Brighter Shores:Style guide

This style guide has the simple purpose of making the Brighter Shores 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. Page names should always be exactly the same as the in-game name of the subject, except when multiple subjects have the same name (and thus disambiguation parentheses are required). In cases where other Fen Research sources are inconsistent with in-game names, in-game names and capitalisations should be used, with redirects utilised for other names.

• Names, locations, and titles (like those of quests) should all be capitalised appropriately.
• A rule of thumb for article titles is that they should match the in-game name: Lesser Eel, Gray Eel.
• Block capitals should not be used in titles: 'Article titles', not 'ARTICLE TITLES'.
• Words such as articles (a,an, and the) and short prepositions (e.g. in, of, from) should be left uncapitalised, unless the first word of the title: Welcome to the Guard, The Horn of Hopeport.

Sometimes technical restrictions of MediaWiki prevent editors naming pages after their in-game names

In such cases, problem characters should be replaced with substitutes, or left out altogether. Generally, replace "|" with "-", and ":" in namespaces with "-"; leave out "#". The DISPLAYTITLE magic word should be used to display the correct, unmodified title.

Additionally, in cases where the subject name contains a forward slash ("/"), this character will have a special meaning and incorrectly create a "subpage". These false subpages should be at the same name.

In all cases, the {{Restricted title}} template should be used (and a brief explanation given) to mark the page as such.

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:

==Sections and headings==

This subsection's heading was created with the markup:

===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, professions, names, rooms, and so on should all have the first letter capitalised. For example, "Combat equipment", not "Combat 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 room and then include non-player characters in that section. Instead, make an "Features" section with "Monsters" and "NPCs" as subsections.
• Keep headings short.

Lead sections

A lead (introduction) summarises the most important points of an article, creating interest in the topic. Thus, it should be limited to a few paragraphs. Certain information, such as strategies and trivia, should be in a separate section instead of in the lead. This applies only to articles that are of sufficient length to incorporate a lead.

Text elements

Internal links

• It is not necessary to link an article each time it reappears in a page. For example, bucket may be mentioned five times on a particular page. You should only have to link to bucket once: the first time it is mentioned. You can link to articles more than once if the page is very long. If linking the first instance of a term would create a "chain of links" (see below) and the term is one which is generally well understood (e.g. "quest" or "experience"), then it is fine to leave the first instance unlinked.
• When a profession is linked to, the proper name of the profession should be used, rather than a short form or different spelling of it. Instead of saying "this item can be [[Forager|foraged]] by..." you should state "this item can be obtained through the [[Forager]] skill by ...."
• Piped link formats for simple plurals are generally unnecessary. For example, use [[bucket]]s instead of [[bucket|buckets]].
• On the other hand, use [[thief|thieves]] instead of [[thief]]s when appropriate. Don't be afraid to use a piped link when necessary, particularly if avoiding them contorts the language unnecessarily, or introduces spelling or grammatical errors into the article. Piped links have legitimate uses in an article.
• When including wiki-links in an article, there is no need to use underscores, since the software produces them automatically.
• Do not place the last letters of a plural outside of a link that already has alternate text. For example, [[Eel (skill node)|eels]] should be used instead of [[Eel (skill node)|eel]]s.
• When possible, avoid placing links next to each other so that they look like a single link, as in [[Welcome to the Guard]] [[quest]], as this makes it harder for users to identify where they are going to be directed to when clicking a link. Consider rephrasing the sentence to break up the links instead. If it is not possible to do this without using unnatural phrasing then do not link every word/phrase and only link the significant word/phrase, e.g. [[Welcome to the Guard]] quest. Dates should always have links for both the day of the month and year.

External links

Feel free to link to other sites, such as the Brighter Shores home page. However, you may want to avoid linking to other fansites, unless it has exceptional content that cannot be reproduced here or because of copyrights.

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 wiki's white background.

Bold and italics

Italics are mainly used to emphasise certain words, though they should be used sparingly. Italics may make longer phrases or sentences difficult to read. 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.

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. Excessive use of any of these text elements will make the entire article difficult to read, so please use them in appropriate situations.

Italics should not be used on any quotes, which should always be delimited with quotation marks. The final punctuation mark of an italic section should sit outside of the italics.

Titles of works

Titles of works (e.g., books, movies) have standards in styling that should be appropriately followed here as well. Common examples for each type are listed below. For an exhaustive list, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style for titles.

Italics

Below are commonly encountered examples of types of works that should use italics.

• Books; e.g., The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Video games; e.g., Brighter Shores
• Films; e.g., Casablanca
• Television shows; e.g., The Simpsons

Quotation marks

Below are commonly encountered examples of types of works that should use quotation marks.

