Final Fantasy XIV Wiki:Style manual

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Style Manual This style manual describes rules and guidelines for creating and editing wiki pages. It's strongly recommended that editors follow these guidelines in order to maintain consistency across the wiki regarding writing style, general wiki code markup and template usage.

Note: This page is under construction and will change over time. General writing style These sections should provide a loose understanding of what is considered an ideal writing style. For editing help, please consult the information provided here. Voice Maintaining an objective writing style (avoiding "I", "We", "You") is encouraged. Using CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis is strongly discouraged. Using capital letters for every word in a sentence is discouraged; Writing Like This Only Applies To In-Game Names/Descriptions Such As Quest Titles, Actions, Or Item Titles. Limit bold words. In most cases there is a precedent set for what can be bolded. Language that needs to be emphasized should never be bold but can be italicized (This includes single words and short phrases). Language Omit needless words; don't use 5 words when 3 will do. Good example: Using enmity-increasing actions will prevent mobs from aggroing on other players. Bad example: Whenever actions which increase enmity are used the aggro from other players will go off them. Reserve ultimatums/absolutes for actual 100% cases; avoid "always, never, best, worst"; choose "almost always, almost never, close to best, close to worst": Good Example: A very rare item to drop. Bad Example: Extremely close to impossible item to drop. Pattern Maintain structure. It is up to you to notice the implied structure/pattern when editing a page. Good example #1: Quest infobox - Infobox with main quest information. Quest objectives - Objectives text. Quest journal - Journal entry text. Notes - Additional notes, if any. Bad example #1: Quest objectives - Objectives text. Repeated information from infobox. Quest journal - Journal text along with walkthrough tips. Quest infobox - Infobox with main quest information. Templates This section deals with specific template usage by type. Please note that templates are a very volatile part of the wiki and will change over time to accommodate the game structure as it evolves. General Templates in general share some simple rules: They provide some parameters that you can pass, and these parameters are formatted before displaying. Parameters may also be used to annotate information through SMW, and to generate categories. Parameters are passed within a template call and between pipes (|). There are two types of parameter: named – it has an explicit name and value separated by an equal sign (=) such as {{Greenify text|text=Hello}}, and unnamed – it assumes each value passed between pipes (|) to be a parameter such as {{Greenify texts|Hello|Greenify|All|Text}}. Each template should have its own page with examples on how to use it. Infoboxes Infoboxes are templates which displays a concise, pretty-formatted infobox to the side of the page with various information regarding a certain subject; they are intended to be at the start of the page. Note that not all data regarding a subject should be in the infobox because they're meant to cover common, small information, not every single detail. If the infobox doesn't contain some information then it should be discussed with the community/moderators if that piece of information should belong to the infobox; in most cases, information with a lot of text should be placed within a section. Important! Always make it so that the page name matches the subject's corresponding image name, and make sure the extension is properly used. For example, if you're using an NPC infobox, it will default the image to the page name plus ".jpg" (jpg extension), while an action or trait infobox will default to page name plus ".png" (png extension). Read the template documentation to understand what parameters are required/expected. In case the subject name/title follows the default page name, and the page name contains disambiguation details (eg. parentheses in case of multiple actions with the same name for different classes/jobs), do provide the name/title parameter so the wiki knows how to save the correct, canonical name, instead of the page name. For example: Standard Touch (alchemist), Standard Touch (culinarian) and Standard Touch (armorer). Available infoboxes: {{Action infobox}} – Adds an active action infobox to the page; note that it doesn't cover traits. {{Trait infobox}} – Adds a trait infobox to the page. {{Quest infobox}} – Adds a quest infobox to the page. {{NPC infobox}} – Adds an NPC infobox to the page; covers both friendly NPCs and hostile creatures. {{Area infobox}} – Adds an area infobox to the page; covers landmasses, regions, zones and landmarks. {{Item infobox}} – Adds an item infobox to the page. {{Weapon infobox}} – Adds a weapon infobox to the page. {{Armor infobox}} – Adds an armor infobox to the page. {{Trinket infobox}} – Adds a trinket infobox to the page. {{Duty infobox}} – Adds a duty infobox to the page; covers instance content such as class instances, dungeons, trials, raids, etc.

Upcoming content

• Please insert {{Future content|releasedate= <xyz>}}, where <xyz> is the anticipated release date or window.
• Please publish facts and material only from official or authoritative sources, such as Square-Enix's website, official social media accounts, press releases, live letters, Fan Festivals, developer blogs, media interviews, Playstation trophy sites, etc. Please don't publish rumors or speculation.
• DO NOT publish leaked, embargoed, NDA-protected, or otherwise unauthorized material.

Special guidelines for individual pages and page types

Pages for content patches, such as Patch 5.1

• Create patch pages for major base patches only, that is, for patch 5.1, but not for subpatches like 5.11, 5.15, or 5.18. Subpatch specific notes should be included on the main patch page (Subpatch-specific sections may be added if desired), not as their own separate page.

• Write the main story summary section at the bottom of the page, so players who have not reached that point and do not wish to see spoilers can stop reading when they reach that section.

• If the story summary (Particularly in an x.0 patch) needs to be broken up into chapters/subsections, the subsection titles should be level ranges or other non-spoiler descriptions, so spoilers won't appear in the table of contents.

• In trailers and other promotional materials, the "canonical" Warrior of Light is depicted as a Midlander Hyur male. Therefore the Warrior of Light should be referred to using the pronouns he/him in the Main Story Summary section.

• For x.0 patches (That is, the patch that starts a new expansion), keep the article about new features introduced specifically with the x.0 patch itself, or any of its subpatches. Features that are added later in the expansion should not be included. Use the page for the patch in which the feature was introduced, or the expansion page itself for that. For example, the Ishgardian Restoration was announced as a Shadowbringers feature, but was introduced in patch 5.1 and should not be mentioned on the patch 5.0 page.

• Do not simply copy and paste patch notes, story summaries, or other content directly from Square-Enix's official website. Please write your own summaries.

Guide to Potentially Disturbing or Upsetting Content

• Try to keep the content warnings in roughly chronological order. In each expansion section, main story quests and duties should be listed first in chronological order, followed by any content outside of the main story.

• In the interest of keeping spoilers to the minimum needed to provide sufficient warning, try to keep descriptions as generic as possible. Don't give specific character names, i.e. instead of saying "John Doe is murdered", say "A character is murdered". Don't give story context unless it is necessary for the content warning.

• Be respectful! Many players will be able to watch everything on the list and it will be no big deal for them, but others may have experienced real life trauma, or may be particularly upset by some of the occurrences listed below, or have phobias or medical issues that may cause certain content to be problematic for them.