Help:Style guide

This is a guide to editing the Hearthstone Wiki in accordance with the established style. It describes accepted and established practices at the Hearthstone Wiki, which are governed by precedent. Editors are advised to follow these guidelines closely in order to prevent their edits from being reverted.

The style guide exists to ensure cross-page consistency, a very important attribute of a wiki. Modifications may be suggested, but bear in mind that the style guide merely lists practices that are widely in use. It is not a means to impose extensive policies or even personal preferences.

Regardless, not all pages may follow the style guide entirely. While that may be due to good reason (which should then, in non-obvious cases, be marked, e.g. with a comment), it is often caused by the sheer number of pages, some of which have not been touched in a long time. All editors are encouraged to rectify such deviations.

The standards set out in this page are not set in stone, although they are mostly common to those found on many other well-established wikis, including Wikipedia. Because this page represents a guideline for the entire community, if you disagree with or question something found here, please discuss it on the guide's talk page, rather than simply editing the guide.

Content

• Use American English, as this is the official language used in-game.
• Write from an impersonal perspective. Do not use "I" or "we".
• Ratios are preferably displayed as fractions for accuracy (e.g. 1/3). If ratios are displayed as a percentage, round to two decimal places (e.g. 33.33%).
• All content needs to be factual and non-opinative, especially in Trivia section, but not in Tips section.
  • State just the facts. - Try not to use too many words like "fantastic" or "awesome". Try not to include personal perspective. Try replacing "This is a really awesome card, you should get it now!!!" with "This is a very effective card for any <class> deck."
  • Be neutral. - Try not to include individual opinions in articles. If there are conflicting opinions on a matter, mention them both. Don't take sides, or tell the reader what to think - simply supply the information for them to decide for themselves.
  • Content in Tips sections need to be clear and straight to the point. Avoid using unnecessary words and sentences, especially ones that tend to be analyze entities.
  • Don't put speculations in sections without {{Speculation-section}} template.
  • Abbreviations are avoided unless they are mentioned to confirm their existence for gameplay purposes. (such as search keywords in Collection manager)
• Don't put gameplay facts without a reliable reference (see #References for how to add references). These are considerable reliable references:
  • Official website
  • Team 5 members' posts and clarifications on social media
  • Data accessible by third-party tools (such as Firestone and Hearthstone Deck Tracker)
  • Video links with a timestamp (if needed) and description of the patch it was recorded in
• Avoid using third-party references that cited the original source. Use that original source as reference instead.
• Each category of a main article can also have separate Style guides, such as Style guide/Card for Card articles.
• Check your spelling and grammar. Always check for errors before saving your edit.

Capitalisation

Capitalisation should aim to obey the normal rules for the English language (sentence case), while also including capitalisation from the game itself. As a rule, the most important thing is to obey one or the other. However, it should be noted that even within the game itself usage is not always uniform.

• Card titles - Card titles should always follow the capitalisation found in-game (and in the wiki's data pages). For example, use "Cone of Cold", not "Cone of cold" or "cone of cold".
• Classes, races and titles - These should not be capitalised except when used as a proper noun, or at the start of a sentence. For example, use "The orc warlock Gul'dan", rather than "The Orc Warlock Gul'dan". This is standard English grammar.
  • Hero Power is the proper noun for Hearthstone terminology and should be captialized accordingly.

Dates

• When stating dates numerically, such as in tables and templates, the preferred form is YYYY-MM-DD (for example, 2013-11-22). This format is unambiguous and facilitates sorting.
• When stating dates in shorthand, as in most article sentences, the preferred form is D-MONTH-YYYY (for example, 22 November 2013). This format is unambiguous and agrees with the wiki's date format, as seen in signatures.
• Most importantly, the use of either MM-DD-YYYY or DD-MM-YYYY is strongly discouraged. These forms are highly ambiguous and may convey different dates to readers accustomed to different conventions. A date such as 10-12-2013 could mean 12 October 2013, or 10 December 2013, depending on the expectation of the reader, and presents no possible means of determining the intended date. For this reason an unambiguous format is preferred.

Bots

Hearthstone provides a lot of contents with a database-like structure and updates very regularly, so we often use bots to help organize articles for us based on databases we receive from Hearthstone client and databases we establish for ourshelves if the needs from the client are not sufficient.

When you edit a page using Source editor, you will often see HTML comments in a format like this: <!--#BOT NAME-->SOMETHING HERE<!--#BOTEND NAME-->. They are Bot indicators which are very useful for bots to generate and edit contents in the designated places precisely.

• You are still able to edit contents inside the indicators, please be mindful that they can be overridden by our bots. We will review your edits accordingly to decide whether should our bots make yours as exceptions and keep your changes.
• Do not remove the indicators, which would cause our bots to react unintendedly.

Sections

The top-level sections used on a page should be == Section ==. Followed by === Subsection ===, ==== Subsubsection ====, and finally ===== Subsubsubsection =====. Notably, = Header = should not be used.

Capitalise section headings as you would a normal sentence in the English language. This means capitalising only the first letter of the heading, and the first letter of certain words, such as "Hearthstone" or "Blizzard". For example, use "Strategy and tactics" rather than "Strategy and Tactics". Section headings should following the wiki's normal rules for capitalisation. Note that this is contrary to what you'll read in most media, but is a standard on wikis, including wikipedia.

Templates

• How the values of parameters should be determined are mostly mentioned in Template documentations.
• Parameter and Cargo fields nammes use camelCase.
• Cargo table names use PascalCase.
• When you use {{{parameter}}}s, their names may have one of these prefixes:
  • derived_: Value is automatedly determined by bots or templates, but editors can override it with a fixed value.
  • custom_: Value is not determined automatedly.

