Ultima Codex talk:Style guide

Formatting for mantras, words of power, etc.[edit]

I've seen mantras and words of power handled in a couple of different ways around the wiki (allcaps, quotes, etc.). My understanding of grammar is that when citing words themselves, they should be italicized, which is what I've started doing whenever I encounter such cases. Do others agree with this? --Terilem 04:46, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, we should have policy on this. Usually I see italics for words that come from a different language (loanwords, for instances, like "savoir-faire" or Latin words). But I don't see mantras and words of power as language, but just magical syllables. Those I'd be inclined to put in upper case. AngusM 05:47, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is most certainly true of loanwords as well, but it's not quite the point I was making. Italics apply to words discussed as words, which I believe is what the mantras are on the wiki. For instance, it would be correct for me to write "I like the word cheese," not, "I like the word CHEESE." --Terilem 05:54, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

Obviously I go for the former. In fact, there's a bit in the style guide that deals with this. But I thought we were talking about mantras. I don't see the connection to your example. AngusM 18:31, September 16, 2010 (UTC)

We were talking about mantras; I was just using an everyday example to illustrate my point. Take, for instance, this line:

Meditating at the shrine, the traveler has to chant the mantra "MU", to find the ways of Compassion.

For the reasons I've discussed, I see no reason why that shouldn't be:

Meditating at the shrine, the traveler has to chant the mantra mu to find the ways of Compassion.

--Terilem 00:11, September 17, 2010 (UTC)

I can ask that schoolteacher/consultant, but I think for magical gibberish using upper case is what's typical.

We should be able to find some kind of net resource to consult on issues of typesetting and stuff, but I'm not even sure what to Google. AngusM 04:33, September 17, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I had a look around at some guidelines on proper usage of italics as well as Wikipedia's style guide, which is how I arrived at my view on the matter. I should probably specify that I'm referring more to when these words are used in the main content of an article, not in a table or infobox, etc. In the context I'm talking about, allcaps just looks... bad. --Terilem 07:53, September 17, 2010 (UTC)

This may be a year old, but I'd like to put it out there that mantras and magical words of power are in fact loanwords from Gargish rather than magical gibberish. It may be prudent to italicize! --Warder Dragon 21:30, 15 October 2011 (PDT)

I don't know why I didn't bring this up before, but what precedents do the games/manuals set? In my mind's eye, I see allcaps for magical gibberish (loanwords, notwithstanding). The Ultra-Mind 19:49, 16 October 2011 (PDT)

Warder makes a good point; I might also mention the words of power for dungeons are all Latin loanwords. In any case, this is the breakdown for the games and manuals:

Mantras

U4: Mostly allcaps, except for the chanting druids in Yew
U5: Runic
U6: Not capitalized
U9: Mostly not capitalized, but a handful of instances are in allcaps

Words of Power (magic)

U5: Not capitalized on the in-game spells list nor in the manual; Runic when appearing in dialogue
U6: Not capitalized in-game; not capitalized in the manual's syllables list, but allcaps for the spells list
U7/SI: Not capitalized in-game, allcaps in the manuals
U8: Not capitalized in-game, nor in the manual and clue book

Words of Power (dungeons)

U4: The syllables of veramocor are each given without capitalization
U5: Runic in-game, allcaps in the clue book

It's a bit of a mixed bag, but by my counting allcaps are in the minority. In the case of the Words of Power for dungeons, I'm of the opinion they're written that way in the clue book to fit in with the fact that the player's input is always in allcaps in U5. Finally, out of curiosity I tried to find some examples of magical gibberish on Wikipedia, and they appear to italicize: see here and here. Given that they aren't acronyms or file names, I can't say I understand the rationale behind using allcaps for them on a wiki. --Terilem 00:58, 17 October 2011 (PDT)

10 years on, I just realized that the wind was blowing against allcaps for magical gibberish :( So, now I'll work towards reversing that.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 08:33, 25 August 2022 (MDT)

Narrative for contingencies[edit]

Your classic narrative just has one chain of events. Computers, with their jumps and conditional branches, don't allow for that. So the narrative for a computer game requires a new paradigm, and, I believe, a policy for the Codex. Here're the ideas I have:

All contingencies are discussed, while giving as much preference and validity as possible to each. I'm not terribly fond of this one, and implementing it to its fullest degree would be madness. I was researching Wilfred the other day, and realized that there are about a dozen ways in which he turns down the Avatar's offer to join the party, and only one way in which he accepts. A more reasonable way to implement this would be just to ignore many of the contingencies, or (in the case of Wilfred rejecting the party) to just lump various similar contingencies into one.
Only specify one contingency as the main one, and any others can be tucked away in another section. This seems to happen most often, with the "other" section being "Trivia"—I almost never see "if" outside of a Trivia section. This, of course, invites a hail of controversy over what the "one" contingency should be. I would guess that unavatarly or game-stopping contingencies, like that which causes the destruction of Britiannia or the (unresurrectable) death of the Avatar, would be deemed not to be a main continency. But it won't always be so simple.
A hybrid of 1. and 2. I've seen 1. get done very rarely, when it seems that there is more than one contingency wherein none of them are more obviously valid than the others. Of course, a hybrid would invite even more controversy. Well, that's what discussion pages and a consensus template (when we get it) are for.
Something I haven't thought of yet.

The Ultra-Mind 02:29, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

Wow, did I ever let this issue get old! And not a single direct address to it :(. 2. is definitely a very bad idea--it encourages subjectivity and leads to confusion. But just look at how complicated 1. gets (cf what I had to say about Wilfred)! This is why I think it needs to be addressed.

Perhaps some ideas will be inspired w/this starter: keep in mind that a full spread of contingencies for narratives can be a lot more numerous than you think. So when writing, try to keep the language general, and be mindful that someone might come along and find you being overly specific. And the cure might be worse than the disease, so, above all, accept that no narrative article is ever going to be perfect. The Ultra-Mind 20:32, 15 October 2011 (PDT)

Ok, so I've thought long and hard about it, and I think the following section should be published, in the spirit of nothing is perfect:

The thing about CRPGs is that they are not your conventional single-narrative story. They are choose-your-own-adventures with an infinite number of outcomes. This makes it very difficult to map aspects of games onto encyclopedic articles. There is no easy solution. However, following these guidelines will alleviate the problem:
Sift out events that are considered exceptional or failures from the main body. These do not necessarily need to be kept secret, but could be revealed in the ubiquitous "Trivia" section.

These "para-events" are things like the Avatar dying, failing a quest, behaving un-Virtuous (since Ultima IV) or anything that you feel is unnecessary to correct game play.

Try to avoid discussing aspects that can fork off into core events altogether. You'll just have to use your best judgement in applying this one, since, if you treat this like a perfect solution, you'll be ignoring a lot of elephants in the room.

