Meta:Style Guide

This page documents rules, styles, and conventions for the Game Detectives wiki. Please try your best to adhere to them when creating new pages, writing new content, or editing existing content.

Wikipedia Manual of Style

This wiki adheres to the Wikipedia Manual of Style. This is the definitive style guide for wiki content and should be followed unless otherwise noted.

Overview

General Guidelines

• Pages should be written in English. If a page requires use of another language, an English translation should be provided.
• Proofread your edits! If you see a typo on a page, don't hesitate to correct it!
• Write with the newbie's perspective in mind - aim to craft pages that are accessible to someone who knows nothing about a given ARG.
• Take advantage of Mediawiki's formatting when appropriate. Images and videos can be embedded in the page to maximize readability.
• When embedding images, it's preferable to upload them to our wiki, then embed (instead of embedding from an external source).
• A full formatting guide can be found here.

Language

Tips:

• Avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording.
• Use words your audience will understand, and use just enough words to convey your message.
• Define terms that may not be obvious to individuals who are new to what you are writing about.
• Keep paragraphs and sentences short and concise.
• Use contractions or don't. Just be consistent.

Tense

Always write in the past tense.

This rule is particularly important when writing about puzzle solutions. This rule applies even when writing about something that is presently occurring. If events are initially described in present tense, then the description needs to be altered later on to reflect that it happened in the past.

This also goes for future tense - talk about what information was revealed rather than where the investigation is today.

Example:

The website will be updated on the 12th of this month, according to the tweet by the PM.

Should be written as:

The PM tweeted that the website would be updated on the 12th of December.

Side note: As above, don't refer to dates relatively. Reference exact dates in the past tense to preserve readability even after the event concludes.

Example 2:

Discord user imnotgoats found the solution to puzzle one is: 27

Should be written as:

Players discovered puzzle one's solution was: 27

Side note: Reference participants as "player(s)" (as opposed to users, etc) to maintain congruence with other wiki articles.

Readability

As mentioned above, write with the newbie's perspective in mind. This means embedding the most pertinent media directly onto the page, and linking to relevant sources where necessary. When in doubt, more links and embedded media are better (but not to the point where you can't read any of the words on the page, of course).

Additionally, be wary of writing run-on sentences when describing what occurred in an ARG. ARGs can get really complex, really quickly, so it's easy for a newcomer to feel overwhelmed. When in doubt, step back and think about how to break down your explanation.

Point of View

The wiki should have a consistent, neutral voice, and should not read as though it was written by one or two solvers. Avoid using the word "we" at all costs! Instead, consider replacing it with something like "players" or "participants", depending on the context.

Example:

Through the use of clever lateral thinking, we solved the puzzle.

Should be written as:

Through the use of clever lateral thinking, players were able to solve the puzzle.

Mentioning Players

Players may be mentioned by name if:

• They were the only person present at a live event
• They were a prevalent player during a live event (eg. streamed the event)

Players should not be mentioned by name if:

• They solved a single ARG puzzle
• They solved multiple ARG puzzles
• They were one of many players who attended a live event

Generally speaking, mentioning players by name in the body of the wiki has a negative impact on readability and detracts from an otherwise informational format. Separate credits pages, especially as demanded by the community, are encouraged, and the above rules need not apply to them.

Dates and Times

All dates written using solely numbers on the wiki should abide by the ISO 8601 standard:

YYYY-MM-DD

When writing dates inline, any of the following formats can be used:

MON. DD, YYYY
Month DD, YYYY
Month DD
DD MON. YYYY

Note: Please try to keep inline date styles consistent for any given page.

Times should be in written in 24-hour time, and should use the UTC timezone.

Page Structure

The main page for an ARG should use the ARGBox template, set to float to the right. At the top of the page, above the table of contents, there should be a brief summary of the ARG, including links to any related media. Every subpage of any main page can use ARGBox to generate argboxes from data gathered from the first.

