Help talk:Style guide

New capitalization

What is the policy for projectiles and ammunition ("a rocket"/"a Rocket", "sticky bomb"/"Sticky Bomb")? — WindPower 15:41, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think it's a Rocket/a Sticky bomb Delicious cake 15:48, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

"Unlockable" vs. "Craftable" weapons.

I've noticed that many community-submitted weapons are referred to as "Unlockable." In my mind, unlockable weapons are those which you receive by unlocking milestone achievements, whereas those which can only be received by crafting are "Craftable" weapons. I think these terms are more specific, giving the reader more detail as to how they may be obtained, while still using only one word. --Shackanaw 18:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Which pages are you referring to? The Weapons page lists them as "Drop" --Firestorm 19:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd be tempted to call them community weapons but community weapons refers to something else. Contribute Items maybe? -- Nineaxis 19:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I should clarify: my issue isn't with the fact that they are community weapons, but that they are only obtainable through the crafting system. Therefore, I also think the Gunboats should be referred to as "craftable." The specific pages I have seen this on, or at least, those that I can recall off the top of my head, are the Southern Hospitality and Tribalman's Shiv. --Shackanaw 19:29, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

They say Drop. What are you talking about? -- Smashman... _{(t • s)} 19:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, he's referring to the first sentence "an Unlockable weapon". --Firestorm 19:37, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm not talking about the info chart, but to the article content: "The Southern Hospitality is an unlockable, community-made melee weapon used by the Engineer." As an aside however, I 'do' think "Drop" is too specific, since several items are droppable and craftable, whereas milestone unlockables can also be found through the drop system, but are not craftable. --Shackanaw 19:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but they ARE craftable if you use metal and tokens. The term "unlockable" when used in the article merely describes the item as one that you can get through some means, whether by crafting, achievements or dropping. This is different from "Promotional" weapons that you cannot get normally. I think "Drop" is fine, as that means that it cannot be found with achievement, but randomly. We keep crafting out of that, as any item can be crafted. --Firestorm 19:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I was not aware you could craft milestone unlockables in that manner. Still, as far as articles about specific weapons are concerned, I think it would be better if we referred to them as craftable, milestone unlockable (or some variation thereof), promotional, and stock weapons in the first sentence, so the reader immediately knows how these weapons are obtained. --Shackanaw 19:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd say "Findable" as every weapon is craftable, then again unlocks are findable too. -- Smashman... _{(t • s)} 19:59, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

This is on the Weapons page:

• Standard weapons are always available.
• Unlock weapons are available via achievements, crafting, or the drop system.
• Drop weapons are only available by crafting or the drop system.
• Promotion weapons require participation in Valve promotions, and are not obtainable in game.
• Special weapons are only available for a period of time in/or through specific events.

Surely this solves our problem? ApertureScienceAI 21:08, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ninja'd, I was just about to point that out. --Firestorm 21:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd still argue that "Drop" is a misnomer if one can craft the weapon, but the reverse is true with "Craftable" as well. Still, if this terminology is already in use in the Weapons article, could we add it to the style guide as well? Whatever we call it, I think we should be consistent across articles. --Shackanaw 22:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

It's a fair point. At the moment, all craftable weapons can be dropped and visa versa (except for promotion and special weapons) meaning we have no need to make a distinction. We could consider a new format: Unlock weapons are obtained by achievements, Drop (or Collectable, if drop isn't formal enough) weapons are available from the item drop system and Craftable weapons are available from crafting. If a weapon has multiple attributes, we pick the first one in the order (Unlock, Drop, Craft)? ApertureScienceAI 23:15, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem with that, is that there aren't any itmes that can be crafted that DON'T drop, so the "Craft" description would never be used --Firestorm 23:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, which is why I suggested it be last in the order list. It's possible that Valve may introduce a craft-only weapon in the future. The Golden Wrench was craft-only (even though it is described as a special weapon). If we do come up with a final definition, it should consider all possibilities ApertureScienceAI 23:46, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Times and dates.

If time/dates are to be mentioned in an article, which time zone should they follow? For example, if there was an patch/update shipped at 00:30 GMT, in EST (which I presume Valve follow) it would be 19:30 the previous day; what time-zone would the wiki entry use? Could the style guide be revised to answer this question. --RJackson 22:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Valve uses Pacific time, as they are located in Washington state. If there's a reason to do a different time zone I'm not aware of any. :0 ~G-Mang (T|C) 00:47, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

We should just use GMT/UTC +00. TF2 players come from all over the world, and most of these guys have no idea what the heck PST/EST is. Better that way. -Object404 12:05, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Rules on References

Currently there are no specific rules concerning when to use a References section and the citations therein. According to this, external links are not to be used within a sentence as an inline citation. However, I'm noticing that the majority of class hat pages do exactly that. Words within trivia items are hyperlinked in each point instead of turning the sentence into a reference with a References section displayed below it. I suspect this arose from it being acceptable to do this with internal, wiki links. I have found some trivia item pages that do possess a References section, with items cited correctly, but there is a lot of inconsistency with this being done.