That's all I can think of. I think that'll help the editor understand a thing or two about how to keep article authoritative and encyclopedic. The Ultra-Mind 22:15, 13 January 2013 (PST)

Italics for spell names?[edit]

I have no idea what would be grammatically sound for these, since spells obviously don't exist in real life. In the context of a sentence, Origin has done it both ways, tending towards un-italicized in older materials and italicized in later ones (i.e. U7 clue book, SI manual & clue book, U8 manual & clue book). I tend to prefer seeing the spell names in italics, myself. Thoughts? --Terilem 08:18, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

I'd be OK with italics. I don't like having them capitalized, and the few times I've removed the capitalization, it still doesn't quite feel right. Dungy 11:20, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to keep them capitalized, not only because I'm used to seeing them written like that in all Ultima literature, but also because I'd say they're basically names/titles, so it would seem to make sense. --Terilem 11:30, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

Then say as much on the lexicon talk page. AngusM 19:52, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

OK, not a huge fan of caps, but when I come across the ones I've changed, I'll change them back. I'll also start italasizing spell names as I encounter them too. That seems to be where consensus is heading here. Dungy 23:09, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

Hang on, when you guys are saying "capitalize" do you mean all caps or capital initials? If we agree that they are proper nouns (and that's how I feel), then they should definitely have capital initials.

So my vote is that they their initials and only their initials should be capitalized. AngusM 16:41, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I meant capital initials only. You know how I feel about allcaps :P --Terilem 08:27, October 12, 2010 (UTC)

So, we agree on italization? If so, I will add it to the Style Guide, and since I'm working on spell pages, I'll start italizing them in their articles.--Sega381 06:17, 1 March 2011 (PST)

Past and Present Tense[edit]

Ok, I think we've reached a point where we should start deciding on what tense to use for in-game events, such as NPC's biographies or game plots. As of now, there are some articles written in the past tense, and others in the present tense. The past tense uses an in-game POV, as if the articles are written by someone living in that Universe, after the last game. The present tense uses an out-of-game POV, as if the articles are written by someone from, well, the real world. I'm not sure which way to go, but I think now is the time to decide on this. I hope to get some opinions on this?--Sega381 00:40, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

I've always personally preferred past tense when discussing NPC biographies and plot points. Dungy 00:50, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

That exactly why I've written in-game events in the past tense. The game had already happened and the story moved on. I tried to write them in the present one time, but it simply looked wrong and I dropped it.--Tribun 00:54, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

I'm very much in favor of the present tense, as the past tense often is used to imply one "correct" course of action which can seem incongruous with how an individual reader might have approached the game with their particular Avatar. I feel that the present tense also gives a greater sense that each game is something that can be a current experience (as they are for people just discovering them). This should probably also be addressed under the discussion of how to address branching in games.

Lastly, even if the past tense is officially adopted, I'd very much prefer it if the opening sentence and the body of the article match tense-wise. (Blu3vib3 00:55, October 2, 2010 (UTC))

If you refer with this to the opening sentence of NPC articles, they describe an NPC's characteristics, not the events. That's the reason why it is in the present, while the rest is in the past.--Tribun 00:57, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

As a reader, the distinction hasn't seemed very clear to me and the sudden shift feels really awkward linguistically. Could perhaps, there be a separate section after the descriptor, denoting a shift from definition to history? (Blu3vib3 01:10, October 2, 2010 (UTC))

In any event, I agree that the opening sentence and body should match tenses. For example, even though I'm not decided on which tense to use, I've written several NPC pages in the past tense. And the opening sentence too, such as "Bleh was a mage that lived at Moonglow during ...". I understand the characteristics point you are trying to make, but if the article is written in past tense from an in-game point of view, the characteristics of the NPC are also a thing of the past, and writing just the intro in an out-of-game POV and the rest in an in-game POV seems very inconsistent.

In any event, I think the best argument for writing everything in the past tense is that it somehow "immerses" you more into the game, by telling it as it is something that actually happened. Basically, it is more fun and engaging. But on the other hand, this is actually an encyclopedia, and games, unlike movies and books, actually can be played in different ways, making the "canon" on what the character actually did more difficult to decide (except on major plot points). And, in any event, things in the game have NOT already happened, it depends on which game someone is actually playing (though if one takes an in-game POV, of course, things already happened). And the present tense IS more encyclopedic, which is what we may want to achieve here. I do agree and insist that the past tense is more "fun" and more, hmmm, "likeable"? from a fan point of view, and personally I like writing in that tense. But I'm starting to thinkg that the present tense is, objectively, the best way to go.--Sega381 01:17, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

While I really can understand that the past tense is more fun for the writer (much like the dorky in game journals I kept while playing these games as a kid), for me as a reader, I feel sort of alienated by entries that seem to reflect ____ editor's Avatar's experience. To me, hearing what another person did in the game feels awkward, as I often say to myself "My Avatar didn't do that!" In some cases, really interesting dialog happens when certain courses of action are followed - such as when you fail to kill Voldin and he is arrested, or when Iolo or Shamino stand trial in Fawn instead of Dupre, and I like to think that the entries should be able to reflect the realities of quirky players who sentimentally refuse to kill the Bliy Skup Ductosnore or who murder Frank the Fox for being a twit. (Blu3vib3 01:30, October 2, 2010 (UTC))

We are trying to get away from subjectivity, so you are on the right track there. What I don't quite get is why you (and others) think the present tense is more objective, and the past tense is immersing. I see it as the opposite. If you are talking in the present tense, it's a bit like you are there (and immersed) which puts you on a subjective footing.

BTW, it's seems that everyone believes that the entire Codex should be one tense. I don't think this has to be. I think most articles should be past (talking about pre-U1 in the present would look really strange) but what about articles like Britannia? Who's willing to change that article to make it look like Britannia doesn't exist anymore? So, yeah, I guess Avril wrote Complicated with me in mind, but we might find that we can apply tenses differently, according to the context. This, BTW, is a different issue than the one about changing tense within an article. AngusM 03:15, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

The assumption that every article on the wiki should have the same tense is just to simplify things. We may not get there, we may choose to have mixed tenses or whatever (though I'm not convinced there will be a real definite argument on that, but maybe). Anyway, the idea is to define what tense or tenses we will use.

About the present thing, the POV it uses is really simple for me (unlike the decision we have to make). Let's start with a simpler example: talking about Ultima II graphics. If you say "Ultima II had very bad graphics", that is not the proper tense to use (unless you are saying something like "... at a time when other games had better graphics"). Ultima II had bad graphics and still has bad graphics (it's just an example, forget about the grphics). The game is the same as it was when it came out as it is now (besides upgrades and the like). Using the past tense is to somehow relate the game to one's personal experience, or time of writing, or in perspective with the game that follows. The game, as a work of art, or more specifically its characteristics, are out of time. The time it came out, the reception it got, even its influences, etc, all of that is inside the past. But the game itself, much like a movie or a book, is out of time. That is why the present tense should be used in this cases (you can probably find more about this in the Wikipedia policies).

