Style guide

Overview

The default style guide for the Empire wiki is to use the guide provided for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been around for a very long time and the style guide conventions that exist there have a lot of thought put into them designed to keep a wiki clean and make it easy to extend.

Obviously the wikipedia style guide is very long and relatively few contributors are going to want to wade through it. So we have reproduced some of the most important guidelines here, along with some additional guidelines that apply to the Empire wiki.

Page Titles

Use Lowercase, except for Proper Names

Titles are written in sentence case. The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized by default; otherwise, words are not capitalized unless they would be so in running text. When this is done, the title is simple to link to in other articles. Note that the capitalization of the initial letter is ignored in links.

Use the Singular Form

Article titles are generally singular in form, e.g. Horse, not Horses. Exceptions include nouns that are always in a plural form in English (e.g. scissors or trousers) and the names of classes of objects (e.g. Arabic numerals or Bantu languages).

Avoid Definite and Indefinite Articles

Do not place definite or indefinite articles (the, a, and an) at the beginning of titles unless they are part of a proper name (e.g. The League) or otherwise change the meaning (e.g. The Throne). They are noise words that needlessly lengthen article titles, and interfere with sorting and searching.

Section Titles

Section Titles should be Written in Title Case

We have deviated from the wikipedia guidelines and adopted title case, not sentence case for section titles. While it makes links slightly harder, it looks easier on the eye on the screen.

Capitalization

• Only capitalize proper nouns
• In-character nouns should be capitalized if they would be proper nouns in-character
• Game terms and other jargon are not proper nouns

In Empire we only capitalize proper nouns - we don't capitalize words just because they are unusual or game terms - as is common in the roleplaying industry. When a noun is made up or unusual in some way, we try to look at an equivalent in the real world. Examples:

• The Imperial Conclave is capitalized - because it's a proper noun - like the Houses of Parliament or Windsor Castle.

• A coven is not capitalized - in the same way you wouldn't capitalize "pack of cards" in the real world. Similar words like realm and regio and ritual are not capitalized. Eternal is incorrectly capitalized in many places - it should be lower case.

• The race orc is not capitalized, nor is lineage, in the same way we don't capitalize fox, human, or duck.

• Imperial Orc is fully capitalized because it is a nationality - like British or French. Imperial is always capitalized because it refers to things of a specific empire. So the citizens of the Empire are Imperial citizens.

• You don't capitalize senator or general or archmage - like you don't capitalize general or politician or fireman. Obviously Bob the Builder is capitalized so General Dave is capitalized. You wouldn't capitalize empress, but you would capitalize Empress Richilde.

• Rituals and items are unique and are capitalized using title style. Spells and skills are general and common and are not capitalised. E.g., it is Ascetic Star of Atun; Biting Blade; heal; and magician.

• Virtues, even false ones, and the Way are capitalised to distinguish them from their common forms, e.g. "traditional wisdom" vs. "she lacked Wisdom", "I hate this" vs "I am dedicated to Hate". The word "virtues" is not capitalised in the same way that the word "morals" is not, but the Way of Virtue is a proper noun.

Category Names

• Category names should be plural if the articles in the category are a set of items in that category
• Category names should be singular if the articles in the category are set of articles about the category

A category where each article is an example of the category should be plural - rituals, magic items, spells. A category where each article is an article of content about the category should be singular - The League, The Imperial Conclave, Religion.

Grammar

• Please use the Oxford comma

The Oxford comma is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and, or, or nor) in a series of three or more terms. For example, a list of three countries should be punctuated either as "France, Italy, and Spain", not as "France, Italy and Spain".

Terminology

• LRP should be an abbreviation and not a word and never larp
• IC and OOC should be written in full, not abbreviated

In Empire we use live roleplaying, not live role-playing and never live action roleplaying. Consequently LRP should be regarded as an abbreviation not a word. "An LRP game" not "A LRP game".

IC and OOC should be written in full as in-character or out-of-character, not abbreviated. In general the wiki should avoid abbreviations, even where they are common use in LRP. The aim is to ensure that the wiki stays as readable as possible by people who are new to LRP.

Uploading Content

There are many interested individuals who have a vested interest in the content of a photograph, the model shown, the people who made the costume, the photographer, the organizers of the event where the photograph was taken, or the owners of the site where the photograph was taken. If there is an image being used on our wiki that is one of yours in any of these definitions and you are unhappy then please get in touch. We can add an accreditation and a link everywhere the image is used or we can remove it. We will always remove any image as quickly as humanly possible at the request of any concerned party.

Most photographers have a page which collects their images and tells you the code to insert. You can look them up here.

Please don't upload images of LRPers to the wiki without ensuring that you have the permission of the players involved in creating the image.

Images from films are used without any intent to challenge the owner's copyright. They are used to direct players to the films and indicate which characters from the films provide good inspiration for the game. Any images uploaded should include captions and accreditation which makes the source clear.

All tunes and lyrics must be credited. We suggest that every piece of music includes the following credits the title, original title if any, words and tune credits (if not traditional). Please do not upload copyrighted material without the explicit permission of the authors/performers, where something is used with permission of the copyright holders please say so.