Style Manual

The following is the style guide of Istria Wiki.

Titles
Article titles should be recognizable, concise, precise, consistent, and natural.

Use tile case (e.g., "History of Local Economies," as opposed to, "History of local economies").

Do not start article titles with A, An, or The unless part of a proper name. (E.g. "The Desert Darkness" is acceptable, as that is the name of the campaign, whereas "The History of Istria" is not.)

Titles should be nouns or noun phrases.

The final character of a title should not be a punctutation mark unless that mark is part of a proper name.

Sections
All articles should begin with lead sections, with no section headings.

If a section is also covered by a dedicated article in greater detail elsewhere, place

directly below the section title.

Footer sections are of the following variety and must appear in the following order: Disambiguations go at the top of an article.
 * 1) Bibliographies
 * 2) Interal Links
 * 3) Notes/References
 * 4) Further Reading
 * 5) External Links
 * 6) Categories

Section Headings
Headings should not redundantly refer to the subject of the article or higher-level headings.

Headings may be linked.

Section and subsection headings in the same page should be unique.

Headings should not contain images.

Headings should not contain questions, except as part of a proper name.

Do not change section headings without consulting an administrator, as that may break numerous site links.

Capitalization
Do not use capitals for emphasis.

Do not capitalize "the" in the middle of a sentence, unless part of a proper name.

English-language and Latin-language titles of works of art are always in tile case. Fantasy-based foreign langauges are as follows: In generic use, styles and honorifics are lower case. When specifically applied to a person, such styles and honorifics are upper case. (E.g. "Darrak, Baron Silvertarn" is appropriate, as is "a baron.")
 * Abyssal: Tile case
 * Draconic: Tile case
 * Dwarven: Tile case
 * Elven: Sentence case
 * Giant: Tile case
 * Goblin: Tile case
 * Orcish: Tile case
 * Primordial: Sentence case
 * Proto-Draconic: Tile case
 * Supernal: Sentence case

All proper names for religions, deities, and sects are in upper case, while all philosophies are lower case. Pronouns for deities are always in lower case. Platonic ideals are only capitalized if used in a theo-philosophical context. They are lower-case otherwise. (E.g., "the Good" as opposed to "good food.")

Races are in lower case, while languages are capitalized.

All calendar months, weekdays, and holidays are capitalized. Seasons are not.

Celestial bodies are capitalized when specific, but lower-case when general. (E.g., "Chende," but "a moon.")

Compass points are not capitalized unless used as names of regions. (E.g., "we moved east," but "we traveled to the East.")

Abbreviations
Write the full version and the abbrevation of a concept to be abbreviated at first occurance, with the abbreviation in curved brackets. (E.g. "the Arcane Theory of Local Astronomical Studies (ATLAS).")

Acronyms become plural by adding -s or -es, according to standard phonics.

Periods and spaces should be omitted from acronyms.

To indicate approximate dates, "c." is preferred as an abbreviation for "circa," except when beginning a sentence.

The ampersand should only be used in the acronym "D&D."

Italics
Italics should be used principally, though sparingly, for emphasis.

Italics are also appropriate when using foreign phrases in English text.

Nearby punctuation ought not be italicized.

Quotations
Quotations from original texts should be set off with double quotation marks (" "), and quotations within quotations should oscillate from double to single quotation marks (' ').

Where there is good reason to change wording in a quote, the ellipsis "..." should be used for omissions and square brackets "[ ]" should be used for additions.

Bowdlerization of words through asterisks, hyphens, dashes, or the like, is frowned upon, but see below, "Profanity."

As a fantasy site, typographic conformity should be exactly as archaic as the author wants it.

Attribution of author should be done in the sentence containing the quote, either before or after the quoted text. The source of a quote should be footnoted, however.

Block quotes are appropriate for longer quotations (~40+ words) or for pieces of poetry exceeding three lines. Poetry of three or fewer lines should separate lines by the forward slash "/".

Punctuation should always be inside quotation marks, barring cases where it would be highly detrimental to clarity.

Punctuation
The following pertains to rules of standardized punctuation.

Parentheticals
All spans of dates are to be in round brackets "".

Avoid putting brackets back-to-back. If need be, use commas to set off parentheticals.

Ellipses
An ellipsis should be formed by typing three consecutive periods, devoid of spaces between them.

Do not use ellipses for suspension of thought, except in direct quotation of written works.

Do not put square brackets around ellipses in quotes except when the quote already contains an ellipsis for suspension of thought, as above. In such a case, clarity permits "[...]".

Commas
Commas should be used on either side of a parenthetical not set off by round or square brackets.

Commas should be used before and after quotations embedded in sentences.

Default to the Oxford comma, except when it would detract from clarity.

Colons and Semicolons
Avoid the use of colons, except in quoted text and references to time.

Do not use semicolons to separate related independent clauses in the same sentence. Instead, separate them by a period.

Do use semicolons to clarify series that contain members which have commas.

