Welcome to the Islands Wiki. This is the Manual of Style, a general guideline to follow when creating or editing articles, made in order to standardize the wiki's writing.
To find the rules of the wiki, go here.
In case of doubt
For all of the matters not discussed on this page, you should refer to the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style or to the simplified version. This manual is too large to memorize and is meant as a reference in case of disagreement between editors or doubt about which style to follow in an article. Just like you're not expected to memorize the entire dictionary before you start writing in English, you don't have to memorize the entire manual of style to contribute to articles on this wiki.
General
Our editors should strive to abide by these guidelines. If you want to get a head start on editing, at least read through these.
- Use proper grammar and spelling within any article directly related to the wiki.
- Seek to write in an objective, passive voice when writing articles.
- Create new pages as new content is added to Islands.
- Remove and replace opinionated and immature writing from wiki articles.
- Assist our staff in correcting vandalism.
- Help replace incorrect information.
Wording and grammar
To deliver a consistent experience throughout the wiki, these set of guidelines have been created as a reference to write articles. Again, editors should strive to write in an objective, passive voice.
- Editors should refer to readers in the third-person, often as "players" or "users". They should never write their articles in a first or second-person perspective.
- First-person is a subjective way to write an article, and second-person is an informal way to write an article.
- Editors should remain impersonal in their writing.
- Avoid adding your own experiences with the topic and write down factual information instead.
- Editors are to familiarize themselves with the use of the words "its" and "it's".
- "Its" is correctly used as a possessive ("Its only use is for decoration purposes.")
- "It's" is a contraction meaning "it is" ("It's a rare mob drop." ["It is a rare mob drop."])
- Editors should never use subjective statements, such as calling weapons or items trash/terrible.
- While some items may have objectively lower stats and demand than others, present the item's statistics to let readers draw their own conclusion of the item.
- Editors should limit their use of pronouns, and should use gender-neutral and third-person pronouns within their article. (They, them, their)
- Editors should not add jokes to the pages, and also not include things such as, "The pumpkin grows slow as heck."
- Editors should avoid using abbreviations, as readers may not be well-versed in terminology as an editor.
Capitalization
In-game items should be treated as common nouns and as such should not be capitalized, unless they start a new sentence. This includes fictional items, such as electrite. Proper nouns, however, such as Desert Island or the Hub should always be capitalized.
This guide only applies to sentences and not tables and infoboxes.
- Mobs
Any instance of a mob should be treated as a common noun, except where the mob is referred to using a proper noun. If the word "the" is used before the mob name, it should not be capitalized unless it is at the beginning of the sentence. This means boss mobs should always be capitalized.
Examples:
- One of the most feared mobs is the buffalkor.
- An iron skorp can poison players.
- The desert boss is referred to as Bhaa.
- Status effects
Status effect names should be capitalized, except where they are used as an adjective.
Examples:
- A regen potion will give the player 5 seconds of Regeneration.
- Skorps inflict Food Poison on the player.
- A stunned player moves slower than normally.
- Islands
Islands in Islands should be treated as proper nouns and should be capitalized. This means islands should not be prefixed with "the".
Examples:
- Slime Island was the first island added to the game.
- Players can find diamonds in Diamond Mines.
- Bhaa is a boss that is located on Desert Island.
- Skill levels
Skill levels in Islands' should be capitalized.
Examples:
- Level 5 Animal Care is required to craft this item.
- Players can level up Woodcutting by cutting down trees with an axe.
Section headings
Article main sections should start with level 2 headings (==Heading==
) and increase by one for subsections. Never use a level 1 heading (=Heading=
); this is reserved for the article title.
Follow sentence style capitalization, not title style, so only the first letter of the heading and proper nouns are capitalized.
Headings should not have links or templates in them; links should be placed underneath, such as in a {{Main}} template.
Although not required, having one space between sections and one space between the equal signs and the section name makes for ease of editing.
Dates and numbers
This section deals with formatting of dates, numbers, and currencies.
Dates and time
Dates should be formatted like October 3, 2016 or 3 October 2016 , not October 3rd, 2016 , October 03, 2016 , 2016/10/3 , or any other format. The ISO 8601 format yyyy-mm-dd can be used in tables and other locations where the dates need to be short: 2016-10-03 . In templates, the #time parser function can be used, while mw.language:formatDate can be used in Scribunto modules.
Time should be formatted either in 12-hour clock times, like 2:30 p.m. , or 24-hour clock times, like 14:30 . Hours under 10 should have a leading zero in 24-hour clock times, like 02:30 , but not in 12-hour clock times (02:30 p.m. ).
Numbers
Numbers should be formatted with a comma as the thousands separator for digit grouping and a period as the decimal separator. In templates, the formatnum parser function can be used for this purpose, while mw.language:formatNum can be used in Scribunto modules.
Numbers smaller than ten should usually be written as words instead of digits in article text. That is, you should usually write one, two, three, ..., eight, nine instead of 1, 2, 3, ..., 8, 9,
Probability should only be written in percent, and not other ways such as, "1 in 10" or "1/10".
Crafting recipes
See Manual of Style/Crafting recipes.
Images and videos
- PNGs are always preferred over JPGs.
- Name your image or video something relevant.
- For example: Berry Bush Stage 1.png instead of IMG12345678.png
- Add proper licensing when uploading if possible.
Templates
This section discusses some templates available for use in articles.
Infoboxes
Infoboxes are panels put at the top right of articles that summarize key information about the article's subject. They are created using templates. Infoboxes can be used for articles about items, locations, blocks, etc.
Infobox templates
- Items & blocks
- {{ItemInfobox}} for items only exists inside the player's inventory.
- {{BlockInfobox}} for blocks. (Items that can be broken/placed)
- {{CropInfobox}} for crops and fruits.
- {{FoodInfobox}} for articles about most food items. (Uncooked food items such as dough or uncooked food uses the ItemInfobox instead).
- Other
- {{MobInfobox}} for articles about mobs.
- {{LocationInfobox}} for articles about different locations in Islands.
- {{BadgeInfobox}} for articles about badges.
- {{Version}} for articles about updates.
Infobox pictures
Most infoboxes have only one picture. Infoboxes have the capability of having multiple pictures by passing the image
parameter a gallery, which will display it in a fashion similar to a tabber. Pictures in infoboxes are expected to meet the following requirements:
- One picture
- Should be a render, if possible.
- Multiple pictures
- Multi-variations (color, wood-type) should start with the non-colored version or the most common version.
- Should be sorted with the common item first to the rarest item last.
Page notices
These notices are applied to the very top of a page to inform users and editors of a specific situation concerning said page.
- {{Stub}} is used when the article has little to no information.
- {{Incomplete}} is used when the article still needs more information to be completed.
- {{Delete}} is used at the top of the page to nominate an article for deletion.
- {{Notice}} is used to put a notice for the reader before they start reading the main article.
- {{Outdated}} is put at the top of articles with information that needs to be updated.
- {{Multiple issues}} is put at the top of articles that need to be edited for various reasons.