Difference between revisions of "The re-PSUPedia talk:Manual of style"

Revision as of 10:14, 8 August 2007

VOTE: Abbreviations

So we can set a standard Guardian type abbreviation system for use at the PSUPedia, we're taking a vote on what the users and contributors would like to have implemented. Our two choices are the JP Wiki version and Sounomi's version. For those who might not know, here are how the two sets of abbreviations compare:

Please post your vote (and if you want, your reasoning) on this issue in this section. Voting will be open for one week from today, so you have until 12:00a.m. CST Sunday, August 12 until all votes are tallied and an official decision is made. EspioKaos 15:13, 4 August 2007 (BST)

• Sounomi: I vote we use Sounomi's abbreviation set. Even though the JP Wiki's set has been used longer, Sounomi's set solves the issue of confusion some have had over fG/FG, which is Fighgunner and which is Fortegunner. Also, I just think it looks nicer than having random lowercase letters in certain abbreviations. (I still don't understand why the JP Wiki users decided to give the Acro-types a lowercase a.) One other thing, I've seen a few people complain that the PSUPedia seems to be a rip-off of the JP Wiki, so by using an abbreviation set that didn't originate from there, it might help set apart even further. EspioKaos 15:13, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• JP-Wiki: I vote we use the JP-Wiki set. We've been using this for a while now and I think most people can grasp the difference between fG and FG (the confusion tends to come mostly from people on forums who don't capitalize, and even then it can usually be worked out from context). As an aside, for ease of reading, I suggest putting either JP-Wiki or Sounomi at the start of our comments. - Mewn 16:50, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• Sounomi. --Beatrixkiddo 17:14, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• JP-Wiki: For all the reasons I said below. However, I'd really prefer JP-Wiki style, but with capital As for the Acro classes. --Qwerty 18:04, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• Sounomi. - Saiffy 18:35, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• Sounomi, also for reasons I stated below (and what's the point of a mixed-case abbreviation for the Acro classes?). EpisoKaos also raises some valid points about differentiating PSUPedia from the JP Wiki. F Gattaca 20:13, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• Sounomi, less ambiguity is better. Malice 23:23, 5 August 2007 (BST)
• Sounomi probably. First things first: I don't see much of a reason to differentiate from PSU-wiki. Since the sites have a limited overlap in their target audiences, there shouldn't be a sense of competition. I'd rather have them credited for what they're worth to the international community than try to be 'better'. Anyway, anyone able to differentiate the old-style acronyms (these aren't abbreviations, btw) shouldn't have trouble with the new ones either. Since in Japanese the alphabet is mostly used for set acronyms rather than phonetically, they would have been less likely to get confused by them in the first place. If the amount of people that feels put off by the fG/FG confusion is significant, I feel the change is justified. - Tycho 17:03, 6 August 2007 (BST)
  • I'm not too sure why the type terms are acroynms and not abbreviations. We're talking about type classifications formed from the shortening of the full word, after all. We do the same for titles like "Fr." for Father (clerical), "Dr." for Doctor, and so on. I thought acronyms only referred to words/terms created from letters taken a phrase or multiple words, like "LASER" from Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation or "RADAR" from RAdio Detecting And Ranging ... or maybe even "PSU" from Phantasy Star Universe, "AMF" from Alliance Military Force, or "TTB" from Triplanetary Transportation Bureau (did I get that one right?).
    
    If the class types were not an entire word as they appear to be, I'd agree that they are acronyms, but ... F Gattaca 23:56, 6 August 2007 (BST)
• Neither. I propose using Fo for forte Ac for acro and Fi for Figh. The difference between FoG and FiG is immediately obvious, no matter what standard you personally use. If you see only 'FG' you're still going to have to know which standard this place is using. Au+ 20:42, 6 August 2007 (BST)
• Sounomi looks cleaner and less ambiguity. We don't have to follow the Japanese on EVERYTHING when it doesn't make sense to. Firehawke 01:54, 7 August 2007 (BST)

VOTE: Heading and sub-heading capitalization

We would like to set a standard for the capitalization of headings and sub-headings within individual articles at the PSUPedia. Please cast your vote on which of the following styles you prefer. Voting will be open from now until 12:00a.m. CST August 12.

