View source for Victoria 2 Wiki talk:Style

== Category names ==

What standard should we have for category names? Only the first word should be capitalized unless it's a given name, as precedence for that is well established on the wiki. However, should they be plural or singular? I don't care much either way, but currently most categories are singular. Wikipedia uses plurals though.

I've just installed the extension ReplaceText, so it won't be hard to update the existing pages to whatever standard we decide on. [[User:Meneth|~ Meneth]] ([[User talk:Meneth|talk]]) 23:22, 21 April 2013 (CEST)

:If the category title refers to the contents of the category, then it should be in the plural. For example, if it is a category that contains strategy guides, it only makes sense to call the category "Strategy guides". But a category name like "Community" can be singular, because the category contains articles relating to the concept "Community", and not articles on individual communities. [[User:Kimberly|Kimberly]] ([[User talk:Kimberly|talk]]) 00:16, 22 April 2013 (CEST)

::Sounds like a decent enough rule. I'll modify the style guide to reflect that. [[User:Meneth|~ Meneth]] ([[User talk:Meneth|talk]]) 00:40, 22 April 2013 (CEST)
::I've changed "Country Guide" to "Country guides" and "Template" to "Templates" now. Anything more I should change? [[User:Meneth|~ Meneth]] ([[User talk:Meneth|talk]]) 00:57, 22 April 2013 (CEST)

==Article title capitalization==
It is standard in encyclopedias and wikis to capitalize only the first letter of an article title, unless grammatical rules dictate otherwise (e.g. if it is a proper noun). However, many things in the game use capitals even when they ordinarily would not. Usually, we speak of a "sphere of influence" without capitals. But I believe the game calls it a "Sphere of Influence". I think things are bound to get confusing if we deviate from what the game calls things, so I suggest the following rule: capitalize only the first letter (which is automatic), unless grammatical rules dictate otherwise or unless the game itself uses different capitalization. [[User:Kimberly|Kimberly]] ([[User talk:Kimberly|talk]]) 00:19, 22 April 2013 (CEST)

:Yeah, grammatical capitalization seems the most reasonable. Proper nouns are to be capitalized, and that should be near all. I'm not entirely sure what we should do with examples where the game capitalization differs from what's grammatically correct though; I think in most cases we should probably deffer to the grammatically correct way. [[User:Meneth|~ Meneth]] ([[User talk:Meneth|talk]]) 00:42, 22 April 2013 (CEST)

== Reference/strategy titles ==

To avoid unnecessarily long article names, I propose that whenever a topic has both a reference and a strategy article, the reference article should be named after the subject (e.g. "Land combat") while the strategy article should have "guide" or "strategy" appended to it (e.g. "Land combat guide"). It might be prudent to have a hatnote template that points users to a topic's associated guide, or reference article, as the case may be. [[User:Kimberly|Kimberly]] ([[User talk:Kimberly|talk]]) 20:12, 22 April 2013 (CEST)

:Yeah, that's how I do it on the CKII Wiki. All guides have their name end in "guide", while all reference pages don't. For modding pages they've got "modding" in the name in cases where there could be any confusion with game topics. [[User:Meneth|~ Meneth]] ([[User talk:Meneth|talk]]) 20:20, 22 April 2013 (CEST)

==Model country guide==
I'm currently writing a "model country guide" for the United States at [[User:Kimberly/Model country guide]]. Basically, my goal is to write a country article that completely covers the topic, has a style that's entirely by the book, and is a perfect example that we can base all other country guides off of. An ideal other country articles strive towards. For this to work, the whole community has to contribute to the article; we must revise and expand it until we are wholly satisfied. Perhaps we need more sections or fewer, perhaps some topics are best off on other pages, etc. Do feel free to contribute to the draft article or voice your opinion on it. [[User:Kimberly|Kimberly]] ([[User talk:Kimberly|talk]]) 22:25, 24 April 2013 (CEST)

:Sounds like a good idea. I'll check at some point if there's anything I can do to improve it. [[User:Meneth|~ Meneth]] ([[User talk:Meneth|talk]]) 22:29, 24 April 2013 (CEST)