SmashWiki:Manual of Style

This page is a SmashWiki guideline, a principle that suggests how users should contribute and conduct themselves. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.

The SmashWiki Manual of Style is a style guide that aims to make the wiki easy to read, write, and understand.

Article titles

• Titles should be singular, not plural.
  • Example: Item instead of Items
• Titles should be nouns as opposed to verbs.
  • Example: Punishment instead of Punish
• If a title is not a proper noun, only the first word should be capitalized. Sometimes there is disagreement over what is a proper noun; this should be discussed on the talk page.
  • Example: Back throw instead of Back Throw
• Titles should conform to what is most commonly used and understood, not what is official. In other words, terms should be referred to as they make the most sense within the community (e.g. "tilts" as opposed to "strong attacks").
  • Example: Tech instead of Ukemi
  • Example: Glancing blow instead of phantom hit
• General character articles (those that focus on a character as they are outside of the Smash Bros. series) should be named according to how the character is most commonly known in their originating series. On the other hand, articles about playable characters' appearances in the Smash series should be named according to how the game names them.
  • Example: Fox McCloud instead of Fox
  • Example: Fox (SSBB) instead of Fox McCloud (SSBB)

Sections/headings

Levels

• Most sections should be level two headings; that is, they are formatted with two equals signs. A subsection is one level higher than the section it is contained in.
  • Example: The title of this section is formatted as ==Sections/headings==. The subsection is formatted as ===Levels===.

Wording

• Like article titles, headings should only be capitalized if they are proper nouns.
  • Example: List of characters instead of List Of Characters
• Headings should be kept short.

Text

• Long stretches of text should be broken into paragraphs. For very long strings of text, consider breaking the paragraphs into subsections.
  • Example: See the Subspace Emissary plot summary.

Formatting

• The subject of an article should be highlighted in bold text in the first sentence of the article. Bold text should generally be avoided otherwise. Bold text is created by placing three straight single quotes before and after the text you want bolded.
  • Example: '''Test''' produces Test.
• Names of games and other works should generally be displayed in italics.
• Coloured text is discouraged.

Writing style

• Style of writing should be semi-formal, with no silly remarks or slang.
• Initials and abbreviations should not be used in lieu of the proper name within articles. A shortened name can be acceptable however if the full name was already used in the article or section.
  • Example: "MK is the best character in SSBB" is never proper.
  • Example: "Meta Knight is the best character in Brawl" is proper, if the full title Super Smash Bros. Brawl was already used in the article.
• Language should be gender-neutral, unless referencing a specific character or person.
  • All Pokémon should be treated as gender-neutral.
• All writing should be done in the third person.
  • Example: the player must instead of you must
• There is no preference whether to use American or non-American English; therefore one should not make an edit to a page that consists of only changing such spelling/grammar. However, it is preferred to remain consistent within a section or article.
  • Example: The following are all spelled correctly: canceled, cancelled, realize, realise, center, centre, color, colour
  • Example: Do not make edits simply to convert numbers between imperial and metric units. You may edit to include both, unless doing so would make the text inaccurate (such as trophy descriptions).
  • Example: Putting trailing punctuation inside or outside quotation marks is okay.
  • Exception: Double quotes must be used, as single quotes are used for formatting.
• Likewise, when multiple acceptable variants of a word exist (regardless of region), there is no reason to change the word written on a page into another variant of it.
  • Example: The following are both spelled correctly: Samus’, Samus’s
• Unnecessary hyphens should not be used; if a combination of two words is proper without use of a hyphen, or are proper without being connected, a hyphen should not be used.
  • Example: Use followup instead of follow-up.
  • Example: Use up tilt instead of up-tilt.
  • Example: Use bair instead of b-air.
    • Note: Some terms such as fair can be confusing to some readers when shortened like this. If in doubt, use a spelled-out version such as forward aerial.
• In general, using emphasis should be avoided in articles. If emphasis is necessary in an article however, do not use ALL CAPS to denote it; instead use bold text to denote emphasis.

Spacing

• Generally, spacing does not matter to readers of an article (the software removes most extra spacing); however it can have a large impact on the readability of the code when one is trying to edit the page. The code should have enough spacing to make the coding clear while not taking up too much room.
  • Example: It does not matter whether one uses one space or two spaces between sentences, as both are reduced to one space.
  • Example: Leaving a blank space between an article and its categories makes it easier to recognize the two.
  • Exception: If there is not at least one blank line between two paragraphs, they will be treated as one single paragraph.
  • Exception: Complex tables and templates can be very picky at times when it comes to spaces and returns. Be mindful and always preview edits of such pages.

Images

• Images should be right-aligned if possible.
• Large images should be displayed as thumbnails, without a specified size.
• If an article has a lot of images, most of the images should be displayed in a gallery. Galleries should be listed under a level two heading (==Gallery==).

Captions

• Images that are not part of an infobox should be given a caption relevant to the article.
• Captions should end with a period if and only if they are a complete sentence.
• Captions should generally avoid any formatting, though they may have links.

Uploading images

• Avoid uploading duplicate images. If the intent is to replace an existing image, discuss the change first, then upload the new image on top of the old one.
• Images should be named descriptively. A name such as "00293347.jpg" is not useful and will lead to the image being either moved or deleted.

Internal links

• Generally, only link to an article once. If "damage" is mentioned five times on a page, it should only link to [[damage]] the first time. The exception is if the page is very long, in which case it can be linked again near the start of a later section.
• Use efficient links, especially for plurals and verb forms.
  • Example: [[grab]]s instead of [[grab|grabs]]
• Similarly to the above, linking to a redirect that is an abbreviation or a redirect that links to a section of another page is acceptable (and often preferred), unless an abbreviation isn't appropriate in the context.
  • Example: Using [[SSBB]] or [[Brawl]] is fine in most cases (often table headings and infoboxes), whereas [[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]] should be used the first time it's mentioned on the page, and [[Super Smash Bros. Brawl|Brawl]] is never necessary and should be avoided
  • Example: Using [[PK Thunder#PK Thunder 2|PK Thunder 2]] is an unnecessary waste of code compared to [[PK Thunder 2]]
• The capitalization of the first letter of the link does not matter, but the capitalization of the other letters does. This means that single-word links can be written for whatever capitalization is needed in the sentence, while links of two words or more cannot.
  • Example: [[shield]] and [[Shield]] are equivalent
  • Example: [[shield grab]] and [[Shield grab]] are equivalent, but [[Shield Grab]] is not
• When displaying an image, [[Image:]] and [[File:]] have the same function. Like American vs. non-American spellings, both are equally acceptable, and making an edit simply to change this is highly discouraged.