User:GrampaSwood/Help:Style guide/Cosmetic items

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Introduced in 2009, cosmetic items have become unmissable in Team Fortress 2. As such, there are many articles documenting them. This cosmetic items style guide covers how the articles should be written.

Title

Article titles should be their in-game name, minus the grammatical article ("the") or quality.

  • Example: Business Casual, called "The Business Casual" in-game, does not have its grammatical article included in the title.
  • Example: Spycrab, despite being exclusively available in Genuine quality, its title does not include the quality.

Images

Every cosmetic item article consists of a few images, as well as a few optional images:

  • Backpack image
  • Infobox image
    • In the case of a cosmetic item for two classes, the infobox image should be both classes
    • In the case of a team-coloured cosmetic item, the infobox should contain only the styles with team colour.
  • Painted variants
  • Gallery images
  • Style images

Hatnotes

The fittingly-named hatnotes are typically reserved for templates such as {{Other uses}} in the case of a cosmetic item sharing its name with other things (such as Archimedes), or {{Redirects here}} for cosmetic items which have redirects that could also fit for something else (such as the Prussian Pickelhaube).

Introductory paragraph

Quotation

Many cosmetic item articles have a quotation at the top. They are not strictly necessary, and an article missing a quotation is not missing anything. If you do wish to add one, make sure it's not something that could apply to most other cosmetics (e.g. "Scout enjoying his new jacket").

Description paragraph

The introduction paragraph of every cosmetic item article starts off in nearly the exact same way: "[Cosmetic name] is a cosmetic item for the [class]", followed by a description of its appearance. If the cosmetic is made by the community or is a promotional item, it is noted in the initial sentence as well before the cosmetic item link. Additionally, promotional cosmetics list the inspiration from the promotional media in the description paragraph rather than the Trivia section (for example, Alien Swarm Parasite). For cosmetic items which have an aspect that changes per-class, it is listed in a bulleted list instead (see: Full Metal Helmet).

Style paragraph

After the description paragraph follows the style paragraph, which lists all the available styles for the cosmetic item (using {{Style name}}). First, all style names are listed, followed by an explanation of what each style does. This is typically done in one sentence, but may also be done in a bullet list (such as on the Millennial Mercenary).

Other

After the style paragraph are a number of options, such as {{Halloween restricted}}, {{Assisting in Pyroland}}, contest participation (such as the Hat Describing Contest or Arkham Knight Contest). In general the order of this goes:

  1. Halloween restricted
  2. Assisting in Pyroland
  3. Misc
  4. Link to the Workshop submission.

Section order

After the introductory paragraph, most cosmetic items have several different sections. The order goes as follows:

Gallery

The first image in every cosmetic item gallery should be the Steam Workshop thumbnail, if it has one. After that the order goes:

  • Class gallery (if the cosmetic item is for two or more classes)
  • Concept art
  • Other images

See also

This section generally lists other relevant links. This includes cosmetic items with a similar reference, cosmetic items part of a Workshop set (not an in-game set), extremely visually similar cosmetic items/variants (e.g. Robot variants or Triboniophorus Tyrannus and Triboniophorus Gentlemannus), or cosmetic items from the samo promotion. This section is not intended for cosmetic items which look good together, as this is not a Fashion Fortress 2 Wiki.