• Wikipedia Standard - The first letter of the first word and all proper nouns thereafter are capitalized, but everything else is lowercase.
• APA Standard - Multiple variations all depending upon the heading type.
• AJA Standard - Capitalize the first letter of the first word and all proper nouns, but apply no punctuation to the end of the heading.
• MLA Standard - The first letter of each word is capitalized unless it is an article (a, an, the), a preposition (against, between, in, of, to) a conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet') or the infinitive to.

If you know of any other standards that you are fond of, please feel free to cast a vote for them here, but be sure to give a source for examples and so forth. Voting on this will be open from now until 12:00a.m. CST August 12.

• Wikipedia: I vote that we use the Wikipedia standard. I personally like how it looks, plus it's very simple and straightforward with minimal rules to follow. EspioKaos 15:46, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• Wikipedia: I have to agree with the simplicity of the Wikipedia standard. Easy enough to follow. - Mewn 16:52, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• Wikipedia. --Beatrixkiddo 17:14, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• MLA:: Because it is what everything uses. Not capitalizing a noun in a title makes me :<. --Qwerty 18:12, 4 August 2007 (BST)
• Wikipedia, because it's the simplest. I like MLA better, but it will be harder to follow consistently. Malice 23:21, 5 August 2007 (BST)
• Wikipedia. - Tycho 17:14, 6 August 2007 (BST)
• Abstain. I'm not sure if it's couth to cast a vote for two things. While I prefer a standard like that of the APA and MLA (with the MLA governing what to capitalize, and the APA governing which subheadings are capitalized where others are simply written like a sentence), Wikipedia has a strong precedent ... therefore I'll abstain. F Gattaca 23:56, 6 August 2007 (BST)

Page-stretching and so forth

• Well, I was able to fix the stretching of the page with the addition of the code and nowiki tags, but the result is now a bit more jumbled, as line breaks are no longer obvious. We'll have to mess around with it some more to see if we can make a work-around. Of course, we could always take it out of table format and just have the section divided vertically. (The first part is "what you type" and the second part is "what you get.") EspioKaos 19:02, 31 July 2007 (BST)
  • The code part of the table probably doesn't have to be "as-is." It may be possible to modify the appearance of the code on the page, while the actual text (when copypasted into a edit box) will produce the same result as what's seen. F Gattaca 19:21, 31 July 2007 (BST)
    • I've played around with it some more, but I can't seem to come up with a way to make the code retain its line breaks so that the table will show up properly when inserted into a new page. (I'm still kind of green when it comes to wiki-coding, so I probably missed something.) So, until we can figure out a way to resolve this using the side-by-side comparison, I'm going to change things over a bit to where the code and result display vertically. We don't want people trying to use the jumbled code to think it doesn't work right because of the lack of line breaks, right?  ;) EspioKaos 15:47, 1 August 2007 (BST)

Capitalization and so forth

• I've been looking at the Wikipedia Manual of Style for inspiration on getting this section going, and I realized that they prefer the capitalization of titles to follow the rule of the first letter being in caps with all subsequent words (sans proper nouns, of course) being in lowercase. I know we don't have to follow this since PSUPedia is not a part of Wikipedia, but should we follow it? Personally, I actually like how it looks. What are you guys' thoughts on this? EspioKaos 18:43, 31 July 2007 (BST)
  • This kind of thing seems highly dependent on the organization's preference. I tried looking up manuals of style that deal with subheadings (as these would be). This college's First-Year English FAQ demonstrates the APA's way of treating headings and subheadings, which in some ways could be applied to a wiki.
    
    Meanwhile, the AJA's manual of style says to capitalize only the first word and important words but not to put a period or other punctuation at the end of the subheading.
    