Now, this extends to the contents of the book/game/movie. In a movie, there might be a scene where a guy kills another one. You don't say "a guy killed another one" in a movie, unless you're somehow interwoving the moment when you watched the movie with the plot itself. The guy didn't kill the other in the past. Every time you see the movie, the guy kills the other. So, as the rest of the characteristics of the work itself, the actions in the movie should be described in the present tense (this does not include things that, according to the movie plot, happened before the movie started in that universe; that is past from every point of view. This last point is interesting, so I'll get back on it later). Once again, you can read more about it in Wikipedia policies, and probably in articles on the subject. Btw, this is not immersion, this is interaction with the book/movie/game. The tense is present because you will always be interacting with the game in the present (unless, again, you are refering to some specific experience you had the first time you played the game, for example, which is not the focus of this wiki). There is no subjectivity in describing your interaction in present. If you color your description with opinions, well, then that is subjective. If your are describing how the sky is, there is no subjectivity in using the present tense. The sky still exists, that is why you use the present tense. The same applies to these works of art: ther characteristics and playable story still exist, so they should be described in the present tense.

On the other hand, if you describe events in a game/movie/book as having taken place in the past, you are actually placing yourself in the game/movie/book timeline, and you are standing in a point in time after the events of the work took place (at the end of the movie, book or game). This implies that, besides the fact that you finished, you are assuming that things happened in one specific way, because they already happened. Furthermore, if you WANTED to write something from an in-game perspective, you HAVE to pick a spot in the timeline, which, unless you're explaining things as a character who is accompaning the action, is usually after the game /book /movie has ended. In fact, in a game series, this is what the manual does: it picks a point in time after the previous games ended, and explains stuff form an in-game POV, in the past tense.

So, and I insist this is not something I think or that I'm just making up, present tense is used to describe stuff happening in works such as books/movie/games. If the past tense is used for this, you are either refering to a particular, specific interaction you had with the work, and that interaction happened in the past (which is very subjective), or you're getting inside the work's universe and talking from a spot in time after the events happened. So, you're either adding subjectivity or using an in-game POV.

Now, an interesting point here is that, if one forgets about all the games except for Ultima IX (I know, yikes, but whatever), from the point of view of U9, everything before the start of the game did happen in the past from every point of view. This is probably why one may tend to use past tense (in fact, many articles in this wiki are written assuming U7 is the "current" game, and seeing every other game in U7's past). But this is a very limited approach, as a reader may not care about U9 (understandably), ans just care about U3, and from U3's POV, its events are the present. Therefore, if we want to describe events from a movie/book/game without using another work in that series as a reference, AND we do not want to relate it to a particular time we played/watched/read it OR use an in-game POV, we should use the present tense.

So for me, the question is, going back to the start of this question, whether we want to write about in-game events from an in-game POV (which will use past) or from a out-of-games (and not using any game a as a reference) POV, which, for all the reasons described above, must be in present tense.

Btw, I've been in several discussions about this topic in other Wikis, and the decisions have never been very easy.... Oh, and sorry on the long rambling, ufff...--Sega381 03:58, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

Everyone has been making good points here, and I certainly understand the argument for present tense. However, the sheer amount of work that would be required to convert every article might just bring me to tears. It's been hard enough just getting the content of a lot of them into respectable shape to begin with, and the prospect of turning around and rewriting every single one all over again... I don't know if I can cope with that. :P --Terilem 04:15, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm glad to see so much interest in such a fundamental issue.

I don't think we need be looking at the cost of instantly realizing a policy issue when setting one. 1, we don't have to realize a policy as soon as it is set, we can do that over time. 2, it'll only be harder to realize what we should have been doing early on if we leave it. AngusM 04:43, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, basically the idea is to define how it SHOULD be, so that new articles will follow that policy. New edits should too, so if someone is editing Sin'Vraal to add a bit of trivia, they can use that opportunity to rewrite the tense in that article, if needed. There is NO way we'll do that quickly, but that's not the idea. I do think that, whatever we eventually choose, we HAVE to decide on a position. Otherwise, the Codex will always be inconcistent between articles. If we do choose some position, eventually, maybe in a LONG time, the Codex will be coherent. But at least we'll be on a consistent track.--Sega381 12:32, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

I guess part of my point is that up till now I have been striving for consistent tense in the articles I edit, which is to say converting everything following the introductory line (though that "rule" has never sat right with me) to past tense when required. I have to admit past tense feels more comfortable to me, but maybe it's just because it's what I've grown accustomed to. On the other hand, I can't deny you guys are right; movie plots and such on Wikipedia are handled in present tense, and it would be fair to say past tense is more befitting an in-game narrative than an encyclopedia. --Terilem 13:08, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, my opinion has changed on the tense issue, largely because its lack of resolution has left me writing many many many articles in a form of the past tense and trying to reconfigure it to work in the present makes me very very sad. However, I should point out that I've been big on writing in the imperfect past (would have, has done) rather than the perfect past (had, did) as this form of the past tense allows for actions to remain suitably ambiguous to allow for the possibility of other events. My main reason for hating on the past tense is that many articles were (and still are) using it to denote actions which were optional in game-play as completed (ex: "The Avatar convinced Morz not to join the Fellowship ." rather than "The Avatar could convince Morz not to join the Fellowship.") and this really got my goat. (I always feel sort of annoyed when there's an article outlining the Avatar as having definitively done something which my Avatar did not do, but recognize that it would be counterproductive to write something akin to "The Avatar killed Morz, used his body as a backpack and then built a house out of barrels.")

Given that the majority of articles are in past tense, my desire would currently be to A) Make the introductory paragraphs imperfect past B) Make the articles imperfect past, using perfect past when events clearly happened ONE way. This means that perfect past should be used sparingly ONLY when things COULD NOT have occurred in any other manner.--Blu3vib3 16:19, 21 October 2011 (PDT)

Thus, the confusion that chased me off this issue and probably everyone else, too. And again, it smacks of that contingency issue I've been trying to bring up. Perhaps we should just put our ideas into the guide and hope that someone's revulsion over such unilateral action will spark interest.

I think Blu3 has the right idea: use the imperfect past to deal w/contingencies. However, don't think that we should always be working the past. I did mention that talking about Britannia like it doesn't exist anymore wouldn't work. That's why I started talking about classifying articles so that their tenses can be decided that way. The Ultra-Mind 13:48, 22 October 2011 (PDT)

Tense Matching[edit]

While this topic was never really resolved as to which tense should be used overall, I think most people in this discussion voiced a desire to at least make the introductory sentences and the article body have matching tenses. Can we at least get some resolution on this part of the issue, as making the intro-portions match the body is a much simpler undertaking than overhauling the tense of entire articles.--Blu3vib3 14:39, 21 October 2011 (PDT)

Yes, it does seem rather awkward to be changing tenses. Right now my mind is on Simon which is confusing enough when it's about a guy, who's pretending to be another guy who died before the game began. It's even stranger to be saying "is" about a guy who isn't.