Terminal Punctuation
Terminal punctuation should be followed by either one or two spaces.

Clusters of question marks or exclamation marks are to be avoided.

Do not use the interrobang.

Exclamation marks are not to be used for emphasis.

Dates and Times
The time of day should be listed, when appropriate, by a 12-hour clock with a colon.

Unless a scene, session, or campaign takes place in a setting other than the natural world, any instance of the word "day" should be replaced by "degree."

For full dates, use the following format: Day Month Age Year. (E.g., "37 Tsa TA 198.")

Months are not abbrevaited.

Ages should be abbreviated as follows:
 * The First Age: FsA
 * The Second Age: SA
 * The Third Age: TA
 * The Dark Age: DA
 * The Fourth Age: FA

Numbers
Words should be used whole numbers one through nine, as well as fractions composed of one through nine in the numerators and denominators. Similarly, larger numbers may be expressed by words by their largest place unit. (E.g., "3.76 million.")

Percentages should always be indicated by digits and a percentage sign "%" with no space in between.

Avoid using the pound sign "#" to indicate number. "No." is preferred.

Currencies
Currencies should be abbreviated as follows: It is always permissible to list higher degrees of currency in terms of gold. (E.g., either "1000 gp" or "100 pp" is acceptable.)
 * Copper piece: cp
 * Silver pieces: sp
 * Electrum pieces: ep
 * Gold pieces: gp
 * Platinum pieces: pp
 * Astral Diamonds: ad
 * Residuum: res

Residuum, when used as a unit of currency, should not be conflated with gold pieces, even though they are of equivalent value. (I.e., "100 res" and "100 gp" are not identical.)

Currency signs are placed after the number in question.

Use only one symbol with ranges. (E.g., "250-300 gp.")

Units of Measurement
The default system of measurement is the English system.

As an exception to this rule, when describing battle, it is acceptable to use the following shorthand:

Spaces
It is given that all spaces are cubes five feet to a side. Thus, a movement of "six spaces" would be the same as a movement of 30 feet.

Size categories
When using size categories, the following conventions apply:
 * Small: having a base 2.5 ft by 2.5 ft
 * Medium: having a base 5 ft by 5 ft
 * Large: having a base 10 ft by 10 ft
 * Huge: having a base 15 ft by 15 ft
 * Gargantuan: having a base 20 ft by 20 ft

Possessives
Possessives of all nouns not ending in a pronounced -s are formed by adding -'s.

Possessives of all nouns ending in a pronounced -s are formed by adding -'.

The possessive "its" has no apostrophe.

First Person
The first person should be avoided in all text not directly quoted.

Second Person
Do not use the second person except in directly quoted text. Though using the third person "one" is preferable, if it would cause lack of clarity to do so, it is permissible to use the passive voice instead.

Plural
It is preferred to use English plurals of foreign-derived words, rather than their original plural. (E.g. "bonuses," not "boni.")

Vocabulary
Do not use contractions.

Gender-neutral language is preferred when applicable.

Strictly foreign terms should be used sparingly, and always in italics.

Foreign loanwords may be used as normal words.

Jargon that directly pertains to fourth-edition Dungeons and Dragons (D&D 4e) is permissible, but other jargon should be avoided.

Geographical places should be referred to consistently.

Fantasy words should follow Wizards of the Coast (WotC) conventions; thus, one elf is of many elves and speaks Elven.

Images
Images should always be captioned. Captions should start with a capital letter and should only end with a period when they express a complete thought.

Images should appear within the major section to which they apply.

Images should be sized to a width of 300 pixels, so as to create visual continuity. Exceptions are to be made for maps and small images which become unfocused when enlarged.

Links
Excessive linking is distracting and keeps readers from following high-value or new links. Observe the following:
 * If a page can be reasonably linked to a word in a text, include the link on its first relevant appearance within a major section.
 * Do not repeat a link within a major section.
 * Do not include a link to a non-existent page unless:
 * There is a clear and pressing need to have such a page, or
 * The author of the link intends to create such a page in the near future.
 * External links are acceptable in the body of an article.

Page Creation
As guidelines for page creation, a new page should be added under the following circumstances: As exceptions to this rule, the following are permissible:
 * There is a clear and pressing need to have such a page,
 * The content of the page is information that has transpired in session, and
 * The page expresses new information in such a way as to avoid redundant pages.
 * New player characters should have pages created.
 * Flavorful information about Istria's history, locales, and lore is to be encouraged, but always at the discretion of the administrators.

Pronuncation
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is the preferred means of transcribed pronuncation.

Profanity and Vulgarity
As the contributors to the site are frequently named in full, the following is to be discouraged, though not strictly prohibited: The following, however, is to be entirely prohibited:
 * Bodily humor
 * Curse words
 * Violently graphic descriptions
 * Racism
 * Sexism
 * Ageism
 * Homophobia
 * Religiously-driven slurs
 * Sexually graphic descriptions
 * Gratuitously violent descriptions