Minecraft Wiki:Manual of Style

This **Manual of Style** outlines a set of guidelines for editors of *Minecraft Wiki*. The purpose of this manual is to help ensure the articles of this wiki remain organized, clear and consistent in both formatting and content. Understand that these guidelines could change over time, some could be removed, and new ones could be added. This manual could be modified at any time as situations occur, or community discussion takes place on this wiki which warrant an update of the manual.

For standard wiki formatting and etiquette guidelines, refer to this general set of guidelines on Wikipedia: Wikipedia Manual of Style.

## Article layout

The layout of an article is important, as it determines the reader's first impression of an article, how easily they can find the information for which they are looking, and whether they will feel a desire to contribute to the article themself. Keeping an article simple will help convey information more easily, yet it is also useful to include any relevant information which may help the reader better understand the topic of the article. If you are able, try to make an effort of aligning elements of the page in a way which minimizes blank space in the article.

### Article title

The simpler the name of an article, the better. If possible, try to keep the title of an article down to a word or two in length (discussion forum posts and message wall posts excepted). This will ensure the article is easy to search for, and easy to link to from separate articles. For example, if choosing between two article names such as: *"Species of Trees"* or *"Trees"*, the second choice would be the proper one.

### Intro

 Dosya:PageLayoutExample.png
It is good practice to include a brief intro at the top of each article, before any sections. It should only be about a sentence or two in length, and is meant to quickly identify what the topic of the article is. This way, the user will not have to read through a lengthy paragraph to determine whether the article is going to be useful to them. The title of the article itself should be **Bolded** within this intro by using three apostrophes (`'''Article Title'''`). Unless it is necessary to help define the topic of the article, try to avoid putting information in an intro, which is going to be detailed in a later section of that page.

### Notices & Notice Boxes

 Dosya:SmallNoticeBoxPlacement.png
A link to a similar topic, which may be confused with the article in question (or a disambiguation page), should be placed above the intro, just after the code for the infobox. You can use a template for this, by entering code in the following format:

`{{For|seeds which are used to grow melons|Melon Seeds}}`

This would produce the following result:

*For seeds which are used to grow melons, see Melon Seeds.*
Article notice boxes (e.g. `{{Stub}}` or `{{Update}}`) should be located at the top of the page, above everything else. If the notice box is small, it may be more visually appealing to place it just under the infobox code, so it appears parallel to the infobox within the article (see example image).

### Table of contents

A table of contents (TOC) automatically displays in articles with at least four headings. It is left-aligned above the first section heading by default.

* To force a TOC position (left-aligned): `__TOC__`
* Right-aligned TOC that floats next to text: {{tocright}}
* To completely remove the TOC from a page: `__NOTOC__`

### Article Sections

On *Minecraft Wiki*, section and sub-section titles do vary, but there are a few sections which one should focus on including in any article. Different articles can have a different assortment of sections, based on the information being included. However, when determining an appropriate name for a section within an article, try to stick to options from the following list, for standardization purposes.

* **Overview** or **Mechanics**- Detailing general information about the topic, or the game mechanics of how an object, item etc. operates within *Minecraft*.

* **Source(s)** - An explanation of where/how the subject of the article can be found or obtained.

* **Uses**- Detailing the various ways in which an item or object can be used by players or Mobs.

* **Crafting**- Contains recipes in which the item is used, or the recipe to create the item itself (use the Crafting table template).

* **Trivia**- A list of interesting facts directly related to the subject of the article. Try not to duplicate information already included in the other sections of the article, and avoid obvious, common-sense or common-knowledge points.

* **Gallery**- An assortment of relevant images and/or videos, organized within the `<gallery></gallery>` container. (Read a tutorial on galleries here). For galleries containing more than six images, use an icon-style link to a gallery sub-page (see the donkey article, as an example). The code used for this is:{{GalleryLink|*<File Link>*}}. See here for more information on how to employ.

* **References**- A list of any references which were used to support information contained within the article. This is typically the last section within an article. (Read a tutorial on citing sources here)

### Navigation Footer

At the bottom of some articles, it may be useful to place a footer template which lists all items/objects of the same type. For example, an article which describes a type of block may have the Blocks Template ( `{{Blocks}}` ) at the bottom of the article.

## Writing

* **Write simply** - If something can be explained in fewer words, do so. While doing so, use complete sentences wherever possible.

* **Check spelling and grammar** - Avoid 'u' in place of 'you' or '2' in place of 'to'. Write in proper American English (e.g. *color* instead of *colour*) to the best of your ability. Keep in mind that most devices which you will be using to edit this wiki have built in spelling and grammar-correcting tools; Use them.

* **Stay on topic** - All content on a page should be relevant to the article itself, any related info can easily be "linked to" by encasing the name within square brackets within the source code editor (e.g. `[[Article Title]]` ), taking the reader to that separate article on this wiki when clicked. This ensures the reader will not be forced to read through more information than what they are seeking.

* **Link to other content** - Whenever possible, create links to other content on the wiki by encasing words in square brackets (as outlined above). It is important to offer as many options as possible for users to explore additional content on this wiki while browsing a given article. However, it is only necessary to link to a secondary page once in an article. All other mention of the secondary topic after the initial link, should display as regular text. To provide a link to information which is related, but maybe not to *Minecraft* specifically, you can provide a link to the appropriate *Wikipedia* article (e.g. `[[wikipedia:Mojang AB]]` ).

* **Write in a third-person perspective** - Do not use personal pronouns such as "I" or "me". When possible, refer to the reader not as "you" but as "the player". This makes the article seem like more of a catalog of information, rather than appearing to directly tell the reader what to do.

* **Fix things when you find them** - If you find incorrect info, spelling or grammar, feel free to correct it yourself. If you think you can reword something so it conveys the information more clearly, re-write it. If something important is missing from an article, add it. Don't be afraid to screw up, as there is typically someone to come by after you and further modify the article.

* **Names and Titles** - Any instance of "*Minecraft*" or any other video game should be in italics. Any instance of *Mojang AB*, *4J Studios*, or any other company should be in italics.

## Categories

Categories are a way to organize related articles and/or images on the wiki. Please use existing categories when adding a page or file to one (see a list of categories here). Do not make new categories without consulting an administrator first. To avoid categories being populated with duplicate entries, do not add both a parent article, and it's sub-page (such as a gallery page) to the same category.

## Images/Videos

Wikia has a built-in licensing information system, which prompts users to enter copyright information when they add an image to the wiki. There are many options to choose from within a drop-down box, so be sure you take the time to specify what licensing category the image falls under. It never hurts to type additional information about the source of the image (such as the artist/author's name) in the "Summary" box before uploading.

*Examples of some image licensing types:*

* Fair Use
* Content from another Wiki (Wikimedia)
* Creative Commons-Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA)
* Public Domain