UFOpaedia style guide

(Work in progress)

This page attempts to be a guide where various common agreed on writing styles guidelines are chronicled for the reference for of this wiki's contributors.

While many of the legacy articles on this wiki will be in breach of many of these guidelines, it is hoped that as they are found that they will be brought into line.

Personal Pronouns

Chatty writing with personal pronouns like "I" should be strictly limited to the talk pages. Remember that a good chunk of the main articles found on this wiki are written by many authors.

Prosy writing and humour

Prosy writing and humour is not encouraged but not necessarily discouraged. The wiki does not have to read as if it were a dull text book, so if either elements can be incorporated into the descriptions to enhance it without harming the facts that are trying to be presented, then it's perfectly fine to include them.

However, be very careful with them as there is always the danger that it could lead to writing fan fiction which does not agree with the games' official continuity.

Neutral Point of View

Where possible, articles should be written with a Neutral Point of View writing style. That is stay, present the core of the information in each article in a factual matter, without any bias for or against the subject being written about. Explain both the positive as well as negative aspects of the subject matter at hand, and let the reader decide how to interpret this information.

There are also various means of comparing the various game elements against each other, but the main information that the articles are trying to present need to be free of personal opinions, no matter how valid or invalid they may be.

One solution in the case of discussing the merits of the hand-held weapons is to use the weapon analysis sections for each respective game. You can easily include links in the main article to the various relevant comparative essays.

English Spelling Conflicts

With English, because spelling conventions are predominantly divided into "English" English and "American" English, not counting the many other dialects and mutations of the language (Singlish, for example), you may find some will favour or favor one spelling scheme over another. Armour vs. Armor for example.

In general, because this wiki is an international effort, either is perfectly acceptable in the body of articles, so do not get into editing wars about superfluous or missing U's.

Major title headings or game terms however should stick to the spelling as they are found in their respective games. X-COM Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense for example uses Armour, whereas X-COM Terror From The Deep uses Armor.