• Short stories; e.g., "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
• Songs; e.g., "Sandstorm"
• Use "straight" quotes, not “curly”. (For single quotes or apostrophes: 'straight', not ‘curly’.)
  • Typographical, or curly, quotation marks and apostrophes might be read more efficiently, and many think they look better. However, for practical reasons the straight versions are used on the Brighter Shores Wiki.
  • Consistency keeps searches predictable. Though most browsers don't distinguish between curly and straight marks, Internet Explorer still does (as of 2016), so that a search for Necrovarus' notes will fail to find Necrovarus’ notes and vice versa.
  • Straight quotation marks are easier to type reliably on most platforms.

Numbers

For numbers, a comma should be used as a thousands separator.

Number ranges should be indicated with an endash (–; HTML entity: –) rather than a hyphen; e.g., "1–5" is correct, but "1-5" is not.

Generally, in paragraph text:

• Natural numbers less than ten should always be expressed in words (e.g. "one", "two", "three") unless suggested otherwise below.
• Otherwise, numbers that can be expressed as one or two words may be expressed either in words or in numerals (e.g. "ten" or "10", "twenty-one" or "21", "two hundred" or "200").
• Otherwise, numbers should be expressed in numerals or other widely used symbols (e.g. "123", "1,500,000", $\pi$).

Some exceptions to the above include:

• Numbers in compound words should be written in numerals (e.g. "3x3 area", "1-minute cooldown").
• When the context features multiple comparable numbers, the numbers should be written in numerals (e.g. "The duration of the buff is increased from 2 to 3 minutes").

Grammar and spelling

Case

Item and monster names almost always begin with a capital letter in-game. In prose, this can and usually should be made lowercase (including in links) if the word is not a proper noun. Common sense and examples from similar/related items should be used to provide additional cues on if the word should be considered a proper noun.

Redirects should be used to cover pages that are not already all lowercase, or have inconsistent or unusual capitalisation.

Abbreviations

Try not to use abbreviations. For example, use "crossbow" instead of "cbow." The reader may not know what these abbreviations mean.

Punctuation

If you are listing three or more things, like different variants, each of them should have a serial/Oxford comma at the end. For example, "dim rays, common rays, and soldier rays" would be correct; "dim rays, common rays and soldier rays" would not be.

Usage and spelling

American spelling should be used at all times. Almost everything in Brighter Shores uses the American spelling, making this rule easy to follow; however, exceptions do exist, and in-game spelling should be used in favour of American spelling in those cases.

See also: American and British English spelling differences

Tense

A rule of thumb is to use present tense in all cases. For example, articles for quests, professions, items, non-player characters, etc. should be written in present tense. An exception to this rule would be events that have occurred in the past, or for in-game content that has been removed. For example, holiday events that have already occurred should be written in past tense. For future updates and upcoming content that have been confirmed by Fen Research, use the future tense.

• Past tense: Past events and in-game content that has been removed
• Future tense: Future updates and upcoming content that have been confirmed; See also: Brighter Shores:Future content
• Present tense: All other cases

Point of view

Articles should be written in the third person or objective point of view. Using the word "you" in articles is informal and should be avoided except if it is inside a quotation; try to use "players" or "the player" instead. For guides, "you" can be used, although the command imperative ("Catch some fish and cook them") is acceptable as well.

Pronouns

When referring to an NPC's pronouns, the particular phrasing "their pronouns are..." should be used. Their can be replaced with NPC's name if appropriate."

Other phrasing, such as "uses X pronouns" or "prefers X pronouns" should not be used except where it makes more sense in a particular context.

Images

Main article: Brighter Shores:Images and media policy

Some general guidelines which should be followed are listed below.

• The preferred format for images is PNG.
• Right-alignment is preferred to left- or centre-alignment. However, centre-alignment can be used for some images in the quest pages, such as the reward picture.
• Personal images which are only used on a userpage should not be uploaded. Images should be able to be used on main space articles, else they will be deleted.
• 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 [[File:Bucket.PNG]] or [[File:Bucket.gif]] if someone has already uploaded [[File:Bucket.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.

Dates and times

Use the day before month format ("day month year"—6 November 2024) rather than a month before day format (such as "month day, year"—November 6, 2024). Note that no commas are used in the day before month format.

Release dates

The release date used in an infobox should be the date that the item became obtainable in-game, usually accompanied by an update post.

For items with requirements to obtain that take time, use the date it was announced/added to the game, or basically when it's technically possible to obtain the item assuming you could instantaneously fulfil the requirements to obtain it.

Time references

Prefer specific statements of time by date, including year, to general ones (e.g., currently, recent, recently, soon). Articles should always contain current information, so there should be no reason to specify that it is current, unless there is some expectation that it could change.

For example, avoid statements like "Fen Research recently released early access" or "Fen Research released early access last November." Statements could remain in place for years. Instead write statements like "Fen Research released early access in November 2024."