Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style

This article consists of basic style guidelines to follow when editing or creating new pages for Mass Effect Wiki.

Reference

 * Help:Editing — basic information on how to enter text and formatting
 * Help:Images — information on how to upload and use images (and other media like movies or sounds)
 * Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style — Overall general stylistic and editorial guidelines
 * Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Planets — How to lay out a planet details page
 * Mass Effect Wiki:Manual of Style/Weapons — How to lay out a weapon details page

Editing
Articles need to be accessible, readable and accurate. That means good spelling and grammar, breaking up long articles into sections, not using excessive technical language, and writing in simple, concise sentences. The rule of thumb is “speak plain and speak clear”.

Here’s an example of a standard MEWiki article being edited (click to see larger version):



Comments, ideas and personal input should go on the Talk page for that article. MEWiki policy is not to sign edits on articles, only on Talk pages, and articles themselves are not signed (e.g. we have a Vanguard Guide, not My Kickass Vanguard Guide).

Accept that your work will be edited by someone at some point. If you disagree with the edits, discuss it with the user who changed them. However, if you cannot accept your writing being edited at all, reconsider whether you want to contribute to the wiki or whether the information would be better posted on another website.

Do not capitalise alien race names
Unlike most species in science fiction, the names of Mass Effect's alien races are common nouns and not capitalised. e.g. 'asari', not 'Asari'. The exceptions are the Protheans, the Reapers and the Collectors as these names are effectively titles. For other races, ask the question: if you were writing about humans, would you capitalise the word “human” in your sentence? For example:


 * Incorrect: “The Geth have evolved considerably since the Quarians created them.”
 * Correct: “The geth have evolved considerably since the quarians created them.”, or
 * Correct: “Geth are notoriously reclusive. For three centuries, the geth remained hidden beyond the Perseus Veil.”

The exception is when referring to unit types, as these are titles.


 * Example: “The geth deploy many units on the battlefield, including Geth Armatures, Geth Hoppers, and Geth Troopers.”

Shepard and Gender
Because Commander Shepard can be either male or female, MEWiki writes Shepard as gender-neutral. For example:


 * Incorrect: “Commander Shepard and his crew explore the galaxy looking for Saren.”
 * Correct: “Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy explore the galaxy looking for Saren.”

The exception is when discussing romances e.g. "If Commander Shepard is male, he can have a relationship with Ashley Williams", as this is the only area where gender makes any real difference.

Spoilers
As an encyclopaedia, MEWiki naturally contains spoilers (see Spoiler warning for more details). Some articles are spoilers in their entirety (e.g. Indoctrination) so the tag is at the top to alert users.

MEWiki currently has four spoiler tags: one for plot details referring to Mass Effect: Revelation, one for Mass Effect: Ascension, one for Mass Effect 2 and one general spoiler tag. See the Template:Spoiler page for how to deploy these tags correctly or ask an admin for help.However, these must be tagged for the benefit of all users. Preferably, add big revelations to the bottom of articles.

The spoiler tag should be used before any major plot revelations. For example:


 * Incorrect: “The detective conducted a thorough investigation of the house and all possible avenues of inquiry. In the end, we learn that the butler did it.”


 * Correct:

The detective conducted a thorough investigation of the house and all possible avenues of inquiry.

In the end we learn that the butler did it.

Speculation
MEWiki has a “low tolerance policy” on speculation in articles. This is due to an incident when an editor created a new race and star systems, and began incorporating them into articles as fact. As the PC version had recently been released, this confused several contributors as to whether a new race had been added in the PC version. Finding and rooting out these edits created problems, and so this policy was introduced.

Speculation is permitted in articles under the following circumstances:


 * It is clearly marked as being speculation, either under a “speculation” heading or with the sentence “some speculate that—” at the beginning of the paragraph.
 * There is evidence for this speculation. For example:
 * Incorrect: “Quarians once had fur, but after wearing environmental suits for hundreds of years this trait has died out.”
 * Correct: “Some speculate that if they join the Council, humans will have a major military role because they have a substantial fleet, well-trained army and adaptable military doctrine (see Systems Alliance).”


 * If the speculation refers to an unreleased game or novel, put a link at the end of the sentence to an interview or article supporting that speculation. For example:
 * Incorrect: “In Mass Effect 4 there will be giant spindly killer fish!”
 * Correct: “In Mass Effect 4 there will be giant spindly killer fish. [link to article about giant spindly killer fish in ME4]”

If speculation is not substantiated or qualified, it will be removed.

Spelling
A quick spellcheck before saving your edit is greatly appreciated. If you don't have a spellcheck add-on in your browser, preview the article first and read it through to check for any mistakes.

British or American Spelling?
Mass Effect Wiki has editors from both the US and the UK, so there are sometimes questions over which spelling is 'correct'. Both of them are. However Mass Effect is written in American English, which means equipment articles like 'Human Armor' have American spelling. So if you're using that article title in a page, it might look odd to have both English and American spelling (e.g. the sentence "Mass Effect has several types of armour, including Human Armor and Quarian Armor" looks a bit strange). The rule of thumb is: either spelling is 'correct', so don't correct 'English English' unnecessarily.

Templates
Mass Effect Wiki uses templates extensively to avoid the tedium of needing to make dozens (or hundreds!) of changes to standardized markup and text.

Redirects
Redirects are usually created when a page is moved (i.e. renamed): the original page is given a redirect. This is accomplished automatically by replacing the old page with one which just contains the text For example the Geth Stalker article redirects to the Geth Hopper page.
 * 1) REDIRECT NewPageName

It is also entirely possible to manually create such pages using the  directive. This can be useful since such pages will show up in searches and can provide sensible aliases (e.g. Shepard redirects to Commander Shepard). This also provides a convenient way to naturally add links to wiki pages without needing to resort to. However, please refrain from creating large numbers of aliases which are not likely to ever be needed. (Note also that the wiki automatically understands markup like, rendering the whole thing as 'turians'.)

Categories
Categories help other users find things. The categories on the Mass Effect Wiki are organized into a tree which is rooted by Category:Browse. To change the parents of a category, simply edit the category page and add or remove  links.

To add any wiki page to a category, simply add  to the page (by convention, at the end). A page can be a member of any number of categories. Once the page is saved, the categories which it is in will appear at the bottom of the page.

If you are creating a new category, the category page itself needs to be created. When creating the page, include a brief description of the purpose of the category, the category template, and add the category itself to any parent categories. For example, This is an example of a category page.

Screenshots
See more on uploading images here.


 * Good, clear screenshots are always welcome, preferably with the subtitles and film grain turned off. You can upload images here. Don't forget to add a quick summary of the image content to make it easier to find later. Even better, also add the image page itself to any appropriate categories (by adding links like, for example,  ).


 * If you're adding an image to a page, make it large enough to see clearly. Smaller images, like the talent icons, should not be thumbnailed as they are too small to make the caption worthwhile.