RuneScape:Style guide

This style guide has the simple purpose of making the RuneScape Wiki easy to read by establishing a certain format. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does things the same way, the articles will be easier to read and use, along with being easier to write and edit. Reading the style guide is important to ensure that each user's edits will be consistent with those of other users.

Article titles
Pages must have appropriate titles. Names, locations, and titles (like a quest) should all be capitalised, though not the whole title. Try to make the article's topic the subject of the first sentence in the article. For example, write "This style manual is a style guide" instead of "This style guide is known as..." Use boldface ( in the edit tool bar) for the first (and only the first) appearance of the title.

Articles about items, monsters, and non-player characters should be titled exactly as the subject's name appears in-game. A general rule of thumb for article titles is that most items, monsters, and non-player characters only have the first letter of the first word in their name capitalised, although most quest items, monsters, and non-player characters are exceptions to this rule. Two examples of regular monsters which are exceptions to this rule are Black Demons and Poison Scorpions. Unless the item or monster's name has more than one capital in-game, don't put a capital at the beginning of every word. This is a common mistake which often causes broken links and time being diverted to moving these pages. If you are in doubt about a name, please check it in-game. If you come across a page with an incorrect title, please move it to the correct title and edit it to make the correct title consistent. If a page's title conflicts with its content, make the content consistent with the title before checking in-game to ensure accuracy.

Sections and headings
Separating articles into sections makes them easy to read and navigate. Headings are used to split articles into sections.

Markup
Use two equal signs ( == ) style markup for headings. Start with ==, add the heading title, then end with ==.

This section's heading was created with the markup:



This subsection's heading was created with the markup:



Wording

 * In a heading, capitalise only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns, and leave all of the other letters in lowercase. Quest titles, skills, names, cities, and so on should all have the first letter capitalised. For example, "Fishing equipment", not "Fishing Equipment".
 * Avoid putting links in headings.
 * Make sure that the heading has an appropriate and accurate title, as this is important to help readers navigate the article. For example, do not make a "Monsters" section in an article about an area or dungeon and then include non-player characters in that section. Instead, make an "Inhabitants" section with "Monsters" and "NPCs" as subsections.
 * Keep headings short.

Font colours
Coloured font can be used sparingly, though not in very bright colours. For example, you can use a dark colour for a warning. Note that light colours will not show up well against the article's white background.

Invisible comments
Invisible comments are used to communicate with other editors in the article body. To do so, enclose the text which you intend to be read only by editors within. For example, doing will be hidden in the article.

Bulleted lists
Bulleted lists can be used in quest walkthroughs and lists. For example, you can use bullets if you're listing what levels to train a certain skill or locations of an item. Don't forget proper punctuation. To add bullets, put an asterisk (*) before the name. For example: would come out as:
 * List name 1
 * List name 2
 * List name 3
 * List name 1
 * List name 2
 * List name 3

Numbered lists
All the rules for bulleted lists apply also to numbered lists. Numbered lists can be used for listing steps in a process. To add a numbered list, put a number sign (#) before the list name. For example: would come out as:
 * 1) List name 1
 * 2) List name 2
 * 3) List name 3
 * 1) List name 1
 * 2) List name 2
 * 3) List name 3

Bold and italics
Place two apostrophes ( Italicised text, or in the edit tool bar) on either side of a selection of text to italicise the selection. Italics are mainly used to emphasise certain words, though they should be used sparingly. Also note that the word RuneScape should always be italicised. Italics may make longer phrases or sentences difficult to read.

Place three apostrophes ( Boldfaced text ) on either side of a selection of text to boldface the selection. Bold is used as a stronger emphasis than italics, although it should be used sparingly as well. The first appearance of an article's title in the article should always be boldfaced.

Place five apostrophes ( Boldfaced and italicised text ) on either side of a selection to use bold and italics in combination on the selection. Bold and italics combined emphasise selections well, but should be used extremely rarely. There are no common cases in which bold and italics are used together.

As you can see, bold works well to emphasise sentences as well as short phrases and single words, while italics are a much weaker emphasis for sentences, but work well on short phrases or single words. Bold and italics are used in combination very rarely. Excessive use of any of these text elements will make the entire article difficult to read, so please use them in appropriate situations.

Abbreviations
Try to not use abbreviations. For example, use "battle axe" instead of "baxe." Some players may not know what these abbreviations mean. And as far as looks goes, it's much more pleasing to the eye to look at "That Dragon Axe will help you to cut the logs faster." than "Tht daxe wil help u 2 cut da logs fastr." It's even worse when you type something in "Leet Speak" also known as "1337 5P34K." This wiki's preferred language is British English, not numbers (translation: 3n6L15H, n07 nUM83r5)

Punctuation
If you are listing multiple things, like different runes, each of them should have a comma at the end. For example, "fire runes, earth runes, and water runes" would be proper, "fire runes, earth runes and water runes" would not be.