Perhaps it would be best to settle this by settling the issue of the section on which this sub-section is based. Perhaps we need to classify all articles as biographies, events, places, game concept, conceptual compilations, etc. and decide along those lines. The Ultra-Mind 15:08, 21 October 2011 (PDT)

Article structure[edit]

I think it's time to add guidelines on article structure to the style guide. There are several things we can work out, but to me there is a minimal structure that every article should follow (though sections are optional):

* Disambig notices
* Infobox
* <Article Contents and Sections>
* LoreQuotes
* Trivia
* See Also 
* References
* External Links
* Nav bars
* Categories

Of course, each type of article may have a specific structure for the "Article Contents and Sections", such as one for NPCs, another for Dungeons, or Towns, or Games. But the layout above should be common for every page, I think.--Sega381 13:51, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

What a coincidence, I just started dealing w/a format issue on Talk:Gypsies. Yes, that structure looks pretty good. I'd also recommend we have soft guidelines, in which there would be that issue that I brough up on the Gypsy talk page, which is: in an article whose emphasis is in-game, any out-game material should be placed towards the end. For instance, if Chuckles is based on an OSI employee, don't clog the first screen with a biography of that employee. Hmm... now that I've said that, I see that I the out-game guy is talked about in the first paragraph. It's only one sentence, but maybe the article would be better served if it was put in the Trivia section. AngusM 04:12, October 12, 2010 (UTC)

Good points. I've added the "Trivia" section at the end of the structure, just after the main content. I agree with the soft guidelines, too, if needed. Btw, the structure I've outlined is very general, and used in Wikipedia and almost any other wiki (in fact, we are using it here), so if no further comments appear, I'll add it to the style guide. The details of the structure of the inner article contents, and the soft guidelines, will probably require more discussion.--Sega381 00:34, October 14, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, main structure added. I'm not sure on how to follow with the specific article structure for the rest. Off the top of my mind, I think we should define a structure for articles of the following types: games, NPCs, monsters, items, places (towns/dungeons/etc)... there are a lot more, but I think these are the most important ones.--Sega381 16:06, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

In the outline above, I've added LoreQuotes and categories, to the places I think they belong. Categories have no other place to be, really, but if anyone disagrees with the LoreQuotes being always at the bottom, before trivia, we can change that. Otherwise, I'll be adding that to the style guide.--Sega381 15:53, 11 December 2010 (PST)

Ok, added to the guide. Now I should start on the specific articles structure...--Sega381 10:56, 19 December 2010 (PST)

Archive[edit]

I created the link for the archive page at the top and archived a few things. If you feel like they weren't closed feel free to either a) move them back or b) start up the conversation again with a link to the archive section. -- Fenyx4 05:35, October 7, 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for not publishing policy[edit]

The proposal about Unicode I made is about ready to be promoted to policy, but I'm starting to look at the size of the style guide, and wonder if we have to start worrying about flooding it with material. The article that triggered this issue is fully viewable by a few other editors, who are the only ones who've commented. I've been able to see the Unicode on a Ubuntu system. I was able to see it on a notebook, with an 8" screen, a 4Gb hdd, in a 3rd world country run by a wacko. The only system that has had problems with it is the one I'm using now. So while I think it's a very good policy, I also think it couldn't be a more unimportant policy. For that reason, I think it should be made policy, and therefore enforced, but the discussion should be removed to the archive, with a note indicating that it is policy. And I think that when publishing policy in the future, one needs to ask if it is a message that needs to get out. Currently, I would say that there's nothing in the guide that needs to be removed. The Ultra-Mind 20:32, 15 December 2010 (PST)

I agree. Eventually, we might need to separate the guide in sub-articles. But I'm not sure it will go that far.--Sega381 06:05, 19 December 2010 (PST)

That idea crossed my mind as well, but I think that would just aggravate the problem, since then readers would have to not only wade through the spam that is the unimportant policies, but they'd also have all the material on style spread out over multiple pages. The Ultra-Mind 21:47, 20 December 2010 (PST)

References[edit]

I have some ideas about how to abbreviate references:

If the subject of the article is entirely contained w/in one game, perhaps omitting the game name is worthwhile.
Similar to 1. if the article is about an NPC, references to that NPC's quotes from a transcript don't need the character's name. Perhaps when Sega made these templates, it seemed to go w/out saying, but it was too subtle for me.
I seem to remember (when I cared about them in hardcopies) that repetitions in references were skipped over w/Ibid or some such Latin thing.

The Ultra-Mind 20:16, 21 January 2011 (PST)

As for number 3, I would avoid the "ibid" and similar stuff. I don't think it's that necessary, and I think it would be difficult to implement. Besides, if I remember correctly, Wikipedia recommends against it, probably for similar reasons.

As for number 1, it may be useful, but I'm not sure if it would be easy to evaluate. In fact, more than an article being contained in one game, it's the references that should be contained in one game in order for this to work. I'm not entirely convinced, though.

As for number two, there has to be a way to differentiate quotes from the artcle's NPC, from other NPC quotes. So what I think you're proposing is that if there are quotes from that NPC, ignore the name in the reference; but if we have quotes from other NPCs, include their names in the reference (all in the NPC article). The template supports this, but I guess I'll have to test it out to see how it looks. It may work nicely, though.--Sega381 06:30, 1 March 2011 (PST)

I think you need to reword that. Or I need to reword my proposal. I was think of omitting certain reference fields when the response would be "well, duh, who did you think said it?" or "duh, what game did you think it came from?". This wouldn't work for an article like Shamino since he was in more than one Ultima and references are likely to be taken from other NPCs. Short Round, however, only appeared in U4 and I don't believe anyone else had anything to say about him, so omitting the game and the NPC would seem to make sense for just about all references there. You seemed to get the idea for #2, but #1 is much the same concept.

Ok, that's one strike against #3.

Oh, and anyone looking at this might want to look at the discussion at Talk:Captain_Fox. In the end, what seemed to be the best idea there was that the style used in Gwenno be used, wherein references that repeat a lot of fields get bunched on one line. The Ultra-Mind 17:43, 1 March 2011 (PST)

Yes, I think I wasn't reading clearly the other day. I see your point and the similarities between 1 and 2. But after reading the Captain Fox discussion, I guess we could start with the Gwenno style. It seems everyone agrees with that, and I like it too. So, I think you may add the "Gwenno style" to the Style Guide if you want.--Sega381 05:07, 2 March 2011 (PST)

Oh, and while we're at it, there is another small point we could add to the references guide. In Wikipedia, when adding a reference, it is added after the closest punctuation sign, not after the end of the corresponding word. Therefore, references are put after a period, comma, etc. In the Captain Fox article, they are put after the end of the word, something which I find more distracting, as it prevents the sentence from ending right away. Putting the reference after the punctuation sign makes for a more cleaner reading, and btw, it is also the way they are used in the Gwenno article. I think we should add this to the guide, too.--Sega381 05:18, 2 March 2011 (PST)

I see. I did the references for Captain Fox and I guess when I did, I had previously seen references placed anywhere they were relevant. It didn't occur to me that they were placed only with punctuation, but if that's what's normal, then I agree, we should do that. The Ultra-Mind 16:04, 2 March 2011 (PST)