Having talked with Mouseketeer about the Hotrod trivia links this is something that I feel needs to be addressed with specific rules and guidelines and implemented throughout the Wiki (at least specifically in regard to trivia sections). With the exception of internal links (links that lead to other Team Fortress Wiki pages), all links within Trivia section should be cited using the <ref></ref> tags, whereby the reference is displayed in a References section using the <references/> tag. I don't see any exceptions to this rule when it comes to external linking. _Malthenius 02:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Why is "critical" considered a proper name?

Why is the "critical" in "critical hit" considered to be a proper name? Firstly, the blog post where they talk about crits doesn't call them by a proper name; secondly, "critical" is an adjective, and why would you cap the adjective in a name and not the noun it's attached to (seeing as the capping is supposed to be making the noun proper, and adjectives are supposed to follow their nouns' leads)? "Critical hit" itself is not a noun, it's the noun "hit" with the "critical" property/adjective attached. It doesn't make sense as a proper noun anyway; you say "a critical hit", not "the Critical hit" (even right there it looks like "Critcal" is some sort of company-based adjective like Xerox), and you certainly don't cap it when you're using "crit" as a verb.

This has been bugging me ever since I started here and I hope to get things to make sense. Either cap both words and make the term "Critical Hit" or (my preferred option) get rid of the cap and go with "critical hit" like Valve and pretty much all players. Toomai Glittershine 04:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Bump (I guess I originally posted at a bad time). Toomai Glittershine 01:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That's a fair point~  Support changing it to "critical hit" — Wind 01:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

 Agree You really summed up why it shouldn't be capitalized in your paragraph so~ Fendermcbender 03:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support -- Well said, if Valve pronounces it "critical hit", then that's how it should be pronounced here on the Wiki. Ceiling Man 16:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support Makes sense to me. Let's stick with "critical hit"!  –  Epic Eric (T | C) 23:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

 Neutral The Style guide specifically mentions that it is correctly written as 'Critical hit' or 'Crit'. Atty 17:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Uh, this is a discussion of whether to change that. Toomai Glittershine 21:12, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate that, but your argument is simply that it isn't proper grammar. This may be true, but the Style guide explains why it's done this way. It makes more sense just to enforce the current system than to trawl through hundreds of articles editing all instances of 'Critical hit' or 'Crit'. Atty 22:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The style guide says "Words and abbreviations of specific names should be capitalized". It doesn't attempt to explain why, or even what specific names those are. Also, as I understand it we have bots that can trawl through the system making this kind of change, so that's not an issue. Toomai Glittershine 03:37, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

If it's wrong, then it should be changed. Tiring/"takes an amount of work" is not an excuse. -Object404 12:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I did not know about the bots. Maybe I misread/misunderstood the Style guide, but 'Critical hit' is capitalised because it is a term for a gameplay mechanic and has it's own article. Perhaps it should only be capitalised when it is being linked to that article? (For example, The Axtinguisher deals critical hits on burning opponents. versus The Axtinguisher deals Critical hits on burning opponents.) Anyway, I'll remove my disagreement. Atty 12:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see how being a mechanic or having an article means a term should be capped. We have an article about the mechanic of fire but I think we can all agree that writing it as "Fire" makes no sense. Toomai Glittershine 01:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Is anyone else going to comment/vote on this? Toomai Glittershine 01:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

 : Support Makes sense. -- Benjamuffin (talk | contribs) 07:14, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support Looks better, more consistency is good. Vlad the Impaler _(t/c) 21:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Since it's been almost a month and there are no oppose votes, shall I push for resolution? Toomai Glittershine 22:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

 Support Go for it. Up to you if you want to make WindBOT do it. Fendermcbender 21:16, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

