Difference between revisions of "EVElopedia:Manual of Style (page formatting)"

Revision as of 21:34, 19 October 2011

EVElopedia's page formatting consists overall page layout as well as the few features that every page must contain. Included are the page title, table of contents, section organization, and subsection organization

Page Title

Main Article: Help:Naming conventions

Page title should be determined by EVElopedia's guidelines for naming conventions. The guidelines are designed to assist in the creation and naming of pages in an effort to maintain consistency and to avoid conflicts. Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. General guidelines include:

• Use English words
• Use common names of persons and things
• Do not capitalize second and subsequent words in titles
• Use keywords (ex. Amarr (system) )
• Use singular nouns when possible
• Redirect adjectives to nouns
• Use gerunds of verbs
• Use spelled-out phrases instead of abbreviations when possible
• Avoid the definite ("the") and the indefinite article ("a"/"an") at the beginning of the page name
• Avoid using "and" only for emphasis
• Avoid using non alpha-numeric characters only for emphasis
• Avoid controversial names
• Avoid using "how to" for page titles

If an article has been named inappropriately, it can be renamed by moving the article to a more appropriate title. See also Help:Moving a page

Table of Contents

The table of contents is generated by the EVElopedia system. Entries in the table of contents are automatically created for each use of the header syntax. The table of contents can be removed from a page by using the "__NOTOC__" magic word.

Headings

The headings of a page should label sections with common information. Major sections should be titled using the ==header 2== markup. This header format is easily delineated via the automatic inclusion of a horizontal break after the header.

Sections that summarize information that is more fully represented on a page should be prefaced with a Main article template. Sections that present most of the information found on another page should be prefaces with a See also template.

Sub Headings

Sub headings are designed to further improve the navigation of large or otherwise unwieldy pages. Subheadings should begin with the === heading 3 === markup. Sub-subheadings should begin with ==== heading 4 ==== and additional levels of heading should use corresponding headings. Since all subheadings and sub-subheadings will automatically generate an entry on the page's table of contents, they should only be used when the corresponding sub-section is of substantial length or a user would benefit from a table of contents entry.

Paragraph Formatting

Paragraph formatting concerns the layout of text within paragraphs and the various bodies of text. EVElopedia includes a number of tools and markup for formatting large quantities of text.

Vertical Formatting

By default, EVElopedia automatically adds vertical space between a header and the following paragraph. The system, does not, however automatically add whitespace between paragraphs. Lines of text separated by only a single newline character will ignore the newline character and keep the text within a single paragraph. Since a lack of vertical separation between paragraphs might hinder the identification of new paragraphs, it is suggested that a single empty line should be added between paragraphs to create a vertical separation. New lines can be created without corresponding vertical separation through the use of html breaks. Breaks are easily added with the <br> syntax.

Horizontal Formatting

Due to the variable width nature of EVElopedia articles when viewed through a browser, text should be aligned to the left and not justified. Also, text should not be bound by specific width constraints unless the text serves as a supplement or example of page text. Generally, entire paragraphs should not be indented. Quoted paragraphs should use blockquotes which will automatically indent, italicize and otherwise format the quoted text.