    The MLA says that each word in a title is capitalized, except for articles (a, an, the), prepositions (against, between,in, of, to), conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet), and the infinitive to.
    
    I guess it's mostly up to what we want to see, but I'm predisposed towards using capitalization of words in high-level headings ("==" type), but not in lower-level headings. F Gattaca 19:22, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• I think we should follow it, but let's wait and see what others say first. - Mewn 19:26, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• I think we should follow the MLA-type standard, since it just makes the most sense, and is how everything (books, movies, articles, magazines, etc.) is titled. --Qwerty 20:15, 31 July 2007 (BST)

A few things

• Not sure exactly if these are supposed to be in this Manual of Style, but a few things for consideration:
  • Any names (of NPCs, items, missions, places, etc.) that have been translated from Japanese due to the lack of an official localization are to be put in parantheses until the official localization is known, at which point the localization takes precedence. An example is Fight For Food, which until the US closed beta shortly before release was known by its Japanese name of (Farm Plant Recovery).
  • Item types should be referred to by their proper names if possible, i.e. Line Shields instead of Armor.
  • To head off any future problems, weapon type names should be made consistent - particularly Cards/Throwing Blades/whatever the flavour of the month name is. I propose we use Cards, as that is how the Perfect Bible and PSU-Wiki refer to them.
  • When writing the star rarity of an item, use the ★ symbol consistently. Don't use * or anything like that. It can be reproduced by copy/pasting or switching to Japanese input and typing 'hoshi' (then pressing Space to change it).
  • For consistency, since the game is in US English, we use US English here as well. See here for the major differences.

If I think of anything else I'll list it here. - Mewn 19:26, 31 July 2007 (BST)

• Excellent! I'll get started on working these things in. EspioKaos 20:40, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• er, not trying to make much of a point here, but just for the record, in Europe the game was released with dialogue in British English plus three other European languages. I agree to preserve US English preferences for the wiki articles though, if only to adhere to the dominant standard. - Tycho 17:26, 6 August 2007 (BST)

Abbreviations

• Dun dun dun! Now we get to the abbreviations and what we'll consistently use when it comes to type names. I, for one, side with Sounomi's proposal, which creates a case-insensitive, easy-to-recognize abbreviation for types that would share letters under the abbreviations that originated from the Japanese wiki. For example, Fighgunner and Fortegunner would be FI and FG, respectively. I haven't added in the type abbreviations to the list just yet, as we first should come to a consensus on what we'll use. EspioKaos 19:45, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• Ah, this spectre. I personally support and use the PSU-Wiki abbreviations and have no real problem differentiating between fG and FG, but whichever is clearer to the majority would be the one to go with. My vote goes to the PSU-Wiki abbreviations, though. - Mewn 19:53, 31 July 2007 (BST)
• I will definitely and adamantly support the traditional (i.e. FG/fG) style abbreviations, simply because they have been used by the vast majority for almost a year now. I have no difficulty distinguishing between FG and fG, especially given context. Furthermore, I do not see the need to be meticulous when it comes to Att. versus ATP and the like. To be absolutely honest, I think that it is stupid that there is even a difference in game, and I never see people use Att., Def., Eva., and the like. I do not see why we can't just use ATP/ATA/DFP/EVP/MST/etc. for everything, simply because it eliminates confusion and those are the abbreviations most commonly used. However, I reckon my opinion will be in the minority on that issue. --Qwerty 20:06, 31 July 2007 (BST)
  • That's an excellent point, Qwerty. I think I'll actually merge a few things together, making Acc. and ATA under the same listing with a general description as opposed to the "in reference to weapon stats" descriptor. EspioKaos 20:25, 31 July 2007 (BST)
  • I strongly side with Sounomi's style. It's much better to have two unique letter combinations for a type class, not to mention "FI" is a nod to the "first two letters" abbreviation rule of the old PSO days. it's also not case dependent; that helps avoid confusion with mis-capped abbreviations or people who just throw the shift key out the window (I've encountered situations like this before!). I personally use it for my user page as well as my signature on PSO-World.
    