Creating new articles

Be careful and thoughtful when creating a new article.

• Check the article doesn't already exist. - Check for similar names, different spellings, etc.
• Check the article's subject isn't already covered on another page. - Search related pages to see if the subject is already written about.
• Consider whether the subject merits its own page. - Many details of Hearthstone are small and simple enough that it may be easier for readers to read about them as part of a larger article. Only create a separate article for a subject if its content is substantial, or it doesn't naturally fit into another larger article.
• Consider links, and how readers will find the article. - Ideally, include links to the new article from other pages. You can also add a brief summary or dummy section on a larger page, which then links to the new article for more information. Choosing an appropriate name for the article is also important, allowing readers to find it easily.

Naming

• Choose an article's name carefully. - Consider the different possible names, and try to decide the best one for the article. Try to choose a name readers will expect to find, or think to search for. This makes it easier for readers to find the page.
• In general, use the singular for article titles. - For example, use "class" instead of "classes", and "quest" instead of "quests". There are some exceptions to this, such as certain card lists.
• Capitalise article titles as you would a normal sentence in the English language. - Article names should follow the same rules as section headings.

References

When including information that is not readily apparent, or directly observable in the game itself, use a reference to cite the source of the information, like this:

This statement needs a citation.<ref>[http://www.website.com/page.html Article about subject]</ref>

Add a reference section to the bottom of the page to display all references cited on that page, like this:

==References==

{{reflist}}

References help other editors to verify information added to pages. This is especially important years later when trying to determine if the information is still up to date. If the information can't be verified it may be removed, even if it is in fact correct. Adding even a simple reference can save others a lot of time, make sure old information is removed appropriately, and that good information is kept in place.

Adding good references can be made more convenient through certain templates, such as {{cite web}}, {{cw}} and {{tw}}. See individual template pages for details.

Talk pages

• New topics should be placed at the bottom of the page. - This can be easily done by clicking the '+' symbol next to the 'Edit' button at the top of the page.
• Sign your comments. - Add your signature to any comment you post on a talk page, by typing four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comment. This will automatically be converted to your username and the current time and date, like this: User (talk) 11:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC). If you don't sign your comments, it will be harder to read the page, but your identity and time of posting will still be recorded.
• Indent replies. - When posting a comment in reply to what someone else has written, indent your comment by adding an additional colon (:) to the start of your comment. This makes it easier to distinguish separate comments.
• Start each new section with a section heading. - This helps keep discussions separate. Use a short heading to explain what the section is about, such as "New table". Using the + plus sign next to "Edit source" or "Create source" on the top right gives you a form which does this automatically using a section title you provide.
• Be civil, and respectful to your fellow editors. Assume good faith. - Respect other editors' opinions, even if they are different from your own. Assume good faith by expecting that any editor who takes the time to edit a page is doing so with the intention of improving the wiki.
• Do not modify fellow editors' comments. - While all editors should expect their contributions on content pages to be edited by others, the opposite is true on talk pages. Part of respecting fellow editors is allowing their words to be seen as written during discussions. One of the very few exceptions to this rule is when proposed content is hosted in talk pages for collaboration.
• Do not modify your comments after the fact. - Similar to the last, do not edit your own comments after the fact to distort the flow of discussion. Very minor edits, mainly adding links without changing wording, are acceptable within reason. Generally, the better option is to simply make a new comment.

For examples of proper indentation, see Wikipedia:Indentation. For more extensive guidelines, see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines.

If you post a message on a talk page, you might like to add that page to your watchlist, so that you can easily see when further comments have been made.

Do not have the same conversation on multiple talk pages. If you wish to gain the attention of readers from multiple sources (such as when proposing merging two pages), post the discussion on one page, and direct readers from the other to that discussion.

Using different talk pages

• Use article talk pages to discuss changes to that article
• Use user talk pages to leave messages for that user

Philosophy

• Be bold - If you see something that needs doing, do it. Do your best to adhere to the guidelines on this page, and be respectful of other editors, but do not let that deter you from improving the wiki. Edits can be easily reverted, so it's very hard to do anything that can't be fixed.
• …but please be careful! - Always do your best to consider the consequences of your edits, and whether they are the correct thing to do. See something you can't understand? It may be an error that simply requires fixing. Or, it may be part of a larger situation which you aren't aware of. If in doubt, check around, and see if you discover a reason for the state of the page. Check that page's talk page and review the edit history, especially for comments which might explain things.
• Be considerate, civil and respectful to your fellow editors. Assume good faith. - We're all working on this wiki together. While opinions and approaches may vary, we should all be trying to achieve the same goal - the improvement of this wiki. Try to leave personal preference and disagreements out of it. Assume good faith by expecting that any editor who takes the time to edit a page is doing so with the intention of improving the wiki.
• If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. - Understand that anything you post will most likely be edited, adjusted and eventually changed beyond all recognition - even if the edit you made was good. In some cases, your edits may be reverted. Try not to take this personally, but try to understand the reasons for the changes, and assume good faith on the part of those editors. If you're unable to understand an edit, or believe it to be mistaken, you can always post a (polite) message on the user's talk page, or the talk page for the article, asking for clarification. Understand that you are contributing to an evolving resource of information, a communal construct comprised of the edits of numerous editors, none of whom can individually claim to own the wiki.

The wiki is like an enormous city of knowledge, composed of an uncountable number of pages, sentences, words and characters. It is made possible only through the combined efforts of all its editors, whether long-time contributors or simply passing readers who took a moment to fix a grammatical error or correct some out of date information. Over time, this trickle of contributions will build to something far greater than any one editor alone could have achieved. Enjoy being part of this collective phenomenon, this small component of the global wikisphere, and this unique community of editors.

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