Ok, so, seeing there is no further comments on the topic, I'll add this two points to the style guide.--Sega381 17:11, 6 March 2011 (PST)

Italics addendum[edit]

As per a discussion on my talk page between Tribun and me, it seems a need has arisen to specify whether the rules of formatting we previously decided upon for game titles, movies, etc. also apply to section headers (for instance, here and here). Personally, I had always thought it safe to assume those guidelines applied to all wiki content—headings included—and would find it inconsistent if it were otherwise. Wikipedia's headings do include this formatting (see their Wing Commander franchise article for an example) and I see no reason why they should be exempt here. What do others think? --Terilem 20:10, 1 October 2011 (PDT)

I hadn't given it much thought before. It seems to me that having the formatting differ between different elements on the wiki is inconsistent - I like Wikipedia's way of doing it. I say if we have a rule for how to write something, it should apply to all parts of the wiki. --Warder Dragon 03:04, 3 October 2011 (PDT)

The Wing Commander article isn't a bad example, but in the absence of WP's policy on this issue in black and white, I'd be more inclined to go with examples that are--how shall I say?--higher brow or under greater scrutiny. What I found isn't too good:

Examples of italicized publications in headings:

Examples where italics are suppressed:

Star Trek: perhaps this shouldn't even be regarded as a publication, but a phenomenon. However, they don't seem to be consistent about it in the paragraphs.
Hamlet

I was going to say "inconclusive", but after looking at all that, it seems that trekkies are sloppy, and someone just dropped the ball w/Hamlet. It doesn't matter that all these examples are of article headings, does it? I tried to find examples of section headings, but couldn't find any. The Ultra-Mind 10:39, 3 October 2011 (PDT)

I think that would be great, as per the discussion above... though I had totally forgotten about it. --Sega381 (talk) 15:44, 12 March 2013 (PDT)

Hehe, I hadn't even noticed that Wikipedia (or rather wikimedia) permitted italics and such in article names. Though I had the impression that titles might be treated differently for some good reason, for simplicity I agree that using the same formatting makes everything a lot simpler. I am not sure it looks so good, but it's more consistent.--Sega381 19:22, 3 October 2011 (PDT)

Thanks for weighing in, everyone. Yeah, I was mainly talking about section headings, but if we can figure out how to make article headings italicized, that would be great too. I'd say that Star Trek article on Wikipedia was an oversight or something, because there are still italicized headings in the "Television series" section of that page, and the main articles for each different series do it for their title headings too. Also, here are a couple more examples I found:

I just feel it's best to always clearly delineate a body of work, whether it be in a heading or article content. Though I can see how aesthetically it might take some getting used to after we've gone so long without doing it (as it once was with references), I do think our page formatting looks more polished this way. --Terilem 22:19, 3 October 2011 (PDT)

*casts In Mani Corp on the discussion* First time I saw this discussion thread. If we want italicized article titles I can totally hook us up. It isn't currently enabled but I can do that this evening. -- Fenyx4 11:46, 11 March 2013 (PDT)

Oh, nevermind it totally already works. Check out my Sandbox. But only when "...the selected title normalises to the same canonical title." For example, on a page titled IPod, one can use {{DISPLAYTITLE:iPod}} to force the title to appear as "iPod" when viewed. However, {{DISPLAYTITLE:Foo}} will not work, because "Foo" is not the same title as "IPod"."

I didn't need to make any changes. -- Fenyx4 21:10, 12 March 2013 (PDT)

Nice, thanks! --Sega381 (talk) 17:13, 16 March 2013 (PDT)

Double versus single quotation[edit]

It's not explicitly stated, but it looks like the guide and most articles tend toward using the American double quotation for initial quotations. I have found instances of singular quotes being used (e.g., Lord_British#Origin_of_the_Name). Should those be changed? With the use of British spelling in places I think it's best to clarify exactly what style the wiki is adopting. -- Metaneira (talk) 17:14, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

My preference would be to use double quotation as a rule. --Terilem (talk) 02:38, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I think the cases with a single quote are the exceptions, and they should probably be changed over to double quotation. --Sega381 (talk) 02:58, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Possessive of proper names ending in -s[edit]

Starting a second section for this. Most style guides instruct that common nouns ending in -s get -'s added (e.g., my boss's daughter) but there's not much consistency about how to handle proper names. The Chicago Manual of Style advises -'s for all proper nouns ending in s (e.g., Exodus's psyche); Associated Press uses just the apostrophe (e.g., Nicodemus' hourglass). It looks like most articles tend for the AP method but there are exceptions (Exodus contains both styles). Can we make a section stating the preferences? If we stick to AP the rules would be:

singular common noun ending in s: add 's (e.g., "duchess's hat")
singular common noun ending in s followed by a word starting with an s sound: add only an apostrophe (e.g., "goodness' sake")
proper noun ending in -s: add an apostrophe (e.g., Nicodemus' house)
proper noun ending in s sound: add -s (e.g., Codex's wisdom)

We may not have to spell all of those examples out, but I think it's worth stating how plurals of proper names ending in s should be handled. -- Metaneira (talk) 17:59, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not American but I was always taught not to add -'s to proper nouns, so the AP method would be my preference. I would spell out each example in the style guide so as to avoid any ambiguity. --Terilem (talk) 02:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I've never heard of a different standard for proper and common nouns. Personally, when not editing the Codex, I just have 2 standards: "'s" for singular, "s'" for plural. The only thing I'd add to the original proposal is that anything that ends in an "s" sound is treated the same as nouns ending in non-"s" sounds, not just proper nouns. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 13:56, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Navigation template styles[edit]

I've tried to standardize some of the styles I've seen vary from template to template, but there's more that I'd like to do.

Line breaks in sub-cells[edit]

Sub-cell: the stuff in between ankhs

I notice that there's been an unresponsive design to setting up the table data, such that a sub-cell doesn't get broken up by a line break. The pro is that on a lot of displays, undesirable line breaks are avoided, and you don't have a superfluous ankh at the end of the line. The con is that those line breaks still might happen on some displays. I've also found that on a fairly wide display, the line breaks occurred anyway where the editor didn't expect. I think the solution is to stop using the hard line breaks and just use  s to ensure that the line breaks that do happen are controlled. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 20:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Reviewing fundamentals of italicizing proper nouns[edit]

I'd like take a deeper look into the fundamentals of the italics that we apply to things like game names and spells and everything else. I've never felt like I completely understood the whole idea, so I've been making it up as I go along. Hopefully editors who do understand it will return/join and can straighten us out.

