Transformers Wiki:Manual of Style

The Manual of Style is a style guide that aims to make the encyclopedia easier to read. One way of presenting information is often just as good as another, but consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Teletraan I articles. An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, except in direct quotations, where the original text is generally preserved.

If this page does not specify a preferred usage, consult other reliable guides, such as those listed below, or discuss your issues on the talk page of this manual. The Chicago Manual of Style, the Oxford Guide to Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage are well-known style guides; Chicago provides an online guide, The Chicago Manual of Style Online. The Guardian Styleguide, the Mayfield Electronic Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing and the CMS Crib Sheet are among online style guides that are accessible gratis.

When either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so (for example, it is acceptable to change from American to British spelling if the article concerns a British topic, and vice versa). Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a style-independent reason. When it is unclear whether an article has been stable, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

Article titles
If possible, the article’s title is the subject of the first sentence of the article, for example, "This Manual of Style is a style guide" instead of "This style guide is known as …". If the article title is an important term, it appears as early as possible. The first (and only the first) appearance of the title is in boldface, including its abbreviation in parentheses, if given. Equivalent names may follow, and may or may not be in boldface. Highlighted items are not linked, and boldface is not used subsequently in the first paragraph.

This example illustrates the use of boldface in the Optimus Prime article:

Optimus Prime is the awe-inspiring commander of the Autobot forces.

The normal rules for italics are followed in choosing whether to put part or all of the title in italics:

Victory is a Transformers franchise from Japan in 1989, and is part of the Generation 1 mega-franchise.

Markup
Unspaced multiple equal signs are the style markup for headings (also called section titles). The triple apostrophes (  ) that make words appear in boldface''' are not used in headings.

The heading for the section you are now reading (Sections and headings) was created with double equal signs:



The heading for the current subsection (Markup) was created with triple equal signs:



Wording
In headings and subheadings:
 * only the first letter of the first word, and the first letter of proper nouns are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case (for example, "Origin inconsistency", not "Origin Inconsistency");
 * special characters such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), curly brackets ({ }) and square brackets ([ ]) are avoided, and the ampersand (&) is spelled out as and unless it is part of a formal name;
 * links are never used, in favor of linking the first occurrence of the item in the section text;
 * the wording tends to be short (more than 10 words may defeat the purpose);
 * articles (a, an, the) and pronouns (you, they) are typically avoided unless part of a formal name; and
 * the wording is, where possible, not identical to that of any other heading or subheading in the article.

Grammar

 * Possessives of singular nouns ending in s should generally maintain the additional s after the apostrophe. However, if a form without an s after the apostrophe is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with "Achilles' heel" and "Jesus' tears".
 * Quotations are enclosed within “double quotes”. Quotations within quotations are enclosed within ‘single quotes’.
 * Punctuation marks are placed inside the quote marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation (this system is referred to as logical quotation).
 * When the title of an article appearing in the lead paragraph requires quotation marks (for example, the title of a song or poem), the quotation marks should not be in boldface, as they are not part of the title.
 * An entire quotation is not italicized solely because it is a quotation.
 * The sentence-initial letter of a quotation may be lower-cased if the quotation starts in the middle of a sentence and the quoted material is a natural part of that sentence. Where this occurs, it is unnecessary to indicate this change with square brackets. (For example, "It turned out to be true that 'a penny saved is a penny earned.'")
 * If a word or phrase appears in an article in single quotes, such as 'abcd', Teletraan I's search facility will find that word or phrase only if the search string is also within single quotes. This difficulty does not arise for double quotes.
 * The choice of glyph style affects searching in an article for most browsers. For example, searching in an article for McDonald's will fail to find McDonald’s, and vice versa.

National varieties of English
Teletraan I has no general preference for a major national variety of the language; none is more correct than the others, and users are asked to take into account that the differences between the varieties are superficial. Cultural clashes over spelling and grammar are avoided by using four simple guidelines.

Each article consistently uses the same conventions of spelling and grammar (e.g., British, Canadian); for example, center and centre are not to be used in the same article. The exceptions are:
 * Consistency within articles
 * quotations (the original variety is retained) and
 * titles (the original spelling is used, for example United States Department of Defense and Australian Defence Force).

An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation. For example:
 * Strong national ties to a topic
 * Dreamwave Armada issue 1 - (American English)
 * First Encounter (comic issue)—(British English)
 * Mainframe - (Canadian English)

If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic. In the early stages of writing an article, the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic. Where an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety, is equivalent to the first major contributor.
 * Retaining the existing variety