Manual of Style

See Manual of Style over on Wikipedia for more information.

This **Manual of Style** outlines a standard of clean, consistent formatting for articles on the *Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen* wiki. The formatting described here is a guideline and can be overridden when warranted. These guidelines will never be perfect for every situation. However, please try your best to follow the advice outlined in this article so others may use your edits as an example when creating and editing their own articles.

Note that player created guides are not necessarily subject to the guidelines in this article, but it is strongly advised that you do not deviate heavily from the guidelines. By following the guidelines even when making less formal content, your guides will feel more cohesive.

Disclaimer: This is still a work in progress and is subject to change.

## General

* All content on this Wiki should be true and not based in theory or belief. **Please refrain** from adding theories, "headcanons", conjecture, opinions, and other kinds of non-factual information in the main body of an article. Fan content is welcome but should be properly categorized and, with few exceptions, linked somewhere at the bottom of the article e.g in a "further reading" or "fan content" section.
* All information should be verifiable by the reader. This is achieved with proper reference and citation links, as well as accurate images and videos which are properly dated. Please See *Reference and Citing* for more information and a how-to.
* Articles must contain information closely related to the topic in question - NO digressions or tangents. These should be promptly edited out.
* Situations must be discussed in a disinterested tone, giving no bias or preferences and avoiding giving unimportant issues undue weight. Avoid the use of imperative form and second person (you) when writing articles.
* Language must be clear and unambiguous. Avoid unnecessary verbosity. This Wiki should use simple language and sentence structure for the sake of all readers. Language should not be too vague, and sentences should not be too long.

## Writing, Grammar and Punctuation

**Language** *Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen* uses American English and so does this wiki. Consider turning/making British English titles into redirects to their American English counterparts (See Redirects.)
 **Gender Pronouns** Wherever possible, use the same gender pronoun (e.g he/she) used in the game. When no pronoun is given or known, use "they/them/themself" instead.
 **Possessive Pronouns** When making possessive forms of singular and proper nouns which end with an s, they should have an apostrophe "S" ('s) as with any other possessive. Example(s): Chris's
 **Don't use netspeak, leetspeak or any similar slang**  Terms relative to the game and common MMO abbreviations are acceptable. *However* you should only use such abbreviations after you have already established the meaning prior within the body of the article.
Example(s): "Black Rose Keep is a dungeon found within Avendyr's Pass. Commonly abbreviated to BRK, it is great for players between levels 20 and 40." vs "~~BRK~~ is a dungeon found in ~~AVP~~. Its great for players between ~~LVL~~ 20 and 40."
 **Aim for a 6th Grade reading level** Don't fill articles with big words just for the sake of it.
 **Perspective and Tense**  Outside of special circumstances, articles should be written in third-person perspective and in the present tense.
 **Character vs Player vs You**  It is always preferable to use either Character or Player (see below for differentiation) instead of "you".
  • Use "character" when describing things that arise as a result of gameplay such as attributes, damage, etc.
  • Use "player" when describing the individual controlling a character and things related to the interface of the game.
  Example(s): "The Bandit King attacks the character who turns in the item." rather than "The Bandit King attacks ~~you~~ when ~~you~~ turn in the item."
  Example(s): "The player needs to put the required items in the specialty crafting container to craft this unique item." rather than "~~You~~ need to put the required items in the specialty crafting container to craft this unique item."
 **ALL CAPS**  Using ALL CAPS is never acceptable, even to emphasize, and should *only* be used when mirroring content from the game and that is how it was presented.
 **To Achieve Emphasis**  Sparing use of either  *italics*  or underlines can be used to emphasize something.
 **Text Decoration**  Moderate and sparing text decorations are acceptable so long as they are intended to mirror such decorations present in the game. However, these decorations should *never* interfere with the legibility of the text. Remember: Fandom has both a Light and Dark mode.

## Article Titles

* The first letter of every major word (e.g not an article (a, an, the) or preposition (of, by, in)) in a title should be capitalized.
* Include "the" as part of the title only when "the" is officially part of the title in the source.
	+ Example(s): "The Murk" rather than ~~"The Wild's End"~~
* Wherever possible, titles should directly reflect how they appear in game. If a title is somehow inconvenient for searching (e.g it is not commonly known by its official name, but rather by a community name/term), then the more convenient form should be created and redirect to the less convenient but official version.
	+ If an entity/subject/etc is unnamed in-game, then the article should be titled by what it is generally known as within the community.

## Article Introduction

The introduction of an article/page is usually the unmarked (e.g not sectioned by a header) space just after any top-level templates (such as infoboxes). The goal of the introduction is to quickly tell the reader what the page is about. Try to answer the who, what, when, where, and occasionally the why of the topic. Additionally, this introductory section should not demand that the reader have in-depth knowledge of Pantheon or MMOs. This doesn't mean you have to painstakingly explain everything, but don't lean heavily on obscure terms and always provide proper links to pages which explain obscure elements.

Try to keep the introduction between one or two paragraphs long.

