuation

### Period

* Only image captions and reference notes that constitute full sentences should receive a period (full stop).
Example: "Bumblebee, Autobot scout" does not receive a full stop, whereas "Bumblebee was an Autobot scout." does.

### Serial comma

Articles shall use the serial comma as standard.

### Hyphens and dashes

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TFV:DASH
Three types of hyphens and dashes are used on TF Vendetta: standard hyphens (-), en dashes (–), and em dashes (—).

* Use the **hyphen** (-) for
	+ Standard hyphenation of words
	Example: "well-written" and "forty-two"
	+ Joining ≥two words that serve as a single adjective (compound adjectives) of a noun in subject (but not when in predicate)
	Example: "state-of-the-art design" and "they opened fire on the already-disabled Star Destroyer"
	+ Prefixes and suffixes when appropriate
	Example: "re-evaluate"
* Use the **en dash** (`&ndash;`) for
	+ Ranges of dates/numbers when both ends are known
	Example: "1984–1986" and "1993–2020"
		- If one or both dates have "c." in front of them, the dash should be surrounded by spaces.
		Example: "1984 – c. 1986"
	+ Hyphenating compound words, such as "open-source", or word combinations, such as "Decepticon"
	Example: "open-source–based web browser" and "Post–Decepticon Era"
* Use the **em dash** (`&mdash;`) for
	+ Ranges of dates/numbers when one end of the range is missing
	Example: "1984—" and "—c. 1986"
	+ Colon-like use
	Example: "However, it was too late—he had already fallen to the dark side."
	+ Parenthesis-like use
	Example: "Megatron is—as everyone knows—evil."
	+ Replacing double hyphens (--), including in quotes

# Formatting

Use wiki markup instead of HTML tags where available, unless otherwise specified. Examples include

* `==Section heading==` instead of `<h2>Section heading</h2>`
* `'''Bold text'''` instead of `<b>Bold text</b>`.

## Headings

Articles can be sectioned and sub-sectioned using headings. Adequate sectioning helps readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article, and words within headings are given greater weight in search results.

* Do not use level 1 headings (`= =`) within articles. These are reserved for the page title. Level 2–6 headings are available for article sectioning.
* Use proper heading wiki markup (`== ==`), not bold markup (`''' '''`), to produce headings. A table of contents will then be automatically generated from the headings in an article.

## Punctuation

* To easily distinguish between hyphens and dashes in the editing interface, create em dashes and en dashes by typing "`&mdash;`" and "`&ndash;`", not `—` and `–`, respectively.
* Articles shall avoid "smart" (also known as "typographic" or "curly") quotation marks and apostrophes by converting them to ASCII (also known as "neutral" or "straight") quotation marks and apostrophes. In other words, quotation marks and apostrophes on TF: Vendetta Wiki should look like '...' and "...", not ‘...’ and “...”.
* For ellipses, use "`&hellip;`" rather than "`...`".

## White space

No artificial white spaces are to be added to mainspace articles.

# Linking

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TFV:LINK
## General rules

* A subject should be linked once upon its first mention in
	+ The article infobox
	+ The article introduction
	+ The article body
	+ A table in the article body
	+ Individual references
* Furthermore, subjects not linked elsewhere in the article (excluding references) may be linked in
	+ Quote template attributions
	+ Image captions
* However, do *not* include links in
	+ The bolded part of the introduction
	+ Section headings
	+ Dialogue in quote templates
* Articles should avoid redirecting links by correcting these links to point to an article's actual title (example: [[Optimus Prime|Orion Pax]], not [[Orion Pax]]).
* Articles should avoid linking to disambiguation pages, with the exception of disambiguation and redirection templates.

## Formatting

* Always capitalize pipelinks (example: [[Star system|system]], not [[star system|system]]).
* When pipelinking, always place all characters inside the link brackets. Examples:
	+ Italics: [[Nemesis (Starship)|''Nemesis'']], not ''[[Nemesis (Starship)|Nemesis]]''
	+ Possessives: [[Optimus Prime|Orion Pax's]], not [[Optimus Prime|Orion Pax]]'s
	+ Plurals: [[Decepticon|'Cons]], not [[Decepticon|'Con]]s
	+ Prefixes and suffixes: [[Death|killing]], not [[Death|kill]]ing; [[Water|underwater]], not under[[water]]
* Do not place grammatical articles (such as *a*, *an*, and *the*) in pipelinks (example: the [[Battle of Tyger Pax|battle]], not [[Battle of Tyger Pax|the battle]]).
* Avoid unnecessary pipelinks that do not point to a different title from the term being linked (example: [[Bumblebee]]'s, not [[Bumblebee|Bumblebee's]]).
* When linking to Wikipedia articles or pages on other Fandom wikis, use the appropriate pipelinking parsers (examples: [[Wikipedia:Indiana Jones|Indiana Jones]], [[W:c:swg:Portable Deep Fryer|Portable Deep Fryer]]).