VsWiki:Manual of Style
General
This page should proof as a guide for anyone editing the wiki.
There are no fixed rules though, especially, if something can be done better/easier/more efficient. See the [[Talk:VsWiki:Manual_of_Style|talk]] section for discussions on this guide.
In general you can get an preview of what we want to do in the Wikipedia style and how-to category.
Quick overview on editing
You can get a quick overview of how to edit this wiki here: WikiPedia:How to edit a page.
Please try out how to edit the wiki in the SandBox before doing any page-editing one 'living' pages.
Head to the Village Pump and make any discussions you wish about better organizing the wiki, or adding major new additions to the wiki.
See the Article Requests for Needed/wanted pages.
See for a list of pages that are in need of attention..
Vega Strike name
JackS has stated that the correct name for our project is "Vega Strike". Please only refer to the game as such (with two words), unless it is neccessary to write it without spaces (such as in URLs or file names).
- Wiki discussion: Talk:Vegastrike#Vegastrike_.28name.29_discussion
Header and title style
General
If you add headers to a page or make a new page (title), please try to avoid extremly long sentences.
Up to ~4 words should be able to sum up the page. If it's longer you may have to split the content anyway ;)
The name header/title should be formed like a correct sentence. (e.g capital letters = First one of sentence + 1st of names + alot of abbreviations)
Database entry names
- Categories (the ones starting with [Category:xxx])
should always be in plural (as in "Upgrades", "Weapons", "Cargo" etc...). e.g [Category:Upgrades:Repair Systems]. - Summary pages (e.g the Weapons page or 'sub'-summary pages like Upgrades:Afterburners)
should be in plural as well.
Upgrades:Afterburners is perfect. Where for 'sub'summry pages all the terms are written in plural ( [Upgrades:Afterburners] . - Single entries (like the 'wrong'
[Upgrades:mult_afterburner01])
should use singular e.g Upgrade:Multiple afterburner (Level 1) (Don't know what the 'mult' stands for right now.) - Speaking/meaningful names
Do not use 'mult_afterburner01', but instead formulate a full description as a name.
For auto-linking' we can easily create redirects. e.g [Upgrade:mult_afterburner01] redirects to [Upgrade:Multiple afterburner (Level 1)]
- Finally a tip if you are moving/renaming pages. You can use the [Move] button on the top to move and redirect pages to new locations. Even the talk pages are moved an redirected. Linking/redirecting from a misspelled page to the correct one is the way to go. Even it the pages is name completly wrong. Pontiac
See also
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)
- Wikipedia:Headings
- Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles -> Headings
Templates
When appropiate, please use the templates provided. These are useful for several reasons;
- Provides a consistant appearance for each item, for exammple the News Button
. - Provides a single point of change, so any changes in appearance will be repeated throughout the wiki.
- Someone else has done all the hard work of creating images, formatting etc. for you!
See VsWiki:Templates for all the availabe templates and how to use them.
Content
Classify the content in categories
See Special:Categories for all available (and used :S ) categories, use them wisely.
See the manual and database pages for examples or browse the categories to figure out what categories are used for what content.
Links (Crosslinks)
Please do add crosslinks into the page you are creating/editing, but don't push it.
For example there is no need to re-link a word again and again. In most cases one single link on the first occurence of the word/term is enough. Of course if there is a long paragraph then a re-link is the better way to go.
See also
Images
General images
Most of the images currently used in the Wiki (especially in the Manual) are located in the wiki-manual gallery.
Due to gallery v2's built-in "security measures", you'll have to locate the image here if you want to link to it: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/albums/wiki_manual/
Some images may already be available as template as well under VsWiki:Templates
Thumbnails
Thumbnails are a special case. If you want to use one of the thumbnails automatically created by the gallery, then observe the following procedure:
- Locate the thumbnail that you want to use.
- Copy image location, not the link location (In Internet Explorer, right click on the image thumbnail and go to "Properties" and copy the image address from there).
- Paste the image location into the Wiki and add "&ext=.png" to the end. This will allow MediaWiki to detect that it is a PNG image.
- When you are done, you should get a link that looks like this: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=5842&g2_serialNumber=2&ext=.png (Note the &ext=.png at the end)
See the Wiki and Gallery images forums thread for more information.
Keyboard images
Please see Manual:Keyboard layout for more info on how top easily include keys in you text (via Templates).
Unfinished stuff
If you are writing content for the manual (or general the wiki) and you do not know anything about some part of it, just put the FIXME tags in your text.
You page will then be listed in the where every editor should look into from time to time ;)