Page Sections

Defining sections for a wiki page is often a judgement call for wiki editors. However, if an ARG is explicitly broken up into distinct segments, it may make sense to define the sections accordingly. For instance, Waking Titan is explicitly broken up into 3 "phases". Wiki editors mirrored this structure by breaking the ARG up into 3 sub-pages: one for Phase 1, one for Phase 2, and one for Phase 3. The first of these phases is broken up into 5 "sequences", so its wiki page is structured accordingly.

Subpages

The main page for an ARG can host whatever information is deemed necessary by wiki editors. If the ARG is small, the main page may suffice to contain the full documentation of the ARG. However, as ARGs become more sprawling and complex, more pages may be required to track them. Articles about high-level subjects can be created, named sensibly, in the main namespace. For all articles pertaining solely to a specific ARG, subpages should be used.

Example:

This_ARG                         <- this is a page as well as the namespace
This_ARG/Timeline
This_ARG/Summary
This_ARG/Characters

Additionally, when creating subpages, ensure you categorize them properly!

Disambiguation

Where there is a requirement for two articles with the same name in the same namespace, disambiguation should be used in the form of parenthesis after the article name. An example of this is Project 11 (the ARG) and Project 11 (puppetmaster) (the name of the puppetmaster).

Non-ARG articles

Articles that do not pertain solely to a specific ARG should be in the main namespace. This is because puppetmasters could potentially create more than a single ARG.

Nomenclature

This section outlines some naming conventions to promote consistency across the wiki. This section is not intended to comment on a phrase's 'correctness' in the real world - rather, these guidelines outline an approved style for this wiki.

• "ARG" always appears in caps ("Arg" and "arg" are incorrect).
• "Puppetmaster" is a single word ("puppet master" and "puppet-master" are incorrect).
• "Easter egg" only has a capital on 'Easter' ("Easter Egg" and "easter egg" are incorrect).

Wiki Templates

Article Message Box

Description

This is the {{Ambox}} or Article message box meta-template.

Usage

{{Ambox|type=content|text=my text here}}, or
{{Ambox|type=speedy|text=my text here}}, etc

type

The type parameter defines the color of the left bar, and the image that is used by default. The type is chosen not on aesthetics but is based on the type of issue that the template describes. The seven available types and their default images are shown below.

If no type parameter is given the template defaults to |type=notice.

See also

• Template:Mbox
• Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes – Describes how to use the ambox CSS classes directly in wikitables and HTML tables.
• Wikipedia:Article message boxes – The style guideline for creating article message boxes.
• Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes – For discussion about these matters.

ARG Box

Description

This is the {{argbox}} or ARG Info Box meta-template. This template is used to create an arg infobox on a given page, as well as assign the page to a category determined by the root page name.

Syntax

Type {{argbox}} somewhere, with parameters as shown below.

Sample output

{{argbox
| float       = left
| name        = Valve ARG
| image       = File:NewExample3.png
| imagewidth  = 400
| description = This it the description of an arg, I somehow forgot about it
| creator     = [[Valve]]
| creator2    = [[Valve]]
| type        = Official
| status      = Active
| discovered  = 1970-01-31
| completed   = 1971-01-31
| closed      = 1971-01-31
| reopened    = 1972-01-31 
| timeline    = [[Valve]]
}}

Results in...

Valve ARG
Active since 1970-01-31
This it the description of an arg, I somehow forgot about it
Type	Official
Creators	Valve & Valve
Discovered	1970-01-31
Completed	1971-01-31
Closed	1971-01-31
Reopened	1972-01-31
Timeline	Valve

