Help talk:TF2 Wiki style guide

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Looking through some of the articles it seems there is a need to create a style guide for TF2 Wiki articles. This will probably have to be discussed and adapted as different instances occur. I'm far from an expert on English but someone has to start it so a lot of what I type maybe incorrect. This is the place to discuss the style guide, do not simply edit the guide when you think your style is correct. --Aurora 11:10, 7 December 2007 (CST)

cleanup template links to the future site of this page, just an FYI :P -- WanderingFox 12:59, 7 December 2007 (CST)

Errr, that's fine but it's not finished yet so it shouldn't be linked just yet. Didn't realise it would take so long to write and how many areas need covering :$ --Aurora 16:02, 7 December 2007 (CST)

Contents 1 Capitalization of class names? 2 Classes, items, and terms 3 Wikification 4 American English vs. British English

Capitalization of class names?

Shouldn't they only be capitalized when referencing the class as a group, and not when referencing a member of the group?

example:

The Scout is a class.

When facing enemy scouts, try to not give them room to move around.

The Scout's scatter gun is very powerful up close.

etc.

In the second example, you're referencing scouts in general, not a specific scout, and as such it's not a proper noun in that case.

However, English was not my best subject, so if I'm wrong feel free to correct me :P -- WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 09:34, 17 December 2007 (CST)

Note: this is my personal understanding and it should be observed that I didn't study English at a high level. - I always understood it as so yes, but you've picked a good example because "Scout" is a word that can be both verb and noun depending on the context your describing. If you are using it to refer to a member of the Boy/Girl Scouts you always refer to it capitalized (i.e. "Scouting", "Scouts", "Scout-like"), if you are referring to the act of "scouting around" it's generalized and usually lowercased in standard English. Example: "training of British military-enlisted scouts, particularly in initiative, self-reliance, and observational skills". However, the word "Scouts" in TF2 refers to a group comprising of a specific class type, which I understood should be capitalized. Even if you are writing about a group of "Scouts" from the Scout movement (I use this because its the same principal as our TF2 Scout) you should capitalize the "s", example: "Local influences have also been a strong part of Scouting." and "Programs exist for Scouts ranging in age from 6 to 25" (w:Scouts). I could be totally wrong and would defer to someone who has studied English Grammar in University. I may also point out that I don't care either way and would rather users put more articles on TF2 Wiki than be bogged down with finishing one while worrying about semantics. --Aurora 11:35, 17 December 2007 (CST)

Right but in the wikipedia reference that's a specific group that happens to be called the Scouts. See the difference. The argument is between whether or not to capitalize the word when it's used as "a scout" When it's used in the context of "the Scout" it should be capitalized because you're refering to a specific scout, not just the classification. You don't capitalize groups when they're not specific. For example "The Worker's Union" and "The worker's union" are two different refernces. The first references a specific group titled "The Worker's Union" while the second one simply references a union of workers, and not any specific group.

In the case of TF2, 'Scout' is used both to define specific people ("The Scout class runs really fast"), as well as generic groups of people ("There's too many scouts"). In other words, it's used both properly (to define a specific group of people), and improperly (to reference people who are scouts). This is equivalent to the word 'god' When referencing THE God (as in the Christian god), it's capitalized, but when referencing gods in general, it is not. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_noun#Proper_nouns_and_common_nouns) -- WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 11:48, 17 December 2007 (CST)

Absolutely agree and "God" is another fine example. The defining thing is the authors style he/she has been taught, and the difficulty comes from multiple authored documents being available to a global community. American English and British English are classic examples of who says what, where. I'm British but always use "color" rather than the "colour" (which I was taught in school) because I write code, which always uses the American spelling. Hence the need for a TF2 Wiki style guide (and why most publication companies use one for reference). All we are doing is saying our articles should adopt this standard; which is incidentally how periodic writing styles change over history (the example you used - "God" was only capitalized through Christian scriptures to avoid blasphemy, as Yahweh is Hebrew and Jehovah is believed to be incorrect by some [see w:Names of god]). We could banter about what's "correct" for years (some scholars actually do for kicks) but I think the easiest way is to always refer to "Scouts" with capitalization (unless intentional) as most of the time people will mean the plural for the character "Scout" --Aurora 13:41, 17 December 2007 (CST)

Just seemed kind of odd to me, but I suppose capitalizing them will also make them stand out. I'll concede to capitalizing the names of all the classes then :P In this case however, expect lots of minor edits as I read pages and correct them all. Most of our articles do not follow the standard >_< -- WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 14:02, 17 December 2007 (CST)

That's to be expected though, not everyone is used to contributing TF2 Wiki articles. I myself am a Noob (shouldn't we have an article on that?) as testified by my numerous testing log entries ;). We could always change the definition, I just thought it might be easier to have the character names in caps like normal names. It would be so much easier if Valve game them normal names, I'd go for an engineer Bob and a medic called Sigmund any day... --Aurora 14:21, 17 December 2007 (CST)