If you are compiling a list of drops for a monster in the bestiary pages, try to not use brackets to denote quantities. For example, instead of "nature runes (5,17,35)" it should be "5, 17 or 35 nature runes." The reason is that brackets can be part of the in-game description, and a monster that drops 2 full waterskins would be very confusing if the brackets system was used (e.g. "Waterskin (4) (2)"). The same problem applies to potions.

Usage and Spelling

 * The S in RuneScape is capitalised. RuneScape should also be italicised.
 * The G in Jagex need not be capitalised.
 * Jagex is a British company, so British spelling should be used at all times. Common examples include:
 * Armour instead of armor
 * Behaviour instead of behavior
 * Colour instead of color
 * Honour instead of honor
 * Humour instead of humor
 * Capitalise instead of capitalize
 * Analyse instead of analyze
 * Dialogue instead of Dialog
 * Duelling instead of dueling
 * Jewellery instead of jewelry
 * Centre instead of center
 * Grey instead of gray
 * Artefact instead of artifact
 * Storey instead of story (plural: storeys instead of stories)
 * Defence instead of defense
 * For directions and compounds, hyphens should be included. For example:
 * South-west instead of southwest
 * North-east instead of northeast
 * Anti-dragon shield instead of Antidragon shield
 * Counter-attack instead of counterattack


 * See also: American and British English spelling differences and variations.

Images
Some general guidelines which should be followed are listed below.


 * The first image should be right-aligned. For other images in the article, right-alignment is preferred to left- or center-alignment. However, center-alignment can be used for some images in the quest pages, such as the reward picture.
 * If there are too many images in a given article, consider making a gallery with a level two heading.
 * Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
 * Make large images a thumb.
 * Specifying the size of a thumb image is not recommended.

Uploading images

 * The preferred formats for images are PNG.
 * Images of items should have a transparent background.
 * Personal images which are only used on a User pages should not be uploaded. Images should be able to be used on main space articles, else they will be deleted.
 * Please name your files descriptively to avoid confusion. For example if you are uploading a picture of a weapon, name it Rune longsword.PNG and not just Sword.PNG or RL.PNG.
 *  Do NOT upload images of messages you receive from Jagex Customer Support.  "Messages sent to you by Jagex are strictly confidential and are intended only for the owner of the account to which they are sent. The contents of these messages must not be disclosed to any other person or copies taken."
 * Don't upload images we already have. We have many users doing this and it is not good to have multiple images of the same item! Before you upload an image, search the wiki if someone has already uploaded a version of it. We don't need [[Image:Fire rune.PNG]] or [[Image:Fire rune.gif]] if someone has already uploaded [[Image:Fire Rune.PNG]].

Captions
Complete sentences in captions should always end in a full stop (period). If the caption is not a complete sentence, it generally should not have a full stop at the end. Captions should also not be italicised.

Wikilinking

 * Every time an article is mentioned on the page, you don't have to link to every single one. For example, lobster may be mentioned five times. You only have to link to lobster once. You can link to articles more than once if the page is very long.
 * When a skill is linked to, the name of the skill should be used, not a short form or a different spelling of it. Instead of saying " this item can be mined by... " you should state " this item can be obtained through the Mining skill by ... ."
 * Use efficient link formats, especially for plurals. For example, do lobsters instead of lobsters.
 * When including wikilinks in an article, there is no need to use capitalization or underscores, since the software produces them automatically.

Writing articles
Everyone is encouraged to contribute meaningfully to the wiki.

Ownership and bias

 * Keep personal bias out of articles. Even if "Mining is for noobs" or "Smithing is awesome", we do not need to hear it in the articles.
 * Nobody owns articles. This is a wiki, after all. This means words like "I," "we," or "me" should not be included in articles.
 * Do not include specific usernames of players or groups of players (clans) in articles.
 * Do not try and claim "facts" such as "player x was the first to complete this task" without any verifiable proof.

Facts and trivia

 * If you have a piece of information or trivia that you would like to add to an article, yet are unsure of its accuracy, leave a note on the talk page of the article so that all editors can discuss it. Do not engage in edit wars on the article page.

Drop logs
Drop logs do not belong in articles. If you want to record drop logs, make a subpage on your user page.

Numbers
For numbers, a comma should be used as a thousands separator. Jagex uses a comma in the Statistics screen (see the 12 November 2007 Update:Assist System and Skills Interface) as well as in the Game Guide: Farming - Seeds.

Floor numbering
Jagex uses the British convention for floor numbering in the Game Guide: Ground floor is American 1st floor, 1st floor is American 2nd floor, etc. Template:Floor is available to be placed at the top of articles which references building floors. ⌊undefined⌋

Dates
Use the International format (dd/mm/yyyy - 1 May 2008) rather than the American format (mm/dd, yyyy - May 1, 2008). Note that no commas are used in the International format. Jagex and most of the world uses the International format.
 * See Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) as well as Calendar date.