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Default	Accepted Values	Type	Status
float	box is aligned to the the left or the right.	right	left or right	String	Optional
clear	content is delayed until just the right or left column is complete.	right	left or right	String	Optional
name	The name of the ARG infobox	Title of the current page		String	Optional
image	The thumb of the ARG infobox	Image:Example.png	any valid link from local source or external	String	Optional
imagewidth	Width of the thumb image of the ARG info box. Also controls the width of the argbox itself.	400	any valid integer	Int	Optional
description	Short description of the ARG			String	Optional
creator	A creator of the ARG			String	Optional
creator2	A second creator of the ARG			String	Optional
creator3	A third creator of the ARG			String	Optional
type	The type of the ARG		Official, Unofficial, Investigation	String	Optional
status	Status of the ARG		Active, On Hold, Completed or Discontinued	String	Optional
discovered	Date of the ARG discovery, YYYY-MM-DD			Date	Optional
completed	Date of the ARG completion, YYYY-MM-DD			Date	Optional
closed	Date of the ARG closing, YYYY-MM-DD			Date	Optional
reopened	Date of the ARG reopening, YYYY-MM-DD			Date	Optional
timeline	Wikilink to the timeline article of the ARG			String	Optional
halloffame	Whether to render a link to a Hall of Fame		true or emtpy	Boolean	Optional
popupContent	Manual override for given arg's investigation list dialog popup		Any string including parsable wikitext (no HTML)	String	Optional

Auto ARG Box

Description

This is the {{autoArgbox}} or Automatic ARG infobox meta-template. This template is used to automatically create an ARG infobox on a given subpage using data from the parent page's {{argbox}}.

Syntax

Type {{autoArgbox}} somewhere, with optional parameters as shown below. Any parameters manually defined will override those pulled from data.

Sample output

{{autoArgbox
| float       = left
| name        = Valve ARG
| image       = File:Example.png
}}

Results in...

Valve ARG

Parameters

See {{argbox}}.

ArgHeader

Description

This is the {{ArgHeader}} or ARG Header meta-template.

It is an intelligent template used to add a navigation bar at the head of any ARG page. It is self-structuring and does not require any variable input.

Usage

{{ArgHeader}}

Main Page > List of Investigations > Meta:Style Guide

ArgHeader sub-page

Description

This is the {{ArgHeaderSub}} or ARG Header Subpage meta-template.

It is a simple template to add a navigation bar at the header of a main, child ARG sub-page.

Usage

{{ArgHeaderSub}}

Main Page > List of Investigations > Meta:Style Guide

See Also

{{ArgHeader}}

Back to top button

Description

This is the {{backToTop}} or Back to top button meta-template. This template is used to create a back to top button on a given page which snaps to the tops of the page when clicked.

Syntax

Type {{backToTop}} somewhere.

Sample output

{{backtoTop}}

Results in the bottom seen on the bottom-left of the page...

Message box

Description

This is the {{mbox}} or multi namespace message box meta-template.

This meta-template is used to build message box templates that are used on several types of pages and thus need to change style depending on what page they are used on. Based on page type detected it uses one of {{ambox}}, {{tmbox}}, {{imbox}}, {{cmbox}} and {{ombox}}.

Note that this template should only be used for message boxes that really need to adapt their style. Most message boxes do not need this and should use one of {{ambox}}, {{tmbox}}, {{imbox}}, {{cmbox}} or {{ombox}} directly. Using those templates directly means that your template will look the same on its template page and at any other place you show it, which makes it clear on what kind of pages it is supposed to be used. It also gives you access to any extra features those templates offer, and it saves some server load.

Usage

This template takes the same parameters as {{ambox}} and {{imbox}} etc. See full documentation there.

Some of the boxes this template calls only handles images of max 52px width, thus that limitation also applies to this template or you will get ugly padding problems.

Demospace

This template optionally takes the "demospace" parameter as described at {{namespace detect}}. That parameter is only for testing and demonstration purposes. If you want to lock your message box to one style then instead use one of the other mboxes directly.

Namespace "Image:" was renamed to "File:" on 11 December 2008. This template was updated to understand both names well before that, thus it still works fine. For backwards compatibility it still understands "demospace = image" which means the same thing as "demospace = file". But using "demospace = image" is now deprecated.

Namespace "Book:" was added to the English Wikipedia on 28 December 2009. This template uses the {{ombox}} style on "Book:" pages or when "demospace=book". And it uses the {{tmbox}} style on "Book talk:" pages or when "demospace=talk". Note that "demospace=talk" means any talk space, there is no "demospace=book talk".

