UniWiki:Manual of Style

This page is a part of the UniWiki's Manual of Style. It is a general guideline intended to harmonize article style across the UniWiki, though it is best treated with common sense, and exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should be approved by the Wiki Manager. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Template:Work in Progress The UniWiki Manual of Style (abbreviated as UMoS or simply MoS) is the style manual for all UniWiki articles. This primary page of the guideline covers certain topics (e.g., punctuation) in detail and summarizes the key points of other topics. The detail pages, which are cross-referenced here and linked by this page's menu or listed at UniWiki:Manual of Style/Contents, provide specific guidance on those topics. If any contradiction arises, this page has precedence over all detail pages of the guideline and the Simplified Manual of Style.

Much of this manual has been adapted from Wikipedia's Manual of Style. While care has been taken to adapt as many relevant sections as possible, any topics not covered here can most likely be found there, and interested editors are encouraged to refer to both the UMoS and Wikipedia's MoS for the most comprehensive instruction.

Further, this page and any UniWiki pages linked here serve only as a style manual. For all other guidelines, such as categorization and editing, the UniWiki defers to those guidelines set forth by Wikipedia, both because it has set a standard of excellence that UniWiki seeks to emulate, and because to develop UniWiki-specific guidelines of a similar caliber would be an unrealistic goal, given the relatively small number of Wiki Curators.

In particular, the UniWiki can be considered to operate under the following guidelines used by Wikipedia:

• Behavioral guidelines
• Relevant sections of the content guidelines
• Editing guidelines
• Naming conventions (where applicable)

Links to relevant sections of the above can be found throughout this manual.

The UniWiki Manual of Style presents the UniWiki's house style. The goal is to make using the UniWiki easier and more intuitive by promoting clarity and cohesion, while helping editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting. Plain English works best. Avoid ambiguity and vague or unnecessarily complex wording. Any new content added to the body of this page should directly address a style issue that has occurred in a significant number of instances.

Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout the UniWiki. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, refer the issue to the Wiki Manager, the Director of Communications, or, as a last resort, the Director of Operations.

Discuss style issues on the UMoS talk page.

Article titles, headings, and sections

Article titles

Main article: UniWiki:Article titles

When choosing an article's title, refer to the article titles policy. A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with the titles of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another.

For guidance on formatting titles, see UniWiki:Article titles § Article title format section of the policy. Note the following:

• Capitalize the title's initial letter (except in rare cases where the first letter is purposely lowercase), but otherwise follow sentence case, not title case; e.g., Funding of EVE University projects, not Funding of EVE University Projects. This does not apply where title case would be expected were the title to occur in ordinary prose. See UniWiki:Naming conventions (capitalization) for more details.
• Do not use A, An, or The as the first word (Economy of the Caldari State, not The economy of the Caldari State), unless it is an inseparable part of a name (The Broker) or it is part of the title of a work (The Seven Events of the Apocalypse, The Scope).
• Titles should normally be nouns or noun phrases: Early life, not In early life.
• The final character should not be a punctuation mark unless it is part of a name (Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!) or an abbreviation (Inverness City F.C.), or a closing round bracket or quotation mark is required (Kronos (ship)).

The guidance contained elsewhere in the UMoS, particularly § Punctuation (below) applies to all parts of an article, including the title. (UniWiki:Article titles does not contain detailed rules about punctuation.)