Example(s): An ability article might be introduced with "**Thought Thief** is an ability available to Enchanters. It is a blur-type spell which enables the Enchanter to clear themselves off of a target's hatelist, ending combat with them." rather than ~~"**Thought Thief** is an ability available to Enchanters. It wipes the Enchanter off the target's hatelist, dropping agro."~~
## Formatting

First Bold
The first instance of the topic of an article in the article's main body (that is, not in an infobox, image, table, or the like) should always be **bolded**. Any later occurrences should not be bolded.
Infoboxes
Infoboxes should be at the very top of the page. The only things which should be placed above an infobox are certain templates such as {{Stub}}.
Anchors
The wiki uses the Template:Anchor template to make creating Anchors easier. Please see it's documentation for instructions. Every page with sections should use Anchors as a means of future proofing the article. This is accomplished by placing an anchor above a section with the exact label that the section uses. E.G If the section is called “Important Section”, the Anchor should be labeled “Important Section”. This makes it so that if any other article links to Important Section, but that section itself has been renamed, the link will still work.
Bold & Italic Tag Preference
The wiki will turn two or three consecutive hyphens ( ' ) surrounding text into Italic or Bold text, respectively. However, the preferred method is to use <i> </i> to italize and <b> </b> to bold. This makes it simpler to use functions like find & replace on.

 **Capitalizations**

* General Rule of Thumb: if it is consistently shown in game capitalized, you should capitalize it as well.
* Class, Item, NPC, Race and Zone/area *names* should be regarded as proper nouns and should always be capitalized.
	+ Example(s): "Rusty Mace" rather than "~~rusty mace~~". "a Starving Wolf" rather than "~~a starving wolf~~"
* Attributes (Agility, Dexterity, Charisma, Constitution, Intellect, Stamina, Strength and Wisdom) should be treated as a proper noun when it is in reference to the attribute as a game mechanic and should always be captialized.
	+ Example(s): "This spell enhances a player's Strength." Rather than "~~This spell enhances a player's strength.~~"
	+ Example(s): "Players will need the strength of numbers for this fight." Rather than "~~Players will need the Strength of numbers for this fight.~~"
* Abbreviations (STR, DEX, BRB, so forth) should always be capitalized.
	+ Example(s): "Modifying Attributes: DEX." Rather than "~~"Modifying Attributes: dex.~~"

 **Images & Video**

For a guide to Uploading Standards, see *Uploading Standards*.

Image Placement
Images should always be placed below infoboxes. Most of the time, they should also be placed below the introductory paragraphs on a page.
Image Alignment
Images should be aligned next to the text where they are most relevant whenever possible.
Gallery or In Article
Images should only be present in article if they are of relevance to a particular section. Images which are relevant to the entire page/topic should be in the Gallery at the bottom of the article.
Image Captioning
If an image has a caption, it should be relevant to the page and the image.

 **Links**

For a guide on how to link, see *Linking*

Internal Linking
Links that *can* be internally linked *must* be internally linked. Do not use external link syntax on an internal link.
Example(s): [[Enchanter]], not ~~[https://pantheonriseofthefallen.fandom.com/wiki/Enchanter Enchanter]~~
For convenience, redirects have been and should be created for frequent alternative use cases.

Example(s): There are redirect pages for class + possessive for simplifying the editing process. So editors can use [[Cleric's]] rather than [[Cleric|Cleric's]] .
Avoid overlinking
Links to any single other page should be made no more than once per article and should only be added to the first occurance of the title of the other page. Exceptions can be made to links that are to the same page, but a different section of the same page.
Example(s): "Blunt is a weapon type in Pantheon. Blunt is the only type of weapon usable by Clerics." Rather than "~~Blunt is a weapon type in Pantheon. Blunt is the only type of weapon usable by Clerics."~~
Suggestion
Where possible, avoid having links to different articles directly next to each other with no plain text in between.
Suggestion
To improve the look and readability of an article, please try to reduce link density. That is to say, avoid having a concentration of links in one area. Do your best to reword sections that are overly populated with links if possible, but don't be contrived. There may be times where a string of links is necessary.
 **Ordering of Information**

Pages should be arranged in the following order

Certain Templates
Such as {{stub}}
Infoboxes
Place immediately below top level templates
Introduction Text
Introductory information, which contains the most relevant gameplay information, should be directly below the infobox. Keep this area concise!
Sections
Following the introduction, sections can then be added. The prioritization of sections is generally: section that is exclusive to that page > gameplay information > lore > notes > trivia > bugs > changelog > gallery > external links > references > footer templates, such as navboxes.
 **Sections**

Headings
Most sections should be two headings (==Text== or <h2>Text</h2>). A subsection should be one level higher (that is, formatted with one more pair of equals signs, or one numeric higher) than the section it is below.
Keep Sections Short
Section titles should be kept as short as possible.

## Images and Videos

For a guide on how to upload content to the wiki, please see Fandom's guide *Help:Uploading Files*.

PNG is standard
All images without animation should be uploaded as **.PNG**
Gifs are permitted
Gifs should be used sparingly and should only be used when the gif is able to effectively illustrate something that a single image would fail to. Examples of this would be to show off a brief animation.

## Wiki Maintenance

**Redirects**

Make improper titles into redirects
Articles with improper titles should be made into redirects to pages with proper titles. Improper titles can be anything from common misspellings of an entity's name to articles with improper capitalization
Make alternate titles into redirects
Alternate versions of an article's title should be made into redirects to said article.
If a topic isn't noteworthy, add it to an article of such related topics
Articles for specific game concepts which there isn't enough information to write full pages about should be made into redirects to a page which encompasses several of such (related) concepts.
Look out for missing or improper punctuation
This is one of the most common errors found within an article. Proper punctuation is critical to a clean, enjoyable reading experience. Look for missing commas, periods, quotation marks, and apostrophes.
Watch out for and fix any mixed up homophones
E.G there, their, and they're; here and hear; it's and its; who's and whose.
## External Links

1. Manual of Style (Wikipedia)
2. Present Tense (Wikipedia)