Style Guide

This is a guide to the style for contributing to this wiki. These are not all hard-and-fast rules. If you have a better way that you think a particular thing should be done, go ahead and do it.

## Pages

1. All pages should:
	1. Contain a self-link on them in the description. ([[{{PAGENAME}}]])
	2. Not contain any boilerplate (stuff leftover from templates).
2. Canon pages should:
	1. Be written as if from the perspective of an in-universe scholar.
		1. This does not mean to leave out meta information! It just means to disguise it. "Some say" is a very useful tool for this.
		2. This also encourages adding in-universe perspectives to the text.
		3. If you cannot figure out a way to add meta information like this and it does not make sense to put in the "Trivia" section (which is always meta), please clearly mark it as such.
	2. Be written using past tense, even for characters/events that are currently alive/active, as if written by a future historian. The only things that should be written about in present tense are timeless features of the setting (e.g. Races), locations, gods and other immortal characters, and particularly long-lived factions and organizations (e.g. The Knights Mercantile).
	3. Not be duplicates of other pages, unless it is a character page, that character has changed their public identity, **and** the player for that character wishes them to have two pages.
3. Page names should:
	1. Be pluralized where possible (e.g. Elves)
	2. Be title-cased
	3. Not start with the word "The" (except for campaign names or unless it is exceptionally important (e.g. The Aether)) as it will require the page to be resorted with DEFAULTSORT.
	4. Exclude titles (like Dr., Colonel, Prince) except when there is no first name available (e.g. Prince Ymres) or the title is a god (e.g. Idolmar, the God of Healing).
		1. If a character holds or has held multiple titles over the course of their life (e.g. due to military promotions), use the title that they were most commonly known by for the majority of their "screentime". If two or more titles had relatively equal screentime, use the highest-ranking/most prestigious one.
4. Links should:
	1. Not be a duplicate of another link within the same 2nd-level subsection (2nd level sections look like == My Section ==) except in Campaign Summaries.
	2. Avoid linking to disambiguation pages when possible.
	3. Be written naturally instead of conforming to the exact title of the linking page. This is what redirects are for.
5. Context Links should:
	1. Appear at the top of the page, or at the beginning of the relevant subsection.
	2. Conform to the following use-cases:
		1. "*See also: \_\_\_*" is for cross-linking pages that cover related topics.
		```
		{{Also|other_page}}
		```
		2. "*Main article: \_\_\_*" is for linking a short page or subsection to a longer page that covers the topic more thoroughly.
		```
		{{Main|other_page}}
		```
		3. "*For \_\_\_, see \_\_\_*" is for linking distinct pages that have similar names or subject matter.
		```
		{{For|description|other_page}}
		```
		4. "*Not to be confused with \_\_\_*" is for linking pages with similar names that could otherwise confuse the reader.
		```
		{{Distinguish|1=other_page}}
		```
6. Infoboxes should:
	1. Use bullet points instead of comma-separated or newline-separated lists. This is to make sure that the previewing javascript ignores it and finds the description correctly.
	2. Never use paragraphs for the same reason
7. Campaign Summaries should:
	1. Break up each session into a new subpage. For example, The Deep Ether Campaign's first session is stored in The Deep Ether Campaign/Session 1. This can then be transcribed onto the page by using it like a template. Make sure to make use of the <includeonly> tag for categories to ensure the individual sessions' categories don't appear on the main summary page.
8. Dates should:
	1. Use the Date template (e.g. {{Date|300|A.U.}}
	2. Prefer abbreviated calendars (e.g. "A.U." instead of "After Unification")

## Workflows

### Lux's

This is Lux's preferred workflow and they advise it for new contributers.

1. Always use the classic editor in source mode (mouseover the "Edit" dropdown on any page and click "Classic Editor". Then click the "Source" tab.)
	1. You can set this by default in your Preferences under Editing.
	2. There are some benefits to this:
		1. Syntax highlighting!
		2. The "modern" editor can behave in some weird ways and the WYSIWYG editor sometimes is very unclear
		3. Easier to use templates, in my opinion
		4. Better understanding of how wikia works
	3. There are a few cases where I do not recommend using it:
		1. When editing infoboxes. I prefer using the modern editor and double clicking on it.
		2. When setting the DEFAULTSORT (found under the "Categories" section of the modern editor's advanced options)
		3. When purely making changes to text and not structure or templates and not doing fancy things with links.
2. Create new pages through templates when possible (see front page, or sometimes category pages)

### Craig's

This is Craig's preferred workflow.

* Use the Source Editor for literally everything.
	+ Cons:
		- Confusing at first
		- Involves slightly more typing
	+ Pros:
		- Gives a completely transparent view of exactly how the wiki functions. No hidden states, mystery functions, etc.
		- Keeps the source text of articles clean and organized (editing with the Visual Editor can leave things somewhat garbled-looking when viewing the source)
* When making a new article, find something similar already on the wiki and copy the source text into the new article, then change things around as needed.
	+ This is usually easier than typing out things like infoboxes from scratch, and simpler than trying to memorize how every feature and template functions (especially at first).
* When trying to change an article to do something in some particular way, try to find a different article that already does what you're trying to do and see how it does it.
	+ Ultimately, if you find yourself messing with/fighting with templates a lot, check the source code for the templates to try to get a sense for how they work. This is (in my opinion) both the best way to get completely proficient with using the templates, and the best gateway to potentially making your own templates.