Parameters

List of all parameters:

{{mbox
| demospace = {{{demospace|}}} / main / talk / file / category / other
| type  = speedy / delete / content / style / notice / move / protection
| image = none / [[File:Some image.svg|40px]]
| imageright = [[File:Some image.svg|40px]]
| style = CSS values
| textstyle  = CSS values
| text  = The message body text.
| small = {{{small|}}} / left / yes
| smallimage = none / [[Image:Some image.svg|30px]]
| smallimageright = none / [[Image:Some image.svg|30px]]
| smalltext  = A shorter message body text.
}}

Note: The small parameters only have effect when the template is on an article, talk page or an "other" page. For documentation on the small parameters see {{ambox}}, {{tmbox}} and {{ombox}}. Using the small parameters when they are not valid has no effect, but also does no harm.

See also

• Template:Mbox
• Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes – Describes how to use the ambox CSS classes directly in wikitables and HTML tables.
• Wikipedia:Article message boxes – The style guideline for creating article message boxes.
• Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes – For discussion about these matters.

Other page message box

This is the {{Ombox}} ([O]ther pages [m]essage [box]) metatemplate.

It is used to build message box templates for pages of the types User, Wikipedia, MediaWiki, Template, Help, Portal and any new future namespaces; i.e. for page types not covered by {{Ambox}}, {{Tmbox}}, {{Imbox}} or {{Cmbox}}. Thus, it should not be used for boxes for articles, talk pages, image pages or category pages.

This template works almost exactly like {{Ambox}} and uses the same parameters.

Description

As noted above, this template should be used for message boxes that are not articles, talk pages, image pages or category pages. Some message boxes for other pages may incorrectly use one of those four mentioned. Feel free to convert any message boxes used on "other pages" to use this meta-template. If you find any tricky cases then list them on the talk page of this template and you'll get help.

When this template is used to build other pages message boxes those boxes should contain explanatory texts just like before. (The same texts as before or new improved texts.) If there are more specific images in the boxes or you know a better image, then use them instead of the default images shown here.

Usage

Simple usage example:

{{ombox | text = Some text.}}

Complex example:

{{ombox
| type      = style
| image     = [[Image:Emblem-question-yellow.svg|40px]]
| style     = width: 400px; 
| textstyle = color: red; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
| text      = The message body text.
}}

Other pages message box types

The following examples use different type parameters but use no image parameters; thus, they use the default images for each type.

Examples Some examples using the "notice" style:

Parameters

List of all parameters:

{{ombox
| type  = speedy / delete / content / style / notice / move / protection
| image = none / [[Image:Some image.svg|40px]]
| imageright = [[Image:Some image.svg|40px]]
| style = CSS values
| textstyle = CSS values
| text  = The message body text. 
| small = {{{small|}}} / yes
| smallimage = none / [[Image:Some image.svg|30px]]
| smallimageright = none / [[Image:Some image.svg|30px]]
| smalltext  = A shorter message body text.
}}

type

If no type parameter is given the template defaults to type notice. That means it gets a gray border.

image

No parameter = If no image parameter is given the template uses a default image. Which default image it uses depends on the type parameter.

An image = Should be an image with usual wiki notation. 40px - 50px width are usually about right depending on the image height to width ratio. (But the message box can handle images of any size.) For example:

image = [[Image:Crystal package settings.png|40px]]

none = Means that no image is used.

imageright

No parameter = If no imageright parameter is given then no image is shown on the right side.

An image = Should be an image with usual wiki notation. 40px - 50px width are usually about right depending on the image height to width ratio. (But the message box can handle images of any size.) For example:

imageright = [[Image:Nuvola apps bookcase.png|40px]]

Anything = Any other object that you want to show on the right side.

style

Optional CSS values used by the entire message box table. Without quotation marks " " but with the ending semicolons ;. For example:

style = margin-bottom: 0.5em;

textstyle

Optional CSS values used by the text cell. For example:

textstyle = text-align: center;

text

The message body text.

