Wiki Style Guide

When working on or creating articles for this wiki, please follow this style guide. This will help provide a standard for all articles, to help increase their quality and avoid confusion for the users of this wiki.

Article Subject Matter

Articles must be related to PWI. Articles that are not related to topics about Perfect World will be deleted. This goes for images as well.

Do NOT create articles to ask questions. Questions about the game should be asked in the forums, not the wiki. Questions about the articles should be asked on the article's discussion page. Questions about the wiki can either be asked on the community portal page or Sangodoc's user page (wiki moderator).

Character notes belong on your user page. If you want to write information about your characters or yourself then you should do that on your user page, not in a main space article. Articles about NPCs are fine.

Articles for simple items are not needed. Simple items, such as those that can be described in one or two sentences, do not need individual pages, as the Perfect World Database (PWDB) is better suited to this task. Complex items are fine. So, for example, Fantasy Fruit does not need an article, but articles on Token Packs or Hyper EXP Stones are fine.

Faction information can be listed here. Basic information about your guild can be added to the appropriate Guild Directory article. If you want to make a more detailed article, the article title should be in the format "Server Name - Faction Name" (e.g. Sanctuary - Wolf Den).

Basics

Write in the 3rd person. This means that you shouldn't use, "I say you should probably do X." Instead that should be written something like, "It's recommended that you do X."

Please check your spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar for errors. This should be basic common sense, since poor writing can make what you write look like crap, however many people still put "your" (belonging to you) when they mean "you're" (you are) and other such errors throughout their articles.

Use the American English spelling for words. This means you should write "armor" instead of "armour", "color" instead of "colour", "defense" instead of "defence", etc., since that is how it will be spelled in the game.

Names of classes, "demon", and "sage" should be written in lower-case except when necessary. So if you're writing about, for example, venomancers, do not capitalize the name of that class except at the beginning of a sentence.

Proper nouns and the names of skills, attributes (Str, Dex, etc.), specific creatures, and specific items should be capitalized. So you should write, "sage Plume Shot" if you're writing about the sage version of the "Plume Shot" skill. The creatures "Eldergoth Marksman" and "Eldergoth Sharpshooter" should be capitalized, however "eldergoths" in general should normally be in lower-case.

Please use the PWI version of names. This means that, for example, you should refer to Twilight Temple, and not "Holy Hall", as it is called in the Malaysian version of Perfect World.

When using abbreviations, explain what they are and/or link them to the relevant article the first time they are used. For example, the first time in an article you can write "TW (Territory Wars)" or "Territory Wars (TW)", and then just write "TW" every time after that. Abbreviations should be avoided in cases where their use would look clumsy (i.e. too many abbreviations in one area), unnecessary (only used once or twice), or when explaining the abbreviation's meaning cannot be done in a non-awkward way (i.e. requires footnotes or such), with the exception of in tables that are getting too wide to display nicely.

Avoid all caps when possible. Instead of writing in ALL CAPS, please use bold instead, unless the text is already in bold.

Articles should have a brief introduction before getting into the details. This helps people new to the game figure out what the article is about, and gives all readers an idea of what they can expect to find in the article. Brief articles that are basically only an introduction should have the "{{stub}}" tag at the top of the page instead.

Use proper internal links to other articles. This means you should use two left brackets, the name of the article, and then two right brackets (so "[[Main Page]]" looks like "Main Page"), instead of one left bracket, the HTTP link to the page, a space, the name of the page, and one right bracket (which looks like this instead: Main Page). Add an "s" after the double brackets if you want to pluralize it (so "[[Cleric]]s" will appear as "Clerics") or add a "pipe" (one of these: | ) and some text if you want the name to appear differently (for example, "[[Main Page|PWI Wiki]]" appears as "PWI Wiki").

Try to link to other articles the first time a topic is mentioned when users may want further details. For example, if you're writing an article and happen to mention "luring", you should make the first use of that word link to the Venomancer Luring article so the user can find out what that means and how to do it.

Please use the Summary line to describe your edits. Using the Summary line below the edit box when editing articles helps explain what you did in your edits, which makes it easier to find out what edits were made and why in the edit history and recent changes page.

Try to keep the style of an article consistent. If an article has five sections written in one style, and you want to add another, try to use a similar style to the other sections. It can be odd/jarring/distracting to see most of an article written one way, and then suddenly shift to another style entirely, so you should try to avoid that problem.

Do not put personal information in articles. This means that you should not sign your articles or such. Personal information should be put on your user page. These articles can and will be edited by everyone, so if everyone who edits them signs them then the page gets messy. People can see who created and edited a page by checking the edit history instead.

Avoid calling new additions to the game "new". Additions to the game will only be new for a little while, so it is better to write something like "added on 5/17/'11 (patch 522)", which will always be true, instead of "new".

Use the M/D/Y convention for dates. For consistency, all dates should be in the Month/Day/Year format, and it is acceptable to abbreviate the year (so, "2012" can be shown as "'12").

Similarly, try to avoid referring to "current" sales or market prices. Sales come and go, market prices not only fluctuate, but vary from server to server, the economy goes through steady inflation, and so on. Thus, comments referring to prices of things that are not "fixed" prices (i.e. items sold by NPCs at a price that never changes and the like) should be avoided. Instead, recommend that they check the Auction House and/or catshop prices if they need to find out the going prices of items.