 Support Mar 20:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

 Support I was curious when I saw the backpack description on Jarate having the "Mini-Crits" capitalized. However if that is in game there could be a potential conflict. OddPyro 14:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought this was considered finalized already... Anyway, this is pretty much passed as "yes". However, this cannot be implemented in WindBOT for reasons I've explained to a few people already: making things uppercase is easy, but making them lowercase is not. The reason for that is that when a sentence starts with "Critical hits...", then the "c" should still be left uppercase, but a simple lowercase-them-all filter would destroy that. And no, it is not possible to really determine when a a word is at the start of a sentence, as it is not always after a period. For example, if the sentence is at the start of a paragraph, or at the start of the whole page, or as a section name, or something like ... Some really intelligent sentence '''right here.''' Critical hits are deadly...". As such, it is effectively impossible to determine when a word is at the beginning of a sentence. However, it might be possible to detect some mid-sentence words, by examining around them: do they have a word right before them? Do they have a period right after them? If so, it is likely that they are not at the beginning of a sentence. I am not sure this is worth implementing, however, because manual cleanup would still be required. What do you think? — Wind 03:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Getting WindBOT would be too difficult, as you said. You'd need to set all kinds of parameters and specifications as to what is an acceptable "critical" or "Critical." If people recognize this as a problem it'll hopefully be fixed with other edits but most likely not. P.S. Does this discussion include Mini-Crits v. mini-crits? Fendermcbender 20:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

If the term is not being written as a proper noun (i.e. "critical hit" as opposed to "Critical Hit"), the I would suggest not involving WindBOT at all. Instead, just leave it as a work-in-progress, that is to say that contributors should make the change to any instances of "Critical Hit" over time as part of the normal editing process. As obsessive as I am in regards to spelling, this does not seem to be a significant enough issue to warrant WindBOT potentially causing errors with multiple articles which would then need to be attended to ASAP. Rather, the changes could be introduced over time as articles are edited. Esquilax 03:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

 Note Weapon pages now have fixed critical capitalization. Fendermcbender 21:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Patch Notes or anything that is timeline-related

I've noticed that some pages have the patch notes in reverse order (going from most recent to earliest) yet there are still many pages that go in chronological order. These should all be kept consistent with one another, so do we put them in reverse order for some reason or keep them in chronological order? Personally, I like chronological order because it makes the most sense and is appealing to look at imo. This makes a light joke about something similar, but I think you get the point. -- Psychopath 06:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe that's because Object404 is going through pages and changing 'Previous changes' to 'Update history' while also reordering them so the most recent change is at the top. Which I kinda agree with. —Moussekateer·talk 06:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The only time I've seen it make sense that the most recent thing be on top is with fossils, dirt, and other things that are physically buried by something above. I you are ok with reading in reverse chronological order, fine. But I still find it disorienting. -- Psychopath 06:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

That is precisely what old patches are: fossils. You always want to see the latest on top because once the list of updates grows, it's going to be really tiring to scroll to the bottom to see what's new. Check out the official Team Fortress software update history. Latest updates are always on top. -Object404 12:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I prefer reverse chronological, but it depends on context. Where are some of the inconsistencies you have noted? -- Pilk _(talk) 06:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Compare Camera Beard with Holy Mackerel. Either do all or nothing. Having only some changed in this way will only confuse people -- Psychopath 06:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if Windy can make WindBOT do this. Shouldn't be too difficult. —Moussekateer·talk 06:54, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the inconsistencies are confusing -- Sorry, haven't gotten around to "patching" all the pages yet. Been applying the changes as I land on the pages. See my reply below on why it should always be latest update at the top (basically it's the convention with all software patch changelogs). Once we have consensus, can you guys apply the changes when you see pages that haven't been fixed yet? Thanks! -Object404 12:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Chronological order is better and makes more sense. Since most pages are like this it's also more convenient. Whoever is changing all these pages should stop until more people weigh in, at least. seb26 [talk] 09:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

People reading a wiki page tend to read from top to bottom; putting in a section that goes in reverse (since people expect time to proceed forward as they read) is confusing. Toomai Glittershine 17:20, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

For me, reverse chronological is just confusing. There wasn't any real need to change it. - LingoSalad _(talk) 22:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Update History/Previous Changes/Changelog is a software/patch/programmer thing. As it is a software changelog thing, latest updates should always be placed at the top, with the oldest at the bottom in keeping with programming and software update conventions. All FAQs/Update History/Changelogs use this format. For example, check out the Arx Fatalis Patch Changelog. I guess the reason this doesn't seem as obvious to some of you is that Steam auto-patches everything and some of you are no longer used to having to download separate software patch installers which usually contain accompanying patch history readme/note text files. -Object404 12:07, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think your claim has any validity to it. None of us are somehow lower than you because we supposedly aren't software programmers and don't read patch notes. Why I oppose this change is because it's against the way people read articles. You have to remember that it's an encyclopedia and not just a site listing the latest changes. People read from top to bottom, to try and change this so it's supposedly easier (even though it isn't, since the majority of update history sections are quite short) is goong against the natural order of an article. And given the ordering of most pages now, changing any more to reverse-chronological would be counter-productive, serving only to confuse the reader with inconsistent pages. seb26 [talk] 20:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to have to change my mind and agree with seb, I found it jarring to read an article and find the latest change on the top. In my head it made sense to have the most recent change at the top but in practice it's flawed. —Moussekateer·talk 20:52, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense. Will start reverting Update Histories to chronological when I land on 'em. -Object404 03:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Just for reference, The 119th update page has them in chronological order. -- Netshroud (talk | contribs) 04:11, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this correct?