    As far as the "Att." and "Acc." issue, it might be a good idea if the weapon tables link to Stats and the corresponding stat, so that people who aren't PSOldschool will understand it's the same thing. F Gattaca 21:26, 31 July 2007 (BST)
    • Well, FI might be slightly less confusing to some, but FG/fG has been used as the standard for a year, and I must favor precedent. --Qwerty 21:47, 31 July 2007 (BST)
      • Good idea on linking the stat abbreviation to its article, Gattaca. I'll see if I can do some cleaning up of the stats page and we can get everything linked over as we go with page redesigns. As far as the type abbreviations go, we're tied with two for the JP wiki style and two for Sounomi's style. EspioKaos 15:38, 1 August 2007 (BST)
  • I just found something interesting on the abbreviation thing at the JP wiki. Apparently there was much debating over what the abbreviations they use should be, and the issue of confusion between fG and FG was brought up many times. Some suggestions users over there made to get around this include Fr to stand for "forte." So, FrF would be Fortefighter. Also, someone suggested FFi, FGu and FTe for Fortefighter, Fortegunner and Fortetecher, respectively. Many more suggestions were made, but that's way too many to list. EspioKaos 03:57, 4 August 2007 (BST)
    • In my not-so-humble opinion, those all are even more unnecessarily confusing than either the traditional system or Sounomi's. Just my two cents. --Qwerty 05:39, 4 August 2007 (BST)
      • Oh, I agree. I just wanted to point out some other suggestions that were thrown about on the issue.  ;) EspioKaos 14:46, 4 August 2007 (BST)

Template Nonsense

• I just made a metric ass-load of templates for use on weapon pages. This should make them much easier to put together, requiring less memorization of the confusing color-codes (or alt-tabbing to another, completed, article's edit page, which is just as silly), less typing for the image tags, and general happiness through technology. Check Rifles, it works out the same, and saved a bunch of text. Not going to add it to the style manual until I garner praise and cookies from you all though. --Beatrixkiddo 04:48, 1 August 2007 (BST)
  • Lolk after some fun times, I've found out that A) Templates only work if they are one-per-cell. B) Multiple Templates in the headers of tables don't get along and C) Template descriptions don't work so well with the color-code templates. Other than that, have fun with them! --Beatrixkiddo 05:31, 1 August 2007 (BST)
    • Excellent work! I don't see why these won't be approved, but I'll wait for more feedback before adding them in. (Or, I could add them in with the pending title until it's made official.) EspioKaos 01:57, 2 August 2007 (BST)

Am I just blind, or what?

If one of these weapons is not yet released in the Japanese version of PSU, use the code style="background:#fff2f2" in the row divider above it (|-).

• I cannot tell the difference between this color and pure white, at all. It's not really important, I guess, but maybe we should try a slightly darker tone? --Qwerty 06:06, 1 August 2007 (BST)
  • It should appear as a faint red. This should actually be changed to the red used in the new color-coding table I added. (style="background:#FFAAAA") Of course, I need to verify first that this is the standard. EspioKaos 01:54, 2 August 2007 (BST)
    • Querty, I noticed in your weapons page proposal that you chose very dark grey colors for your tables, where the "wikitable" format already has a significant division of color; maybe your monitor's brightness is set too high? F Gattaca 22:00, 2 August 2007 (BST)
      • Lolya. My brightness is set at 100, and contrast at 28, but my monitor color always seems off if I change it. But I yeah, I suspect that is what's going on. --Qwerty 23:02, 2 August 2007 (BST)
      • Oh, wow. I mean, wow. I played around with some settings on my monitor and driver. Honest to God, I never knew the wikitable class had background colors pre-assigned, they always showed up as pure white on my screen. With that in mind, I think I need to change my Weapon Template, as those colors really are too dark. --Qwerty 00:37, 3 August 2007 (BST)

