NetHackWiki:Style guide

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NetHackWiki has no formal style guide as of yet, but there are a few conventions in use. The following is a list of them. Changes should be discussed on the talk page.

NetHackWiki versus Wikihack

Please refer to this wiki as NetHackWiki. "Wikihack" is the name it was founded under.

General principles

This list constitutes the most basic ideas of what should be done when editing articles on NetHackWiki:

• Try to verify any new information that you add as much as possible, whether that verification comes from wizmode tests, source code, community consensus, or any combination thereof.
• Information should be presented as concisely as possible: prefer shorter sentences to longer ones, but also prefer clearer sentences to ambiguous or overdetailed ones - word count is not as important as clarity.
  • Avoid restating existing information if at all possible. "Once and only once" is a good guiding rule where the text alone is concerned, with the exclusion of accompanying templates
  • Similarly, focus the text on scenarios that most readers and players are actually likely to encounter. There are some corner cases that may become noteworthy, but if included these should not be given undue focus over the bulk of the text.
• Try to be thorough and preview your text when proofreading, and make desired changes in as few edits as possible where possible.
• Not all the contents of this guide are hard rules, and such rules will be made clear where they exist. Compared to actively disruptive behavior such as edit warring, spamming or repeatedly inserting false information, in general there is no penalty for simple or honest mistakes, or even "sub-optimal" habits.
• As stated below the editing window: Please note that all contributions to NetHackWiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see NetHackWiki:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

For ideas of what constitutes sensible editing practices and principles that are not listed here or in the below sections, consider consulting Wikipedia's Manual of Style: while NetHackWiki is not Wikipedia and as such should not be held to the same exact standards, the Manual of Style is nonetheless a solid resource for wiki editors of all skill levels.

Tone

Although NetHackWiki is a guide in addition to being an encyclopedia, articles in the main namespace should nonetheless be written in a largely encyclopedic tone. That means clearly separating facts from comments, keeping strategies and tips in their own section, and keeping comments on the talk page. Spelling and grammar should follow Americanized language rules where reasonable.

English syntax

Many NetHackers are not native English speakers, which is great: everybody comes into the game with their own characteristics and intrinsics, and there are players of NetHack all across the globe. A majority of this wiki is therefore written in eclectic, somewhat international English - when writing on this wiki, there are some things you should know about English syntax:

• "chance of doing" versus "chance to do": One refers to probability; the other to opportunity. "You have a chance to do X" means "you have an opportunity to do X"; e.g., you get a turn to move or you get asked to confirm a choice. "You have a chance of doing X" means "there is a certain probability that you will do X", e.g. you have a 70% probability of turning into a newt when the witch curses you.

• There's more than one way to say it — and some ways get to the point a lot faster. For example, you can always replace "due to the fact that" with "because". Have a read through to catch such wordy bits before you click on Save Changes, and make sure that sentences are at least concise and clear (which may not always equate with being short).

Article names

Try to be consistent when naming new and existing articles:

• Name most pages with lowercase letters, like scroll of identify, but use uppercase for proper nouns, like Amulet of Yendor. By default, MediaWiki forces the first letter of a page name to be uppercase.
• Prefer singular to plural for article names, e.g. unicorn instead of unicorns.
• Try to avoid conflating disparate-but-related subjects where possible. As an example, identification, scroll of identify, and spellbook of identify all deal with identifying items, but are very clearly distinct: the first concerns how identification in general functions, the second concerns a specific item that fully identifies objects, and the third concerns both the spell used to identify objects and the spellbook that teaches that spell.

The first time the article name appears in the main text, it should be bolded. This includes the titles of any redirects that point to the article or a section within it. Example: "Gauntlets of power, sometimes abbreviated to GoP, [...]"

Redirects

Redirects are used as a form of convenience for readers and editors alike, and are typically employed for the following purposes:

• Alternate subject names, including any spelling, capitalization or hyphenation recognized by NetHack or a variant of NetHack
• Frequently-used community terms
• Topics that are a subset of a primary article
• Keeping links to a page active after it has been moved, even once internal links are updated; this also applies for links in edit summaries

See the article above for the types of redirects used on NetHackWiki, and see metawikimedia:Help:Redirect for help creating redirects.

New articles

Do not create empty new articles or new articles that contain nothing but the {{stub}} message just in hopes of seeing someone add more content to them. Add the content yourself! A "{{stub}}"-only page is somewhat like applying a magic marker to write a blank scroll. Bare-minimum content stubs are also discouraged as well: an acceptable stub should have enough of a foundation for you or other editors to actively build on. Remember that articles which are not as complete as they could be are not necessarily stubs: even longer articles may be in need of some TLC, and length does not always translate to completeness.

