PSU Cyril Wiki talk:Manual of style

Page-stretching and so forth

• Well, I was able to fix the stretching of the page with the addition of the code and nowiki tags, but the result is now a bit more jumbled, as line breaks are no longer obvious. We'll have to mess around with it some more to see if we can make a work-around. Of course, we could always take it out of table format and just have the section divided vertically. (The first part is "what you type" and the second part is "what you get.") EspioKaos 19:02, 31 July 2007 (BST)
  • The code part of the table probably doesn't have to be "as-is." It may be possible to modify the appearance of the code on the page, while the actual text (when copypasted into a edit box) will produce the same result as what's seen. F Gattaca 19:21, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Capitalization and so forth

• I've been looking at the Wikipedia Manual of Style for inspiration on getting this section going, and I realized that they prefer the capitalization of titles to follow the rule of the first letter being in caps with all subsequent words (sans proper nouns, of course) being in lowercase. I know we don't have to follow this since PSUPedia is not a part of Wikipedia, but should we follow it? Personally, I actually like how it looks. What are you guys' thoughts on this? EspioKaos 18:43, 31 July 2007 (BST)
  • This kind of thing seems highly dependent on the organization's preference. I tried looking up manuals of style that deal with subheadings (as these would be). This college's First-Year English FAQ demonstrates the APA's way of treating headings and subheadings, which in some ways could be applied to a wiki.
    
    Meanwhile, the AJA's manual of style says to capitalize only the first word and important words but not to put a period or other punctuation at the end of the subheading.
    
    The MLA says that each word in a title is capitalized, except for articles (a, an, the), prepositions (against, between,in, of, to), conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet), and the infinitive to.
    
    I guess it's mostly up to what we want to see, but I'm predisposed towards using capitalization of words in high-level headings ("==" type), but not in lower-level headings. F Gattaca 19:22, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• I think we should follow it, but let's wait and see what others say first. - Mewn 19:26, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• I think we should follow the MLA-type standard, since it just makes the most sense, and is how everything (books, movies, articles, magazines, etc.) is titled. --Qwerty 20:15, 31 July 2007 (BST)

A few things

• Not sure exactly if these are supposed to be in this Manual of Style, but a few things for consideration:
  • Any names (of NPCs, items, missions, places, etc.) that have been translated from Japanese due to the lack of an official localization are to be put in parantheses until the official localization is known, at which point the localization takes precedence. An example is Fight For Food, which until the US closed beta shortly before release was known by its Japanese name of (Farm Plant Recovery).
  • Item types should be referred to by their proper names if possible, i.e. Line Shields instead of Armor.
  • To head off any future problems, weapon type names should be made consistent - particularly Cards/Throwing Blades/whatever the flavour of the month name is. I propose we use Cards, as that is how the Perfect Bible and PSU-Wiki refer to them.
  • When writing the star rarity of an item, use the ★ symbol consistently. Don't use * or anything like that. It can be reproduced by copy/pasting or switching to Japanese input and typing 'hoshi' (then pressing Space to change it).
  • For consistency, since the game is in US English, we use US English here as well. See here for the major differences.

If I think of anything else I'll list it here. - Mewn 19:26, 31 July 2007 (BST)

• Excellent! I'll get started on working these things in. EspioKaos 20:40, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Abbreviations

• Dun dun dun! Now we get to the abbreviations and what we'll consistently use when it comes to type names. I, for one, side with Sounomi's proposal, which creates a case-insensitive, easy-to-recognize abbreviation for types that would share letters under the abbreviations that originated from the Japanese wiki. For example, Fighgunner and Fortegunner would be FI and FG, respectively. I haven't added in the type abbreviations to the list just yet, as we first should come to a consensus on what we'll use. EspioKaos 19:45, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• Ah, this spectre. I personally support and use the PSU-Wiki abbreviations and have no real problem differentiating between fG and FG, but whichever is clearer to the majority would be the one to go with. My vote goes to the PSU-Wiki abbreviations, though. - Mewn 19:53, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• I will definitely and adamantly support the traditional (i.e. FG/fG) style abbreviations, simply because they have been used by the vast majority for almost a year now. I have no difficulty distinguishing between FG and fG, especially given context. Furthermore, I do not see the need to be meticulous when it comes to Att. versus ATP and the like. To be absolutely honest, I think that it is stupid that there is even a difference in game, and I never see people use Att., Def., Eva., and the like. I do not see why we can't just use ATP/ATA/DFP/EVP/MST/etc. for everything, simply because it eliminates confusion and those are the abbreviations most commonly used. However, I reckon my opinion will be in the minority on that issue. --Qwerty 20:06, 31 July 2007 (BST)
  • That's an excellent point, Qwerty. I think I'll actually merge a few things together, making Acc. and ATA under the same listing with a general description as opposed to the "in reference to weapon stats" descriptor. EspioKaos 20:25, 31 July 2007 (BST)