Voting on pending issues of style

• OK, we're getting an excellent start on this by getting a standard established for the PSUPedia. Now all we need to do is vote on a few subjects at hand (the pending issues in the manual) to move even further. So, how should we handle voting? Maybe leave it open for a set period of time (one week?) and then go with the decision from there? Or maybe we should just close the polls once we get votes from everyone participating in the creation of the manual? Other ideas? EspioKaos 04:49, 3 August 2007 (BST)
  • I'd say, set a deadline of one week to vote, and mention it on the frontpage so any visitors can come and vote. - Mewn 10:42, 3 August 2007 (BST)
    • OK. When I put it on the front page, would a little blurb in bold below the welcome line but before the actual paragraph be good? (Like where the mention of our Super Holy Light week and the addition of Her Secret Mission was located.) I can just link to this page from there. EspioKaos 03:30, 4 August 2007 (BST)
    • Yeah, that sounds good, people will have to know what they're voting on and it might help grab their attention. - Mewn 10:27, 4 August 2007 (BST)
    • I think there have been wiki extensions emulating polls floating around, if you want. In fact, I think I there was one installed earlier actually... Probably got killed during all the transfers and server moves and whatnot. - Tycho 17:53, 6 August 2007 (BST)
    • Er, actually... >_>
      • Ah, cool. I'll look into the proper markup for writing a poll (since it's not detailed there, unless I just missed it) and see if we can use it for the next one we need. Thanks for the tip! EspioKaos 19:09, 7 August 2007 (BST)

Weapon table revision

• Since our S-rank listing is using a darker red to point out items that have not been released in any version of the game, shouldn't our new weapon table do the same? Or is there a reason that it uses a lighter shade of red? EspioKaos 03:49, 4 August 2007 (BST)
  • I believe the notion was that it was too dark/bold for general use in other temples but let me mess around with it, and see how it looks. --Qwerty 05:40, 4 August 2007 (BST)
    • Any updates on this end?  ;) EspioKaos 19:14, 7 August 2007 (BST)
    • Yeah, I was wondering this myself. The sooner finalized templates can be shown by the both of you, the sooner we can vote on them and institute a standard. Oh, by the way, something neither of you seem to have considered at the moment is AoI - if you are working on your templates at all you might want to add a place to put which versions of the game an item is available on, for future use. - Mewn 21:23, 7 August 2007 (BST)
      • Perhaps we can make the text for the item name yellow...while still retaining it as a link to its own article. Not sure if this is possible, or if it'd even look good though. But a seperate coloumn would probably be a lot easier anyways. - Saiffy 21:36, 7 August 2007 (BST)
      • I'll see if I can mess around with the tables some to add a column for AotI-exclusive items. Same for the individual item templates. On that, I'm trying to come up with some ideas for templates on other non-weapon stuff like traps, materials and consumables. I'll try to get some things done on that as soon as possible. EspioKaos 21:59, 7 August 2007 (BST)
      • OK, here we go. I quickly added in a column before the comments section to display which version of the game an item is from. As I state in my notes there, I think the italics look a little silly, but I don't want to make a double-standard since game titles are supposed to be italicized anyway. Perhaps we could use a small icon similar to the manufacturer icons? EspioKaos 00:41, 8 August 2007 (BST)
      • For tables, I suggest we do use something like a very pale yellow as Saiffy suggested, or put in the extra column as Espio did. Alternatively, we could use a very small icon to denote AotI-only things in tables and lists. For articles addressing a bunch of AotI-only content, I suggest we just use something like below. --Qwerty 06:16, 8 August 2007 (BST)
      • Me again. Here is an example of two possible ways to denote an AotI item/quest/whatever in tabular/list form. As noted there, I'm more so fond of the little icon (), as it can be more widely applied. Also, too many varying colors in a table is both hard to remember and confusing to the lay reader. Anyway, comments plx. --Qwerty 06:50, 8 August 2007 (BST)
      • I prefer the column directly stating PSU or AoI, it'd be good for any future expansions, and the colour has the flaw of not telling us if the item is released or not. - Mewn 11:14, 8 August 2007 (BST)