With all of the above in mind, remember that certain subjects may not always require a full-length article to cover in their entirety, and some of these articles may even be merged into others, unless the subject(s) and its coverage warrant the distinction. If you do not know about the subject, learn about it or ask politely at the Community Portal for someone to create the article.

Capitalization

In general, if the game or the source code capitalizes something, it should be capitalized the same on this wiki, e.g. "Archon", "Book of the Dead", and "Moloch's Sanctum" - "Archon" is an example that is not normally capitalized in a majority of instances, but should be capitalized when referring to the NetHack monster. Conversely, do not capitalize things that the game does not capitalize and treats like common nouns (most monsters and objects fall into this category), e.g. "luck", "potion of hallucination", "tiger", and "rust trap". "Luck" in particular refers to the in-game luck stat, rather than factors such as RNG falling in a player's favor or not, and should be left uncapitalized - for this case, it is best to use "fortune" or other synonyms when referring to the player's luck instead of the character's in-game luck.

Article organization

Each article should begin with a brief introduction before going into specifics. This introduction (also known as the "lede" in Wikipedia jargon) should be followed by the table of contents where possible, which is usually handled automatically for articles with multiple sub-headers. The highest header level that should be used is ideally level 2 (i.e. ==This==), with the highest-level headers (i.e. =These=) reserved for the article main title, though some exceptions may occur.

Section names

Some sections are common to many articles, and the known standard sections are listed below:

• Generation
• Map(s)
• Messages
• Strategy
• Variants
• Mythology
• History
• Encyclopedia entry
• See also
• References
• External links

Generation should explain where and how the thing can be found or created.

The History section can contain information on how the subject was different in earlier versions of NetHack. Other kinds of history should go in Mythology. If the thing is based on a real-life model, Origin may be a better heading.

The Encyclopedia entry should give the text of the subject's entry in the NetHack encyclopedia, enclosed in an {{encyclopedia}} template. The template displays whitespace characters literally (like the HTML <pre> tag), so remove unwanted hard line breaks and whitespace at the beginning of lines. Browser window widths vary widely! Don't otherwise edit the contents: the encyclopedia entries are hard-coded in the game.

Categories

Each new article should have at least one category assigned to it; read the category tree to find an appropriate one. Remember to update that tree if you create a new category.

Tables

Many of our tables are pretty tables; the prettytable class from MediaWiki:Common.css can be used like this:

{|class="prettytable"
!Header 1
!Header 2
|-
|Cell 1
|Cell 2
|-
|Cell 3
|Cell 4
|}

to make this:

Header 1	Header 2
Cell 1	Cell 2
Cell 3	Cell 4

It's also possible to use "striped" and/or "sortable" in addition to "prettytable".

Colored NetHack glyphs

For example: A, n, D

Use the 16-color function templates for displaying individual symbols. For monsters you should usually use {{monsym}}, or {{monsymlink}}.

To make colored ASCII screenshots, wrap the function templates in <div class="ttymap"></div>, or use User:Paxed/ReplaceCharsBlock with ruleset {{ttymap}} to allow easier editing.

While editing an article, it's possible to have a "popup" window where you can select the colored symbols with mouse; Just click the "Color symbols" link at the bottom of the page.

Item pages

Put the appropriate template out of Template:scroll, Template:potion, Template:ring, Template:wand, Template:spellbook, Template:weapon, Template:armor, Template:comestible, Template:amulet, Template:artifact, Template:artifact weapon and Template:tool at the top of the item page, or Template:item for any other type of item.

Each item page should also list the effects of the item, and any messages that item can generate. Tips and strategy relating to that item should go next, and if there is an entry from the NetHack encyclopedia, that can go at the bottom. Use potion of object detection, scroll of amnesia and scroll of genocide as guides.

Variants

There are a plethora of NetHack variants, and they often change something in vanilla which should get documented on the vanilla page. This is fine, but in order to keep things organized, follow these guidelines:

1. Only put variant information on a page if it is a substantial change to the topic of the page which has an impact on strategy. If it's a change to something else but which still has an impact on strategy, it's probably too tangential to be put on the page.
2. All variant information should go in a level-two ==Variants== section near the bottom of the page but above the encyclopedia entry. Each variant then gets a level-three subsection within the Variants section.
3. The sole exception to the above rule is if there's only one variant worth writing about. In this case, it is okay to have that variant occupy a level-two ==VariantName== section, and no ==Variants== section. But if another variant is added later, then the first variant and the new variant should become level-three sections under a level-two Variants section.
4. Avoid putting paragraphs, sentences, parentheticals, or asides referencing a variant outside of its section.
5. Avoid further subdividing a single variant's section into more subsections; if you're adding level-four section breaks then it's probably a better idea to move that text into its own page.
6. Variant articles that do have their own pages can be (they don't have to be) linked with a single line in the top of the Variants section. Don't create a subsection just to provide a link to the main article.
7. Never add variant categories to a vanilla article. Use them only for pages which are entirely about variant(s).

