Style Guide

Since this is a wiki that will be edited by many people, it's important that we have a consensus about style. The following is a guide for how articles should be written to make the life of editors (particularly the developer) much easier. Please follow this guide when writing ANY article on this wiki. Ultimately, moderators of the wiki have final say on all stylistic choices.

## Structure

Every Wiki article should have the following components:

* A single-paragraph introduction that gives a brief overview or summary of the article
* Main sections depending on its category
* Inline links to other articles
* At least one category attached to it. See below for some categories

*Most* Wiki articles should have the following, if necessary:

* An image alongside the introduction
* An infobox at the top of the page, depending on the category
* Additional main sections, such as Trivia
* Sub-headers inside each major section, used to further subdivide sections

You can put as many sub-sections into a section as you want, but please make sure it makes sense. There's no point having 10 subsections for something that only needs 3. Also try to avoid nested subsections whenever possible.

### Sections

Most Wiki articles will have the following sections, in addition to a summary paragraph:

* **Story** - Any events that occur in the story that relate to the subject in question. Events should be brief summaries and not full recounts.
* **Trivia** - Any fun facts, references, or background facts about the object, presented in bullet form.
* **Changes -** A table of changes over various builds of the game.

Additional main sections can be added depending on the article category. See other pages in the same category for allowed sections.

## Formatting

For most articles, formatting should be on the light side. Use **bold** for referring to the title of the article within the introduction and *italics* for occasional emphasis in the rest of the article. Underline and ~~Strikethrough~~ should NEVER be used.

Links to articles should be used whenever possible. One of the main strengths of a wiki is that its articles all link to other articles, allowing users to easily access related content. An article that does not link to any other articles is called a "Dead-End Page," as it requires the reader to go back if they want to find any more content. If you are referring multiple times to a topic that has an associated article, only link the article the first time it is mentioned in each main section. You can open the Link tool by typing `CTRL + K`, then typing in a URL or the name of an article to link.

* Bullet Lists or Unordered Lists are easy ways to organize information
* Use these where they make sense, but don't overdo them
* Lists can be added from the Insert dropdown
* Numbered Lists or Ordered Lists are not usually necessary

DO NOT use headers to format your article. These should be reserved for the *structure* of your article. Using them for incorrect purposes will confuse readers and cause the table of contents to display incorrectly.

## Diction

All articles should be written in correct American English. As always, double-check your grammar and punctuation.

Articles should be written impersonally, meaning it should be written in 3rd person and as impartially as possible. Only the facts should be included, no opinions or judgement statements. Articles should be descriptive without being overbearing, allowing readers unfamiliar with the community to easily understand.

Article titles should refer to a singular idea, and shouldn't include definite or indefinite articles such as "The" or "An."

Sections that refer to story content that occurred before the beginning of the game should be written in past tense, and everything else should be written in present tense.

## Images

Most articles, particularly about specific things in-game, should have images to show readers what the article is about. Nearly every article should have an image in its introduction, and a few in its main body. Optimally, each article should have one image per major section.

The main image for each article should be an actual image of the object described in the article. For instance, if you are writing an article on a town or character, the main image should be a screenshot of the town or character itself.

When using images in articles, they should be placed so that their anchor is above the paragraph that you want it to go with. Images should be manually set to 350px wide in the page using the image options, allowing readers to clearly see them without expanding.

## Categories

Categories help readers find what they're looking for. Below are some categories and what kinds of articles they contain.

* Category:Character - Articles about characters in the game, both the player and NPC's.
* Category:Trainer - Articles about individual trainers
* Category:Trainer Class - Articles about each trainer class
* Category:Map - Articles about in-game areas, including multi-map areas. Not to be confused with items such as the Town Map.
* Category:Meta - Articles about the wiki itself