RuneScape talk:Style guide

Redirects
''Check for similar categories and articles before creating them. We do not need similar categories such as category:slayer and category:slayer monsters and category:Slayer assignments. Nor do we need addy med and Adamantite medium helmet and addy med helm and adamant helmet (medium).''
 * This being said, what is the policy on redirect pages which might assist in user searches? For example would redirect pages, named for common slang terms (Laws or Nats, for example) also be on the forbidden list?--Curmudgeony 06:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have reworded it in an attempt to reduce confusion. Redirects will always be appropriate (when appropriate). [[image:Green party hat.PNG|14px]] Hyenaste talk 07:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

English Spelling
"RuneScape is british and british spelling must be used at all times." ...so why is favourite spelled favorite? User:Carralpha

I dont think British should be spelled by everbody. Many people dont know the difference so chill out. --Whiplash 15:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If favourite was ever spelled favorite, it should be corrected. JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot  17:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Building floor numbering
The British and European first floor is the American, Asian, and former Soviet Union second floor. It could be very confusing when using some other fan site quest guides to figure out which floor you need to be on. While it is easy to implement a British spelling for this site, it would be confusing for non-British players to remember the floor numbering system. I suggest using the following guidelines: and going down See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floor_numbering Chrislee33 23:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Ground level or first level
 * second level (instead of first floor (British) or second floor (American))
 * third level and so on....
 * top level or whatever its number
 * basement or first lower level
 * second lower level and so on... Any feedback?
 * Normally I'm all for sticking to the British convention, but this would be confusing as hell for any non-Brit. The clarity that comes from using American/non-Brit conventions outweighs the pact to stick to the Brit version.  Basically--Brits will be able to figure out what we mean when we say first, second and third floors...but non-Brits would have a lot of trouble with ground, first, second.  Especially when they're intermingled in the same article...
 * I recently edited both the Wizards' tower and Wizards' guild articles to be written with British flooring numbering. However, I included in American translation only once for each floor to avoid confusion. Do you like it?, or would you a tiny template at the top stating that there are differences between the American and British Englishes instead?--64supernoob 05:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe we could use something like many of the RPG games that exist, where the "ground" floor is F1, and the floor below it is BF1 (Basement Floor 1). Oddlyoko 03:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization
"When referring to a skill (not an action), the name of that skill should be capitalised."

That's just silly ... Why make English capitalization even more complex than it really is? The skill names are common nouns. --Paania 16:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Because it's done like that in-game. JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot  16:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * That's not very convincing. A game publisher is hardly the epitome of language and style. --Paania 16:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * We're a website based on RuneScape, and the terminology is unique to RuneScape (nothing else has such things as Crafting or Smithing as nouns instead of verbs) so we use the RuneScape version. JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot  16:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * No, there's nothing "unique" about such terms, and even if there were, it wouldn't warrant capitalization. (They're more like the names of sporting events, such as "cycling", "slalom" or "triathlon".) I still think this is a nonsense guideline. (/me shrugs and says goodnight :-) --Paania 22:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Mmm k. It's still the RuneScape use, which is why we use it. Whether their language is correct or not doesn't really apply. It's not just in-game, they use it in their letters too. And crafting could refer to anything that you can craft (I don't know much about technical terms but I don't see why you wouldn't be able to craft a sword) wheras Crafting specifically refers to the skill of Crafting and what can be done with it. Am I making sense, it's nearly midnight...*yawn* lols goodnight :) JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot  23:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it doesn't warrant capitalization in a sentence like "I'm crafting some amulets" but if the sentence is "I'm training my Crafting" then it makes sense to capitalize it. . . .And yes, I know this discussion is several months old. --

You or The Player? for quests/minigames
Moved from Talk:Sorceress's Garden

I know "the player" is our standard format, but to be honest I think "you" is more appropriate. Thoughts? JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot 19:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I was told to use "player". --Zkz100 21:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That was the way it was per RuneScape:Style - Usage: Do not use the word you or your or any derivative, but rather a player or a player's.  The next sentence "The exception to this rule is in quest guides." was added Jan 30 by Vimescarrot. I've moved this section to RuneScape talk:Style for further discussion. Chrislee33 22:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I was only really talking about changing it for Sorceress's Garden, I think it works fine for everything else... JalYt-Xil-Vimescarrot  22:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It would apply to all walkthroughs for quests and minigames. I was using the word "player" instead of "you" when editing quest pages. It seems 'you' would be better for walkthroughs.  But keep 'player' for all other articles.  Chrislee33 23:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * After doing several guidelines for quests it find it fairly easy to avoid the use of both "you" or "a player". Simply using the imperative form removes the need to use the word "you" as it is implicit. Makes it pretty easy to comply with the style guide and avoid the rather awkward use of "a player". --Miw 11:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Great idea. Imperative, ??? (quickly looks up imperative and Internet Grammar of English)... of course!!! Chrislee33 21:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

item (#)
"If you are compiling a list of drops for a monster in the Bestiary pages, please do not use brackets to denote quantities - 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."