Wiki and HTML Markup

When creating tables please use the {{DefTable}} template as the table header when possible. The DefTable template automatically sets up all of this wiki's default table style parameters, so that your table can be automatically updated should the wiki's color style is updated. See Template:DefTable for details.

Please use wiki markup when possible instead of HTML markup. So, for example, please use the wiki bold (''') instead of the HTML bold tag (<b>).

Please avoid using colored fonts unless it helps clarity. Coloring words in the middle of your text for no good reason makes for distracting reading. Please try to use bold and/or italics instead. For a good example of a page that makes use of colored fonts see the Cube of Fate article.

Use the <br> tag to force linebreaks. In the editor, separate lines with no whitespace between them will get turned into a single paragraph when viewed normally. Use the <br> tag to force a linebreak. A double <br> can be used at the end of a section to improve spacing between sections. Also, please avoid using linebreaks when they are unnecessary, such as when you have whitespace between paragraphs, they just add bloat to the article.

Avoid using underscored text. Underscored text may be confused with a link, so it should be avoided. Bold is preferred instead.

Use the correct symbols for items with special characters in the name. So an item that starts with "★★" in its name should have those symbols there. For a list of special characters like those see the Symbols page.

Talk Pages

When writing comments on a talk page please sign your comments. To do this, simply put four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comment, and it will get replaced with your name and the date of your edit when you save your edit.

DO NOT edit other people's comments. Even if you're just fixing their spelling or such, you should not edit other people's words.

When adding a new topic to a talk page, use the "+" link at the top of the page. This will create a new section at the bottom of the page with a section title you choose. This will also cause your topic to be listed on a table of contents if there are enough topics on the talk page. Please use a brief but descriptive section title. Sections should be listed oldest to newest like this so that it is easy to read the sections in the order they were written.

Use proper placement and indenting when replying on talk pages. To do this, just add a colon (:) to the beginning of the text for each level of indentation. For example:

Question. -- by Xyz
:Answer #1. -- by Abc
::Further comment on answer #1. -- by Nop
:Answer #2. -- by Def

Produces this:

Question. -- by Xyz

Answer #1. -- by Abc

Further comment on answer #1. -- by Nop

Answer #2. -- by Def

New comments should be placed below older comments, so that they can be read in the order they were written.

Comments to other users should be made on their user talk page, NOT on their user page. You are not allowed to edit another user's user page, with the exception of removing spam, copyrighted materials, or anything else that violates the PWE Terms of Service (when in doubt, alert Sangodoc here or v4liance on the forums to the potential problem). This means that comments to another user should be made on their user talk page instead.

Specific Word Notes

Some words should be written a specific way for consistency:

Abbreviations (such as "AoE" or "DOT") should be written as listed on the Abbreviations and Terms page (use the first example if more than one way of writing it is listed there).

"EXP" instead of "XP", "Exp", or "exp".

"Level" instead of "lvl" or "lv".

Title Capitalization

The titles of articles and sections within articles should be capitalized using the following rules:

1. The first and last words are always capitalized, and all except the words listed below are capitalized.

2. These are lower-case, unless they are the first word or last word.

articles: a, an, the

conjunctions: and, but, or, nor

prepositions that are less than five letters long: at, by, for, from, in, into, of, off, on, onto, out, over, to, up, with

as (only if it is followed by a noun)

3. Prepositions are sometimes capitalized.

Prepositions are capitalized when they are the first or last word.

Prepositions that are part of two-word "phrasal verbs" (see below) are capitalized.

Prepositions that are over four letters long (across, after, among, beyond, ...).

4. These short words should be capitalized. Some people occasionally forget to capitalize these.

also, be, if, than, that, thus, when, what, is, are, do, it, so, was, has, had, have, am

as (if it is followed by a verb)

A list of some "phrasal verbs": (These are some phrases in which the preposition needs to be capitalized.)

Beat Up
Blow Out
Break Down
Break Into
Break Up
Bring Up
Call Off
Call On
Call Up
Carry On
Come Back
Come Down
Come On
Come Out
Come Over
Do Over
Fill Out
Find Out
Get Along
Get Around
Get By
Get Over
Get Through
Get Up
Give Back
Give Up
Go Along
Go Away
Go On
Go Over
Hand In
Hang Up
Hold On
Keep On
Keep Up
Leave Out
Let Down
Look For
Look Into
Look Like
Look Out
Look Over
Look Up
Make Out
Make Up
Pack Up
Pass Out
Pick Out
Pick Up
Put Away
Put Off
Put On
Put Out
Put Up with
Roll Over
Run Into
Run Out of
Run Over
Show Up
Take After
Take Back
Take Off
Take On
Take Up
Talk Back
Talk Over
Throw Away
Try On
Turn Down
Turn In
Turn Off
Turn On
Use Up
Wait On

Nit-Picky Details

These rules are minor details noted here mainly for consistency's sake, rather than due to them being standard rules of writing.

Try to write using the serial comma, unless it would be confusing. So you should write, "A, B, and C" instead of "A, B and C".

Ending punctuation should appear outside of parentheses, unless the whole sentence is in parentheses. For example, "You should do X here (because it will prevent Y from happening)."

Use standard characters from the keyboard. Besides giving the wiki more consistency, this also prevents broken posts when copy-and-pasting to the forums. Some examples (shown in a different font below for clarity):

Use ' instead of ’, " instead of “ or ”, ... instead of …, etc.

Do not use "&" instead of "and". There's really no point to that; it just looks lazy. Its use is especially bad in article titles, where it will cause the article's name to appear with "&amp;" in it in some cases.