Guild Wars 2 wiki:General formatting

This article documents common formatting practices and processes across pages of all types (excluding the user namespace).

Capitalization

Written text conforms to English capitalization rules. Page titles and section headers use normal sentence case, capitalizing proper nouns only.

In particular, note that races, professions and item descriptors are not proper nouns, and should follow common noun capitalization. (This is also consistent with ArenaNet's own house style.)

The exception to this rule is that the names of skills will remain capitalized as they appear in-game. For instance, Healing Rain will remain capitalized regardless of its placement in a sentence.

English

American English is preferred. However, British English is still acceptable, so only update to American English if (a) you are editing something else and/or (b) the spelling/grammar used in the article is inconsistent.

Hyphenation and dashes

• A hyphen links an adjective to a word it modifies, e.g. the focus is an off-hand weapon or a two-year old idea.
• An em-dash (— or —) separates a phrase from the main sentence, e.g. ANet—an abbreviation for ArenaNet—is the creator of….
• An en-dash (– or –) to specify ranges, e.g. 10–20.

Hyphen usage

Use of the hyphen to link words always depends on the context. For this wiki, the most common point of confusion is referring to types of weapons/skills (generally hyphenated) and the hand it is used in (not hyphenated).

• Main-hand weapon skills are available when a equipping a weapon in the main hand (i.e. the right hand).
• Off-hand weapon skills are added after equipping a weapon in the off hand (i.e. the left hand).
• Two-handed weapon skills require wielding a weapon with both hands.

Or, in a complex example:

A character has access to many off-hand weapons that can never be equipped in the main hand (they are not main-hand weapons). These weapons are also known as off-hand only weapons.

Linking

The first use of the page title (note that this text will get bold when on the same page, but linked when substituting a page) and terms in need of explanation should be linked. For content not directly about Guild Wars 2, interwiki links to Wikipedia or Guild Wars Wiki are preferred to recreating that content here. Help:Editing shows how links can be made.

Redirects

When linking to a page, do not link to a redirect, simply link to the redirect destination. You may set the link to display with the name of the redirect via the format link-pipe-display name, e.g. [[Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:General formatting|GW2WT:FORMAT]].

Language interwiki links

Using [[de:German page]], [[es:Spanish page]] and [[fr:French page]] creates interwiki links in the "other languages" sidebar to the specified article on the official German wiki, the official Spanish wiki and the official French wiki respectively. To create the list in alphabetical order, specify de: first, es: second and fr: last. For clarity, these links should be placed at the very bottom of the page, one per line, preceded by the empty line.

Images

Formatting

См. также: Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Image formatting

Images should be appropriately tagged and named to help allow for a consistent and organized use in pages. See Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Image formatting for specific details on tagging ArenaNet images (which includes screenshots, renders, icons, etc) and user images.

Icons

• Use {{token}} for displaying in-game vendor icons.
• Use {{currency}} for displaying in-game currency icons.
• Use {{skill icon}} for displaying skill icons.
• Use {{event icon}} for displaying in-game event icons.

References

См. также: Guild Wars 2 Wiki:References

Any information which cannot be readily verified in-game or from the official website may be given a reference. See Guild Wars 2 Wiki:References for information on formatting and syntax.

Sort order

By default, use alphabetical order for sorting lists.

For professions, sort first by armor class (Soldier → Adventurer → Scholar) and then alphabetically by profession. This also applies to lists that are substantially tied to profession, for example:

• {{Trait lists nav}} (since traits are always profession-dependent).
• Skill#Skill types (since skills are always based on profession).

Quotations

Text taken directly from in-game or other sources is transcribed verbatim. Any errors in spelling, punctuation or grammar remain unchanged and are tagged with {{sic|[correction]}} after the error (where [correction] is how it should be displayed).

When providing flavor quotes and in-game descriptions for a page, {{Quotation|<source>|<text>}} is used. A page whose only purpose is to host transcribed information is tagged with {{Arenanet article}} and {{Official source}}; see Ecology of the Charr for an example.

Prose written by wiki contributors is preferred to quotations because it provides context and flow which most quotes do not provide.

Dialogue

Chains of dialogue with NPCs or interactive objects have a common format across all pages they are placed upon. As a rule of thumb, the section for dialogue on an article may take on one of two titles—either ==Dialogue== (for NPCs) or ==Text== (for inanimate objects).

Interactive dialogue spoken by the NPC or the interactive object, ones which bring up the dialogue window, are formatted in plain text without quotation marks. The NPC's name is not shown unless the dialogue changes to a different NPC (to denote a different character speaking). Player responses are written in italics. Dialogue response icons are produced using {{dialogue icon}} template. Conditions for the display of certain dialogue responses should be indicated in small text above the dialogue icon(s) for that response; these conditions should not be formatted in bold, however.