The small parameters

small

yes = Makes it a smaller right floating message box. This also makes the default images smaller. Note that any data fed to the smallimage, smallimageright and smalltext parameters is only used if "small=yes". To make it so your template also understands the small parameter you can use this code:

small = {{{small|}}}

smallimage

No parameter = If no smallimage parameter is given then this template falls back to use the image parameter. If the image parameter also is empty then a small default image is used.

An image = Should be an image with usual wiki notation. 30px width is usually about right. For example:

smallimage = [[Image:Replacement filing cabinet.svg|30px]]

none = Means that no image is used. This overrides any image fed to image, when "small=yes".

smallimageright

No parameter = If no smallimageright parameter is given then this template falls back to use the imageright parameter. If the imageright parameter also is empty then no image is shown on the right side.

An image = Should be an image with usual wiki notation. 30px width is usually about right. For example:

smallimageright = [[Image:Nuvola apps bookcase.png|30px]]

Anything = Any other object that you want to show on the right side.

none = Means that no right side image is used. This overrides any image fed to imageright, when "small=yes".

smalltext

A shorter version of the message body text. If no smalltext parameter is given then this template falls back to use the text parameter.

Technical details

If you need to use special characters in the text parameter then you need to escape them like this:

{{ombox
| text  = <div>
Equal sign = and a start and end brace { } work fine as they are. 
But here is a pipe {{!}} and two end braces <nowiki>}}</nowiki>. 
And now a pipe and end braces <nowiki>|}}</nowiki>.
</div>
}}

This template uses the ombox CSS classes in MediaWiki:Common.css for most of its looks, thus it is fully skinnable.

This template calls {{ombox/core}} which holds most of the code for {{ombox}}, while {{ombox}} itself does parameter preprocessing.

Internally this meta-template uses HTML markup instead of wiki markup for the table code. That is the usual way we make meta-templates since wiki markup has several drawbacks. For instance it makes it harder to use parser functions and special characters in parameters.

The default images for this meta-template are in png format instead of svg format. The main reason is that some older web browsers have trouble with the transparent background that MediaWiki renders for svg images. The png images here have hand optimised transparent background colour so they look good in all browsers. Note that svg icons only look somewhat bad in the old browsers, thus such hand optimisation is only worth the trouble for very widely used icons.

For more technical details see the talk page. Since this template works almost exactly like {{ambox}}, {{tmbox}}, {{imbox}} and {{cmbox}} their talk pages and related pages might also contain more details.

See also

Outdated

Description

This is the {{Outdated}} or Out-of-date content meta-template.

Usage

For out-of-date English content, writing {{Outdated}} creates...

For English pages that contain out-of-date information, simply add the template to the top of the page (or section if it only applies to part of the page). The template will be displayed as shown at the top of this page. You can also specify a reason:

{{Outdated|reason=MediaWiki doesn't run under XYZ Server anymore.}}

Which creates:

Out-of-date translations

For non-English pages that are out-of-date translations, include the name of the English-language page it was translated from. The resulting banner will include a link to the source text, like this:

{{Outdated|Page name}}
e.g. {{Outdated|Project:Language policy}}

Creates:

See also

{{Update}}

Stub

Description

This is the {{Stub}} or Stubby McStubbin meta-template.

Use {{stub}} or {{Stub}} at the top of any page in need of additional outside information or revision (for incomplete pages not in need of outside information or revision, use {{WIP}} instead.

Sample output

{{stub}}

See also

{{WIP}}

Update

Description

Used to create an update box with dynamic content on a given page, as well as assign the page to relevant categories.

Usage

{{Update}}

See also

• {{historical}}
• {{outdated}}

Work in progress

Description

This is the {{WIP}} or Work in progress meta-template.

Use {{WIP}} at the bottom of any page or sub-page which is incomplete or being updated on an on-going basis.

Sample output

{{WIP}}