I found things like corner cases, exceptions and the like:

One is the inverting the typeface when different principles that apply italics collide. But this is only if it is different principles that apply italics that we have an inversion. At least, this is how I've been handling it:
1. For instance these uses of the Template:Main template which italicize all their text, so: "This article is about something from Ultima IV". There it seemed that game name should have been de-italicized because the italicization of the game name is a different italicization principle from the one that italicizes all the text, so an inversion is performed. On the other hand...
2. "Ultima VI Clue Book": game names should be italicized and so should book titles, but that's the same principle, so we don't perform inversion there: just italicize the whole thing.
"Names of complete bodies of creative work". Ok, so what counts as a creative work? Clearly, we've decided that games are creative. These games are computer programs. So what about other kinds of programs? Installers? MS-Word? Exult? Keyring Mod?
Nearly all magical tomes (Codex of Ultimate Wisdom, Book of Truth, Book of Prophecies, etc.) have not been italicized, probably because doing so was counter-intuitive, but would it be wrong? If I could digress a little, I always felt that books like the Codex weren't really books, even though they looked like it, and when you read it, you don't really read it. It's like the knowledge gets magically beamed into your head. Having said that, that would probably make it different from The Book of Prophecies, which I don't remember being magical at all. In any case, I've been going through and italicizing all of them... sort of...
Then there's the question about what you do when something that is supposed to be italicized is the name of something else.
1. "For more on this, see: Ultima IV." The game "Ultima IV" should unquestionably be italicized, when it's the game name. In this example, it's the name of the article, so maybe it shouldn't be italicized. This also includes complex article names like Party members in Ultima VI and Ultima IV monster data.
2. Inconsistent w/4.1. been leaving category names alone: "Ultima IV". The idea being that that's the name of the category, not the name of the game.
3. Speaking of article names, why aren't they "bodies of creative work"?
4. How about external web page titles, like "Notable Ultima"?
5. Speaking of 3. and 4.1. I've been leaving off the italics whenever "Codex" gets used for something other than the book itself: "Codex Coin", "Chamber of the Codex", and in Manrel, I even left "codex" in "codex tattoo" unitalicized and in lower case. I can't really explain why.
And for some insight into how confusing it can all be, checkout my dithering on Ultima VII Part Two books. There I felt that journals, diaries, reports and notes were not worthy of italics, but everything else was. My intuition told me some of the gray areas like recipe books should not have italics.
What about collections of games, like "Age of Enlightenment"?
1. First thing I'd like to know is if they are supposed to be italicized under any circumstances. I'm not talking about when they are part of publications, like all the games on one CD, but just the categorization of those games. Such as, regardless of how it was distributed, are there circumstances where Ultima IV should be part of the "Age of Enlightment" or the "Age of Enlightenment"?
2. When they are the games, from an out-game perspective, I've been italicizing them. When speaking from an in-game perspective: unitalicized.
And how about U9 Rituals? They aren't spells, but are they italicizable?

The Ultra-Mind (talk) 16:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

As a primer, here is Wikipedia's manual of style for titles. We aren't obligated to to follow their guidelines to the letter, of course, but I've generally referred to them when in doubt.

1.1 and 1.2: Agreed on both counts.

2: I've never been completely happy with "bodies of creative work" since, as you rightly pointed out, it leaves room for ambiguity. I'd welcome any suggestions for a better term.

At any rate, Wikipedia uses neither italics nor quotation marks for software that isn't a game. Mods are a grey area for me, but my rationale is this: something like the Keyring Mod should be plain, since it's an ancillary modification of Ultima VII without fundamentally replacing the greater whole, more like a patch; on the other hand, Lazarus and The Ultima 6 Project can be considered games unto themselves, built from the ground up with the Dungeon Siege engine. If someone were to create a whole new game with the U7 engine using Exult Studio, I'd say that game's title would be italicized. I'm not sure where to draw the line between minor and major mods, though.

3. I don't think any of these should be italicized on the basis that real-world sacred/holy books (e.g. the Bible, Bhagavad Gita, Book of Mormon, etc.) aren't, both on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Moreover, is there sufficient evidence to conclude the Book of Truth is a literary work and not simply a symbolic device? As far as I know there aren't any sources indicating the nature of its contents other than its object art in U9, which shows symbols and images.

4.1, 4.2: I'd say game titles should still be italicized even when part of article and category names. Wikipedia agrees.

4.3: Articles are part of a greater whole (the wiki in this case).

4.4: Website names seem to vary. MLA and APA styles italicize them for citations, but I don't know if that also applies to article text. Wikipedia italicizes in citations but not in the main body.

4.5: If we don't italicize the Codex, this one is solved by default. I think it should stay capitalized, though; "Darth Vader tattoo" wouldn't be all lower case.

5. From what I've seen, I agree with how you've handled it.

6. I'm thinking not italicized, as it isn't an official trilogy name as far as I know.

7. I'm still not entirely sure why they aren't considered spells, while U8 rituals and the decidedly ritualistic-sounding invocations of U3 are. Regardless, I think they should be italicized.

Finally, to add a couple more candidates:

Mantras (Om, Summ, etc.) and words of power (Vas, Rel, Fallax, Veramocor, etc.) should be italicized, as they fall within the purviews of non-English words and words mentioned as words. They also shouldn't be written in all capitals, as they aren't abbreviations. Capital initials I'm less certain about; veramocor looks "correct" to me, but so does Vas Rel Por.

--Terilem (talk) 12:29, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

2. Might need another lexicon for this sort of thing. I always imaged Exult as a peer of The Ultima 6 Project. But if the only computer program title that gets italics is a game, at least that's decisive.

3. Oh. I've been changing a bunch of these. I guess I'll hold off for a while until this is settled.

4.1, 4.2: Categories is going to make things awkward. The last time I touched them, apparently I made a mess w/minimal effort.

4.3 So... doesn't that mean the The Codex of Ultima Wisdom get italics and according to the current policy "Names of portions of complete bodies of work should be put in quotes" so every article gets quotes, so “For more on this see: "Shamino"”. Only thing wrong w/that is that I don't think Wikipedia does this but I can't see where Wikipedia makes an exception.

6. You know, I think you're right. The first time I saw that was on the Ultima Web Archive. I don't think I can account for them being acknowledged by Origin as official titles. ::facepalm:: That's got me rethinking our whole use of them.

Terilem's addendum: unfortunately, the rationale for italicizing spell names never really gelled w/me. I remember reading something about it, which seemed to make sense at the time, but was so forgettable. I seem to remember those other questions being explored, but that rationale also escapes me. One thing I know is supposed to be italicized are loanwords, so I don't know why gibberish like "Om" and "Beh" didn't qualify.

We're going to need more editors for consensus over this and a few other points. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 16:09, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

And for more addenda:

Scrolls: I think something like Time Stop scroll is the probably the right way to do it: italicize and initial cap the spell name, but "scroll" leave plain and all lower. So how about Scroll#Scrolls_in_Pagan? "Secret Door" is not a spell name--not outside of this scroll. So I'm not sure what to do w/those.

2. Do you mean Nuvie? Lazarus and U6P were sister projects to the point that we shared resources.

4.1, 4.2: Oh, hmm. Maybe not categories, then.