Conversation dialogue spoken by NPCs without player interaction are formatted differently. The NPC's name is shown in bold and the text is formatted in italics without quotation marks.

Instances in the dialogue where the player character's name is used should be replaced with "<Character name>." It is also perfectly acceptable (and standard procedure) for dialogue (and responses) to contain links to other articles if a link to that article has not occurred earlier in the article. Spelling errors, grammar mistakes, and incorrect content must be transcribed exactly as it is written in-game; these mistakes should be followed immediately by {{sic|[correction]}} to indicate that the original text has been transcribed verbatim (with [correction] used to show how it should have been written).

Dialogue is indented using nested colons, and dialogue chains are nested beneath the response they follow. If a response leads to a dialogue already recorded earlier, it is followed by a small text stating which response has the same dialogue.

Example of Interactive Dialogue

Wiki code

: Hello, <Character name>. Captain Thackeray has mentioned that you've been assisting him. [[Kryta]] is grateful for your service.
:: {{dialogue icon|more}} ''My pleasure, Your Majesty. If I may, I'm curious about your personal guard.''
::: The [[Shining Blade]] has defended Kryta for centuries, serving and protecting the Krytan royal bloodline. When Divinity's Reach was founded, they became the official royal guard.
:: {{dialogue icon|more}} ''Interesting. That cat, your Majesty - is she yours?''
::: Ah, yes. My little Shadow. I've had her since I was a child. Royal children have very few friends, and she has always been a comfort to me.
:::: {{dialogue icon|end}} ''I'll take my leave now, Your Majesty. I know you're busy. Thank you.''
:: <small>(if [[human]])</small>
::{{dialogue icon|more}} ''Did you know my parents?''
::: I'm sorry, hero. I have not had the pleasure of making your parent's {{sic|parents, without an apostrophe}} acquaintances before.
:::: {{dialogue icon|end}} ''I understand, Your Majesty.''
:: {{dialogue icon|end}} ''Certainly. If you'll excuse me, I must be going.''

How it displays

Hello, <Character name>. Captain Thackeray has mentioned that you've been assisting him. Kryta is grateful for your service.

My pleasure, Your Majesty. If I may, I'm curious about your personal guard.

The Shining Blade has defended Kryta for centuries, serving and protecting the Krytan royal bloodline. When Divinity's Reach was founded, they became the official royal guard.

Interesting. That cat, your Majesty - is she yours?

Ah, yes. My little Shadow. I've had her since I was a child. Royal children have very few friends, and she has always been a comfort to me.

I'll take my leave now, Your Majesty. I know you're busy. Thank you.

(if human)

Did you know my parents?

I'm sorry, hero. I have not had the pleasure of making your parent's

[sic]

acquaintances before.

I understand, Your Majesty.

Certainly. If you'll excuse me, I must be going.

Example of Conversation Dialogue

Wiki code

:'''Researcher Levvi''': ''I've shown you the evidence. My conclusions are inescapable. Why won't you listen to me?''
:'''Magnus the Bloody-Handed''': ''I have listened.  In fact, I’m sick of listening to you.  The council has already ruled on this.''
:'''Magnus the Bloody-Handed''': ''We're not shutting down the world's busiest port because a machine spat out some numbers that made your ears twitch.''
:'''Magnus the Bloody-Handed''': ''When [[Lion's Arch]] is in real danger, the [[Lionguard]] will respond.  Until then, sling your hook and shove off!''

How it displays

Researcher Levvi: I've shown you the evidence. My conclusions are inescapable. Why won't you listen to me?

Magnus the Bloody-Handed: I have listened. In fact, I’m sick of listening to you. The council has already ruled on this.

Magnus the Bloody-Handed: We're not shutting down the world's busiest port because a machine spat out some numbers that made your ears twitch.

Magnus the Bloody-Handed: When Lion's Arch is in real danger, the Lionguard will respond. Until then, sling your hook and shove off!

Stubs

A stub is an article that has missing or incomplete information — this has nothing to do with length: short articles are not necessarily stubs and long articles are not necessarily complete. When possible, add missing information yourself instead of using {{stub|reason}}.

• New articles don't need the tag, since people will be updating them.
• Use the stub when an article appears substantially complete, but isn't.
  • Include the things that are missing from the article, e.g. {{stub|Missing list of NPCs.}}
  • Remove tags without a stated reason, unless you can update the template to include what the article is missing.

Tables

Tables are formatted with a special template, {{STDT}}. See Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Table formatting for details on how to use it.