Classes, items, and terms

I've opened the article for review to get input from everyone regarding capitalization of terms. Currently the style guide describes capitalization of terms as "This will also apply to names of items and terms (see glossary) within Team Fortress 2". Now I still think class names, weapon names and items should be capitalized, however I'm having my doubts about the terms being capitalized. Terms like Ambush, Flanking, Jumping, and Turtling just don't look right when capitalized within sentences. The problem with not capitalizing terms is that terms like Stalemate, Ubercharge, and Critical hit would also be included and this goes against how Valve present the terms (although they also use ubercharge and UberCharge in different places). What I was thinking was to un-capitalize all the terms unless used in titles (section and article) where the other rules should override. This would conform to standards already in use by the press. Please also read the above discussion when this first cropped up. By the way, don't worry about the amount of changes that this would cause, I will probably do most of it (over time). --Aurora 09:53, 30 January 2008 (CST)

Always been in favor of this, but you and I have talked at length about capitalization, so I think you already know my stand on it :P --WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 11:23, 30 January 2008 (CST)

Not getting much feedback from the community on this so I will leave it open for another two weeks until the end of the month. If no more feedback is received I will be going with the idea of lowercasing all terms. --Aurora 09:35, 14 February 2008 (CST)

capitalization to me any term used by the game should be capitalized so ubercharge, critical hit, shovel, kukri, gloating, sniper, control point etc but other things like medic buddy, flanking, turtling etc should not. People will be searching this wiki for things they see in the game so critical shoud stand out just my two penethworth that would require a list of game terms though...--mark"d"davis 10:38, 14 February 2008 (CST)

That's what we do at the minute, but the problem is where do you draw the line? What is the difference between critical hit and medic buddy for instance? They are both proper nouns and unique terms to the game, so should (if my understanding of English is correct) be capitalized. There are no compulsory rules to follow with capitalization, it depends on the house style (and one of the reasons we had to introduce this guide originally, see above discussion). So with this in mind it has to be one or the other, none capitalized or all. By the way, as stated above, names of classes and items will remain capitalized so Shovel, Kukri, and Sniper you mentioned above will be capitalized (unless referred to in general terms, see "Health not health" usage example), this is just about the capitalization of terms. --Aurora 14:03, 14 February 2008 (CST)

Wikification

Do we want to follow Wikipedia's guidelines on wikifying text? As of right now, we're trying to wiki-link every single mention of every game item in every article, and it's exhausting. What we should do is simply wikify the very first mention and then leave the rest normal. --Southpaw018 16:54, 20 February 2008 (CST)

It's just not listed on this page for some reason, but the linking style is listed on the Featured article criteria page. Link the first reference, link it again if the article is unusually long. --WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 21:09, 20 February 2008 (CST)

Excellent. Thanks, WF. --Southpaw018 22:17, 20 February 2008 (CST)

It's not listed because our style guide can't possibly cover everything. The TF2Wiki style guide was aimed at our specifics, but normal established wiki styles should be followed for anything not covered. There is a link to Wikipedia's Manual Of Style on our Help:Contents page, if you have a look at that you'll understand why I took the stance of the TF2Wiki style guide being specifics (it's absolutely huge). Overlinking is covered in Overlinking and underlinking: what's the best ratio?, however since this seems to be a constant issue I will update our style guide to include a similar section. I will point out though that even after I include it, this will still be an issue from new users who don't rtfm. New user editing should not be discouraged though, it's up to the longer established editors to correct mistakes, politely mention such issues to new users and point them in the right direction. --Aurora 03:56, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks for the inclusion of the Overlinking / Underlinking write-up, Aurora. I'm definitely guilty of overlinking on a recent edit. --Wipnum 02:10, 22 February 2008 (CST)

American English vs. British English

Should we really follow the current rules of sticking with whatever spelling was used in the article? Consistency and defined rules are a good thing for a knowledge resource (Wikipedia doesn't think so, but Wikipedia is not a very good encyclopedia). I suggest that the preferred spelling be defined as the American version because:

• It is consistent with the subject (a game by the American company Valve).
• It is apparently more common than British English.
• It is already being used the most on the wiki.
• Um...three of the game's classes are American.

Thoughts? Polatta 17:27, 3 March 2008 (CST)

What about Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, Hong Kong English, Indian English, Malaysian English, Philippine English, European English, and all the other hundreds of variations of the English language? American English is the most common because of the shear population size, not percentage of use, only about 80% of Americans speak American English whereas Britsh English is spoken by 97.5% of Britons. I'm not in favour of this, an international knowledge base should be internationalized (yes I used a z, and I'm British). If there was a standard International English it would make things easy, but there isn't, not everyone does things in the same way so accept the differences and move on. There's plenty more things that need to be done on the wiki before creating a new problem. --Aurora 03:36, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Oh also, if you use the "because the game is American" arguement and the same be applied to the TF2 Wiki, it would be in Canadian English and most of the templates would be British English. --Aurora 03:41, 4 March 2008 (CST)

What? "Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996 and based in Bellevue, Washington." [1] [2] I'd think no matter how close to the border they are, as long as the team doesn't go "eh" every three sentences, it's still American English. --MoQ 18:00, 4 March 2008 (CST)

I believe Aurora was referring to Nos, founder, owner, and fearless leader. Regardless, this is not a constructive line of argument. Our wiki is fine the way it is in this case. --Southpaw018 18:38, 4 March 2008 (CST)