Forum:Establishing a guideline for article usage

Forums: Yew Grove > Establishing a guideline for article usage

This page or section is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. This thread was archived on 30 November 2017 by JaydenKieran.

There isn't a set guideline how people should use articles (A, An, The) in their sentences, and I believe that there should be a certain "rule" or something to go by when creating pages. Some sentences start like:

The adamant mace is a tier 40 melee weapon, requiring 40 Attack to wield.

While other sentences of the same structure are like:

An adamant platebody is a tier 40 platebody, requiring 40 Defence to wield.

For items that are plural, or multiple of the same item, there would not be a word before the item, like:

Rune arrows are a tier 50 arrow, requiring 50 Ranged to wield.

So which of the first 2 are correct? Would we only use The for weapon's belonging to a certain person i.e. Vesta's spear?

The Vesta's spear is a tier 78 weapon blabla...

Here's dictionaryblog's definition of how we are supposed to use "The" - Use the when it is obvious which thing we are talking about or when there is only one of something: Please close the door. I cleaned the bathroom. He traveled around the world....

This is RuneScape, not the real world, and the only thing there is only one of is a Wikian book. Thoughts? User:Manhattan2/signature 04:16, November 23, 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Comment Isn't this just grammar? Use a(n) unless we're in the rare situation of it being unique such as the Wikian Book or a location, e.g. the castle in Lumbridge. Unless you have numerous examples of it being incorrect, I'm disinclined to support adding it to the style guide and would rather fall back to RS:UCS and RS:BB if you come across it. User:Cqm/Signature

Favour "the" as it's describing the item. After all, is "the kangaroo is an animal native to Australia" or "a kangaroo is an animal native to Australia" better? I'd say "the". "A(n)" is better used when referring to a specific instance (e.g. A pair of leather gloves respawn south of Edgeville bank). But like Cam said, be bold and change it Template:Signatures/Ciphrius Kane 15:59, November 23, 2017 (UTC)

Oppose - I don't think we should have hard guidelines for these, and even so as Cam said it is just grammar. If we add this to a style guide, we end up with people taking it too literally rather than just using common sense. https://i.imgur.com/xHR7zpA.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/6encXAo.png 16:21, November 23, 2017 (UTC)

Oppose - Per Jayden. Editors should just use common sense/whatever sounds best. Superiosity the Dragonrider: User:Superiosity/Signature chat 06:51, November 25, 2017 (UTC)

Oppose - Per Jayden. If you see a grammatical error, simply change it. MAGE-KIL-R 13:03, November 26, 2017 (UTC)

Oppose - A Jayden is used in the trashbin to construct paperless laptops. - Jr Mime (talk) _[VSTF] 14:02, November 26, 2017 (UTC)

Soft Oppose - Per Jayden. While I don't support making a policy change, I would support changing instances such as "The Adamant mace" to "An Adamant mace" if you want to make those changes feel free to RS:BB, and just RS:UCS for the rest. User:Myles Prower/Signature 15:52, November 30, 2017 (UTC)

Comment - I'm neither for nor against having a policy. I'd just like to say, personally, I prefer to use plural for everything except when the item is unique (e.g. wikian book) then I use the. For example: "Adamant platebodies are a level 40 defence item.". --Galian prist (talk) 16:51, November 30, 2017 (UTC)

Closed - The topics discussed in this thread will be left to common sense rather than incorporated into any policies. https://i.imgur.com/xHR7zpA.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/6encXAo.png 18:19, November 30, 2017 (UTC)