4.3: That occurred to me as well. You're right, Wikipedia doesn't do it. I couldn't find their reasoning for it either, but perhaps it's something to do with referring to articles within the same site? I'm not sure.

6. How so? I mean, they're still useful descriptors and are canon terms. They just don't get italicization rights.

Mantras, words of power: if we're in agreement that these are loanwords, perhaps it wouldn't be controversial to codify italics for them.

Spell name italics: I was one of the people pushing for these. Obviously there isn't a non-fiction precedent we can look to, but spell names are italicized in several of the later clue books and manuals and I always liked how that delineated them. I notice Wikipedia seems to italicize as well.

Scrolls: Agreed on "Time Stop scroll". Pagan scrolls: if these aren't magic spells, what are they?

--Terilem (talk) 12:52, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

2.: I mean I imagined Exult as being every bit of a fan project that U6P is, thus subject to the same typeface.

4.1, 4.2: which? The italics or the case normalization? I'm becoming increasingly interested in how to use the power of wikimedia to get what we need done and I experimented w/Category:Akalabeth spells last week, adjusting case, and it didn't seem to cause any permanent problems, once I understood what was going on. If we go w/what WP does, like wikipedia:Dagobah, wikipedia:Vulcan_(Star_Trek) and wikipedia:John_McClane, then for category names we should be normalizing initials, but not be italicizing anything anywhere. (BTW, that research also indicated that we should be not be exempting the text between parentheses from italics, which is a part of article titles I never took too seriously.)

6.: Only with much reluctantly do I agree w/us using fan-invented proper nouns. Why do you say they are canon terms? Are you saying that they are derivations of canon terms or they aren't even that--they are lifted, as-is, from canonical sources?

Unnumbered chattering: Ok, so mantras, Words of Power (both kinds), Word of Passage, ritual titles, and spell names? Yes, I would italicize the lot. Just to be clear, I don't think an agreement between 2 editors constitutes consensus w/out giving it a little more time. Then there's the issue of capitalization. I'm a bit less certain about that one. I think we agree they should all have capital initials, but as I think you pointed out, we haven't been very consistent about that. Often a spell's words of power are also the spell's name. It would seem wrong to me to have a spell name all capitalized.

Names of Scroll#Scrolls_in_Pagan have spell names, sort of. First, I'd like to know that the titles there were lifted from the game or hardcopy materials (I looked for an image of one, but nothing), then, with all inconsistency with titles, text and speech in regards to magic, it seems worthwhile to consider. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 17:29, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

2:

Right, they're both fan projects, but there's a distinction in that Exult isn't a game; it's an emulator, like DOSBox and ScummVM. U6P, on the other hand, is a game.

4.1, 4.2:

I mean forgetting about italics for category names when displayed in the box at the bottom of a page, due to the apparent technical hurdles preventing us from doing so.
I see on Wikipedia that the title headers on category pages are italicized, though (e.g. Category:Star Wars planets, Category:Star Trek species), which we can do with the {{DISPLAYTITLE}} template.
I agree with the move to adopt sentence case over title case.

6:

They're lifted as-is from canonical sources (e.g. U7 transcript, UU2 manual, U8 manual).
The reason I've said they shouldn't be italicized is because they aren't officially out-game trilogy titles, just in-game terms for those periods in Britannian history that the fandom happens to have adopted as descriptors for each trilogy. Names of historical periods don't get italicized.

Mantras, magic words, etc.:

I'm not sure about capital initials for all those. Incantations, spell names, and ritual names are a definite yes, but for mantras, dungeon Words of Power, and the Word of Passage I'm still on the fence. I guess it would be consistent to say they should have capital initials if magic Words of Power do.
I don't think two people consitutes a consensus either, but I also see that most of the old participants we had in these discussions haven't been active in two or three years, which makes me wonder how much luck we're going to have.

U8 scrolls:

Ohh okay, I see what you're getting at now. Here are their object labels from the U8 Usecode verbatim:

scroll of dispelling magic portals
scroll of trap detection
scroll of trap destruction
scroll of healing
scroll of restoration
scroll of invisibility
Restore to sight scroll

And the names given within each scroll:

SCROLL OF DISPELLING MAGICAL PORTALS
DETECTION SCROLL OF TRAPPED CHESTS
DESTRUCTION SCROLL OF TRAPS IN CHESTS
SCROLL OF HEALING
SCROLL OF RESTORATION
SCROLL OF INVISIBILITY
SCROLL OF REVISIBILITY

Some of them sound like they could be spell names, but others definitely sound more like descriptors. Argh.

--Terilem (talk) 11:50, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

4.1, 4.2

Nice find on the {{DISPLAYTITLE}}. I tried it get it to work on my sandbox (improperly) and it failed.
Another wee problem w/rehabilitating categories, is that if we are to change the case, then all those articles in those categories need to be changed pronto. Take Category:Lord_of_Ultima_Art. If we normalized the case to [[Category:Lord of Ultima art]] then we'd have to go to all those 100s of articles and change their [[Category:Lord of Ultima Art]]s at the end of their articles to the new case. Otherwise, if we phase that in, we'd have the body of the category divided across the 2 categories. Bots?

Typefacing magic

Reading my own text again, it looks like I wasn't very clear about my view on it:

First, like I was saying before, I never really got the whole italicization of anything, so you can take what I say w/a grain of salt.
But I do know consistency a little better, and I don't see what the variations on those things (mantras, Words of Power (both kinds), Word of Passage, ritual titles, and spell names) are that would allow for some to be italicized and others not
Ditto on capital initials--it's all magical blathering
Consistency w/all caps is harder for me to rationalize so I'm not quite as strong on those

U8 Scrolls

The thing about binary code is that it isn't the very last word on canonicity. I seem to remember finding case variations on some program code somewhere, but this was always displayed in upper case in the game. But you're right about what they look like: descriptions as well as spell names, so who knows how to call it?

The Ultra-Mind (talk) 22:11, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh and how do we apply these typefacing policies to external links? I almost always ignore the "External Links" sections, because I'm inclined to just do what another author did w/his own web page. So how would you do "Underworld Dragon's Ultima V Transcript"? Actually, that example is rich w/questions: I don't even think "Underworld Dragon's Ultima V Transcript" comes from Underworld Dragon--it seems it was a description that someone else made. So do we italicize anything? What should the case of "Transcript" be? The Ultra-Mind (talk) 14:16, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd say treat external links as if we were linking our own articles, so italicized where appropriate. That's what I've always done, anyway (most likely following Wikipedia's lead). I believe "Underworld Dragon's Ultima V transcript" is indeed an informal descriptor of his transcripts on The Literal Ultima, so "transcript" would be lower case.