"Examples Sentry Gun, not Sentry gun (also Sentries, not sentries) Butterfly Knife, not Butterfly knife Critical hit, not Critical Hit (also Crit, not crit) Health, not health - when referring to the Health pickup (however health when used generally as in "the player's health")"

I have quoted this from the style guide, I was wondering if it is correct about the lack of a capital letter on the Critical hit. It says;

"Words and abbreviations of specific names should be capitalized unless referring to things that have become general types (see health example below). This will also apply to names of weapons, hats and terms (see glossary) within Team Fortress 2, however if the name has more than one word, any successive words should be title-cased."

I am just making sure, Critical hit is not in the glossary of terms but I was just checking.

Gender-Neutral Language

I just thought about this. Should these be added into the Manual of Style (especially the latter two)?

1. References to the (generic) player should be gender-neutral (as per Wikipedia's Manual of Style).
2. References to the mercenaries (all of the classes in Team Fortress 2) in general should be gender-neutral (owing to the Pyro's ambiguous gender).
3. References to a mercenary that's not the Pyro should use masculine pronouns. On the other hand, the Pyro be referred with gender-neutral pronouns (the Vintage Merryweather's description notwithstanding).

What do you think about these? Exaskliri (talk) 12:25, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I think this is just common sense, isn't it? For number 1 it can refer to more than 1 gender therefore it should be gender-neutral. The second one you're referring to multiple classes, and unless there's a he/she version of they/them you are already forced to use they/them. And the third one is already/should already be enforced.

I don't think there's need for a specific mention for this, as these are just basic grammar rules (at least, they seem like that to me).
GrampaSwood (talk) 12:32, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

1 & 3 seem good to me, and while the style is already enforced/widely used on here I think it'd be nice to explicitly include it in the style guide, since other forms like the 'generic masculine' exist theoretically so it might not be immediately obvious. { TidB | t | c } 12:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

For point 2, I meant an unspecified TF2 mercenary should use "they". I got your point, GrampaSwood (gendered plural third-person pronoun), though that's not what I meant. Exaskliri (talk) 14:10, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, well in that case I think the same applies as the first point I made, it can possibly refer to more than 1 gender so it should be neutral. I don't have anything against putting it in the guidelines though, but I personally don't find it super necessary either. I'll go with whatever other people vote for.
GrampaSwood (talk) 14:20, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Possible Mistake

“ Formatting functions like bold, italics, and linking are provided to improve readability of articles, therefore use them (see the Wikipedia cheatsheet for additional help).”

This sentence feels like “therefore use them” is either unnecessary or somebody was writing/editing the article and forgot to finish the sentence. I did not want to change anything just in case this was intentional and/or makes sense. Da703337 (talk) 07:40, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

It's a slightly awkward sentence but it's just meant to say that they should be used to improve readability.
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:37, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Excessive glossary terms

For the community strategy for the Demoman, the usage of the word "Knockback" was excessively used for the Loose Cannon and it just looked out of place with the word knockback always being shown as Knockback, I understand capitalizing the first usage of the word but using it when it's on the same sentence can be irritating to read. Do you think that using the capitalized version of the term should be used when it's extremely important to the sentence just so it will make it much less stressful for others that get triggered by that?

Zarioo12 (talk) 18:10, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Please keep these kinds of topics to the actual page's talk page rather than here, as it has not much to do with the Style guide. It's an issue of the community strategy overusing the word.
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:22, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Turning two links into one full link to the one being referred to.

So when editing overlinking has 2 different links next to each other without anything separating them is considered overlinking, but if going off the example where it has a class as one link and the very next word is their item's link, would it be considered overlinking if you made both words into one link to the page it's referring to?

Zarioo12 (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Turning 2 links into 1 link is not overlinking, no.
GrampaSwood (talk) 16:09, 11 May 2023 (UTC)