That's what the guide says about listing item drops, but I disagree. It wouldn't be Waterskin (4) (2), it would be Waterskin(4) (2). I don't like the way it looks with the numbers first. --Wowbagger421 23:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Dates
Should dates be in the format of "April 25" or "25 April" or "April 25th" or what? --

Consolidation of articles
As a programmer, I follow the design pattern that code should never be duplicated. When you have the same information in two locations, it requires double the maintenance, which just isn't good. I follow the same philosophy on the wiki. We should never duplicate article content in another article, but should instead provide a link to the page on which the information belongs. Some examples: Could we include a directive in the style guide so that when we come across duplicated information, we have the rules to back us up when deleting those sections.
 * The list of furnaces and anvils were duplicated in the Smithing article before I deleted them.
 * How Agility used to be...with articles for courses basically embedded in the article itself

Another link policy
Hey guys, I'm wondering if we might come to consensus about an idea I had for another linking policy. Basically, I've been seeing a lot of linking going on that links to two targets from a single concept. Some examples:


 * Barrows minigame
 * Crafting skill
 * The Desert Treasure quest

I really get annoyed when I see these, because you're basically redirecting a certain concept (such as the Crafting skill) to two destination articles. I would think the examples above should be

What are your thoughts? I kind of want to make a policy for this, as reverting the additions of these useless secondary links seems wrong without a rule in the style guide to back it up.
 * Barrows minigame
 * Crafting skill or Crafting skill.
 * The Desert Treasure quest (or better just, Desert Treasure)


 * Oops... Then I guess I've been getting on your nerves, huh? It's a habit... *puppy-dog eyes* Sowwy... Anyway, I'm neutral on this. =( 04:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Lol, perhaps, but I wasn't about to veto your changes based on my preference; I want to see what others think first. Personally, what worries me is that people will tend to click on the second word of something like crafting skill and naturally assume it'd go to the crafting article, not the "skills" article.
 * I prefer the second part. Barrows minigame, Crafting skill, and just Desert Treasure.--Richard (Talk - Contribs) 18:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

External links reference
Wikipedia has some guidelines on their use of external links which might be used here. External links. Chrislee33 03:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Numbers now using commas for xp
Jagex is now using commas in experience numbers in the Stats interface with the 12 November 2007 Update:Assist System and Skills Interface. Also, the RS Knowledge Base uses commas for thousands separators and period for decimal markers. Example: Farming - Seeds. Commas are also used in 4-digit numbers as well. Unless there are objections, the Numbers style guidelines will be changed from using a non-breaking space (type in "&amp;nbsp;", no quotes) to a comma to follow Jagex's usage which players will be exposed to in the game. Chrislee33 20:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The KB Quest Experience Pages do not use either a comma or space for thousands separator which makes it harder to read the 5+ digit numbers. For Barrows equipment prices  the k is used for thousands; e.g. Barrows weapons: 100k.  Most players will be using the Stats interface and the right justification and comma there make it easter to read the xps. Chrislee33 21:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Spelling of words, U.K. or American
Is there any way to open this topic up to potential change? Or is it too locked ? I believe that since most users are Americans ( I looked at about 20 user pages) and since wikia itself is based in America, American spelling should be prevelant. To counter the arguement that RS itself is based in the U.K., I would argue that the spelling is similar to translating to a native tongue. A site based in Mexico would use spanish.
 * Yes, let's talk about spanish. There are MANY different dialects of the spanish language, where as someone from Ecuador would say or spell a word differently from someone from Spain. England and America are no different. Because the game is created and based out of England, whereas the company uses british versions of spelling in the game itself, it is my vote that we continue to follow the guideline as it is now. 06:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I have to aggree with As I DK, because the in-game spelling is what we're aiming for. We shouldn't have a problem redirecting pages like "Rune armor" to "Rune armour" for error prevention, however, I don't think that using a differant spelling than what's in game would work out well. It would confuse users. Imagine looking for "Rune Armour Set (L)", and not being able to find it because it was "Rune Armor Set (L)".. wouldn't that annoy you, especially knowing you're typing it correctly RIGHT FROM THE GAME? 06:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no. I always check with the spelling as I know it before I look any other way. I am not trying to be argumentative.