And just to wrap up the magic words topic, I noticed in one of my past article edits I wrote Lum with a capital initial, so I must have arrived at the same conclusion as you at some point previously. --Terilem (talk) 12:40, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

And w/regards to the external links, if I can get a bit OT: what about everything else about them? Not just case and italics, but spelling, punctuation, all typography, etc.? I can at least be pretty sure that the bad spelling should be preserved. That's what I felt when editing Ultima 3 for the Gameboy Color for example. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 21:36, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

I think enough time has passed that I'm going to apply issues for what we have 100% consensus here. Issues not settled are:

Which computer program names should be italicized. Only computer game names are supposed to be, but what about fan mods? Patches?
How we format (italics and quotes) wiki names and those of articles therein
The capitalization of words of power and spell syllables and other magical utterances. It seems we are in agreement that they should be italicized.
Spell names, when they appear in the names of scrolls, potions and other equipment should be italicized, but sometimes it's not always clear. Some U8 scrolls like "scroll of dispelling magic portals", "scroll of trap destruction", etc. make for good exmples of ambiguity. We might need *shudder* another lexicon as the authority for each and every case.
OT: I'm not sure we covered all bases for how external links are to be formatted differently from how the author did: italics, punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc.

The Ultra-Mind (talk) 14:42, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Formatting of external links[edit]

We seem to be a bit everywhere on this sort of thing. I tried Googling for popular standards on it but got very little and tried looking at Wikipedia's help pages on it, but they don't seem to consider this particular issue to be that important. So, I just looked to examples on what I thought were popular pages, such as wikipedia:Thailand#External_links, wikipedia:Ariana_Grande#External_links, wikipedia:Republican_Party_(United_States)#External_links, wikipedia:Pride_and_Prejudice#External_links and wikipedia:Star_Trek_II:_The_Wrath_of_Khan#External_links]. What I got from that mix, which I see as sufficiently eclectic: do whatever ya like!

There are 4 basic components to a typical external link:

The URL which includes the highlighted text
The title of the web page
Text that puts it in context
Something to separate 2 and 3.

What I often see is 1 coming first and encapsulating 2, then 4 is a preposition; "on" I suppose is most common, then 3 comes last, which is sometimes also linked.

So without going into all the possible combinations, I think we should go w/the above example, so:
==External Links==
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379564/ ''Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress''] on IMDB
--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 16:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Standardizing in-game writings articles[edit]

I think it's time that we applied some uniformity to the various articles which cover all the different types of writings for certain games, be they books, scrolls, letters, plaques, etc. (See Category:In-Game_Books for context.) There's a great deal of inconsistency among these articles. Maybe some of that is w/good reason, such as the specific needs of a particular article, but there's clearly a great deal that can still be unified. BTW, at the end of this, I think I'd want to express this unity in a template or sets of templates. That paradigm worked rather well w/Ultima IV transcript I think.

And so we're clear, I'm talking about articles that form volumes of in-game books, not 1-article-1-book articles like Killer Jokes.

A word on specific needs[edit]

I'm not sure there are that many. The content of each text seems to be divided into 2 types:

Mouseover text, which is sometimes even just generic, like "note" or "book" and therefore not worth mentioning. I guess this is usually the item label.
Body. I realize that these often have their own formats, which I don't see having any bearing on what I'm talking about now. Individual writings should be free to have whatever internal formatting they want.

There is a little more to it than that. For instance, many don't have any mouseover worth mentioning and who's body is a very short blurb w/out a title, such as those listed in Ultima_VI_signs,_scrolls,_and_books#Scrolls with bullet points. I think that covers the text for each work. Also, a vaguely remember 1 or 2 texts being dependent on flags, but other than that, every text will look the same to every player at any stage in the games.

Did I miss anything?

Variations[edit]

Headings[edit]

For some reason, there's been a fair bit of will to prevent individual texts from having their own formal, markup headers. In most of these situations markup headers were simulated by some boldface title and in other cases, bullets were used such as Ultima_VII_signs,_scrolls,_and_plaques#Scrolls. The only reason I can see for someone not liking the markup headers is that it can spam the table of contents, like in Ultima_VIII_books. That may be a valid concern, but MediaWiki has the ability to suppress these spammy headers. I.e., {{toclimit|limit=2}} would make sure none of the level 3 headers appear in the TOC.

Misc[edit]

What's w/the angle brackets?
Considering the TOC for Ultima_VII_books was never repeated, I'm guessing we shouldn't.
A bunch of other quirks, like the angle brackets as well as the upper case titles such as in Ultima VII books. (Presumably in the latter case this was a matter of user experience)

Discussion[edit]

So I think that we should recognize 2 types of writings:

Writings meaty enough to have a title and body. I think one should have a heading, usually (but not always) at level 3.
Short blurbs that have no title and no reason for a title. Maybe you could make anchors of each of these, but no title, and they should be made into bullet points, like in Ultima_VI_signs,_scrolls,_and_books#Scrolls

I'll express my opinion on how this should be implemented in terms of making a template:

title: optional, but an option often taken. This will form the title as well as the markup heading. Of course, if omitted, there won't be any of that.
body: any kind of formatting or markup would be passed through, giving the author full control of formatting for this part
author: optional, and I don't even know what it would be good for, except future use
level: optional. Defaults to 3, and gives the level of the header for the title.
anchor: Optional. Will not often want to use it, but the {{anchor}} tag is already used, so for backward compatibilty, we'd need it.
short: Optional. If true, the output would be a bullet point followed by the body

--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 12:36, 11 January 2022 (MST)

I'll take that as "knock yourself out, Ultra!". You can follow progress at Template:Writing.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 14:22, 19 January 2022 (MST)

The way properties are justified in infoboxes[edit]

Sometimes the label is left justified like in Template:Infobox/Shop but most others like Template:Infobox/Shop/Ultima_IV right justify it. Most of the values are centre, but Template:Infobox/NPC/Universal left justifies it. Sometimes this staggered justification appears on the same page.

If no one objects, I'd like to have all the labels on all the properites right justified and the values left justified.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 13:22, 8 March 2022 (MST)

So I went ahead w/the changes to just about all the infoboxes. After having second thoughts, I felt maybe that the spells (Template:Infobox/Spells and Template:Infobox/Pagan Spell [other spell infoboxes aren't in use]) then on third thought, I felt that maybe both the labels and the data should be left justified, instead of the data being centre justified, as it is now.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 09:03, 17 March 2022 (MDT)

Necessity of lore quotes[edit]

I see lore quotes as gravy; the cartoons in between the frames in Mad Magazine. But sometimes there seems to be an exhaustive effort to get rather a lot in, such as in Iron Flesh where you have 2 quotes from the 2 games the spell appears in, that are almost word-for-word the same. I think when we start adding lore quotes that won't increase the readers' understanding of the game, we start just to waste space. Also, the fact that the icons beside those quotes are identical, makes it worse.--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2022 (MDT)

When to superscript abbreviations for ordinals[edit]

You know, like 1st, 2nd, 3rd... (or 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd). Googling for standards on it, it seems the standard is not to set a standard. At least, not for everyone. I guess we can come up w/our own in-house standard, so I propose:

No typeface change when appearing as part of a sentence
Superscripting elsewhere, such as when giving the ordinal for a spell circle in the spell infoboxes or short phrases.

--The Ultra-Mind (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2022 (MDT)