Regarding SLASH'EM's name, prefer "SLASH'EM" to "Slash'EM". There is no consensus on which one is "official", but we need a convention, and SLASH'EM is clearly an acronym. For capitalization of other variant names, consult the variant's main page.

Source code

When writing a piece of factual information, you may wish to document it by linking to the source code like this:

The vibrating square level is not eligible to leave bones files.{{refsrc|src/bones.c|36|nethack=3.6.0|comment=vibrating square does not leave bones}}

which looks like this:

The vibrating square level is not eligible to leave bones files.

If the reference is placed after a word with a punctuation mark, don't insert it between the word and the punctuation mark; put it after both.

You must include the <references/> tag at the bottom of the page like this:

==References==
<references/>

That will create a list of footnotes:

The templates {{refsrc}}, {{reffunc}}, {{sourcecode}}, and {{function}} are designed for use in source code references.

Other useful templates

{{DOD}} should go at the bottom of every page which is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell.

{{disambig}} should go at the bottom of every disambiguation page, e.g. Fire. A disambiguation page is a list of links to articles all associated with the same title.

{{stub}} can be used on a page to plea for someone to expand it. From time to time, some editors will look over Category:Stubs for articles to expand. It can take no parameters, or it can take an optional parameter explaining what needs to be expanded:

{{stub|What's the best strategy for killing the Wizard of Yendor?}}

{{merge}} is a plea for someone to merge a page with another, or several others. You should give details of which other page you mean in the parameter:

{{merge|Some of this information belongs in [[this article]].}}

{{otheruses}} is for a page whose title has multiple meanings, like Izchak. In many cases, a disambiguation page may be more appropriate, but where one meaning dominates the others, it deserves the page title. Also see the {{for}}, {{for2}} and {{distinguish}} templates.

{{main}} can be used to link to the main article for a topic, per this section:

{{main|NetHackWiki:Templates}}

{{upcoming}} is for changes that have been made in an unreleased future version of NetHack. Since the development version is subject to change, it would be premature to try and document new features in the regular page text, so use this instead.

Namespaces

Anything to do with NetHack belongs in the main article space. Anything to do with NetHackWiki belongs in the NetHackWiki namespace.

User pages

You can create a vanity page in the main namespace if you want to, but unless you are famous or otherwise notable it would be a better idea to create a NetHackWiki account and put personal information on your own User page.

Sign your posts

When writing on articles'/users' talk-pages or on certain community pages, sign your posts with four tildes, ~~~~. That will automatically expand to your signature with timestamp, as in "ZeroOne 17:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)".

Dealing with unsigned comments

The templates {{unsigned}} and {{unsigned2}} can be used at the end of an unsigned comment to attach the username or IP to the comment. None of these templates automatically populate (fill in) the name or IP of the poster and the time of the post. That information is best copied from the history page and pasted into the following templates. Note: All of the unsigned templates must be substituted.

Wikimarkup	Resulting code	Resulting display
{{subst:unsigned|user name or IP}}	{{subst:unsigned|Example}}	— Preceding unsigned comment added by Example (talk • contribs)
{{subst:unsigned|user name or IP|date}}	{{subst:unsigned|Example|11:15, 1 June 2005 (UTC)}}	— Preceding unsigned comment added by Example (talk • contribs) 11:15, 1 June 2005 (UTC)

The template {{unsigned2}} does almost the same thing as {{unsigned}} when used with two parameters, but the ordering of the parameters is reversed. The resulting display is the same. This template may be useful when copying and pasting from the edit history, where the timestamp appears before the username.

Wikimarkup	Resulting code	Resulting display
{{subst:unsigned2|date|user name or ip}}	{{subst:unsigned2|11:15, 1 June 2005 (UTC)|Example}}	— Preceding unsigned comment added by Example (talk • contribs) 11:15, 1 June 2005 (UTC)

External links

When inserting an external link, if the link is to another wiki, consult the Interwiki table to see if there is a prefix available to use. For external links to other websites, remember to use https where possible so that the link remains secure for the convenience of readers (e.g. "https://example.com" instead of "http://example.com") - nethack.org in particular will put up a red-letter warning if accessed via http instead of https.

Make sure that the link itself relates to the article or section it is being placed in: using external links to deliberately spread spam, malware or other unwanted services is a blockable offense.