Star Stable Wiki:Style Guide

General guidelines

• Make sure to read a page before editing. It is very common for editors to add notes, tips, and trivia that is just a repeat of information already contained in the article.

• Keep the article's main topic in mind when editing. Do not add extra or overly complicated information that has little or nothing to do with the subject as there is usually another page that already contains that information. For example, stating on the Soul Rider page that Alex, Anne, Linda, and Lisa are the current soul riders is entirely sufficient, whereas mentioning their likes/dislikes, appearances, family members etc., would be inappropriate information belonging on each girl's respective pages.

• Preview and proofread your edit before saving it to make sure it fits with the rest of the article's style. Avoid misspelling or using incorrect grammar, repeating information, writing vaguely, or not following the style guide's terms may result in the edit being modified or undone by other editors. (If you are having trouble with grammar or formatting, say so in the edit summary, or within the "Editor Help and Formatting" section of the discord server and other editors will be happy to help you fix it.)

• Before saving an edit, make sure to write a brief explanation of your changes in the edit summary field. This helps other editors understand the intentions of your edit, avoids conflict over controversial modifications, and makes it easier to search for a certain change in the page history.

Language

• Use American English for spelling to keep grammar cohesive.

• Use standard, formal English, proper grammar and spelling whenever possible. Avoid using contracted forms (such as don't, there's – use do not, there is instead), colloquialisms, or slang.
  • Terms and quotes from the game are exempt from this.

• The wiki is meant to be an online encyclopedia of information. The tone of your writing should always be formal, impersonal, and dispassionate while being easily understood by the average reader.
  • Do not include first or second person perspectives. Do not address the reader as "you", such as in "You can use hay to feed horses". Alternatively, use "the player" (e.g. "The player can use hay to feed their horses"). A passive voice can also be used sparingly (e.g. "Hay can be used to feed horses"). Additionally, as there are a lot of players with widely varying play styles, avoid over-generalizing language such as "Most players ...".
  • Keep your edits factual – that is, do not include opinions or personal biases. For example, a description of a model's appearance should not include subjective comments on their beauty or ugliness. Additionally, comments such as "This championship is the most difficult" or "This horse is the best racer" should not appear unless they are verifiable in the game (stats, time challenges, etc.).
  • Never leave visible comments that are not meant for readers to see. Comments such as "Help me format this", or "Please verify this" should be hidden within the source as HTML or CSS comments, put in the edit summary, or mentioned in the discord server.

Capitalization

• All subject names should be capitalized as they appear in-game (e.g. Happyhoof treats, The Baroness' Racetrack).
  • Page titles and section headings should be in title case, as long as that does not interfere with the rule above.

Formatting Guidelines

• The first instance of a subject name on a page should always be linked. This does not apply to the page title (which should be in proper bold instead, see below). Additional mentions of the same subject should not be linked, although multiple identical links can exist if they occur far from each other and would be helpful to readers. An example might be one link in the introductory section along with an identical link in a section, table, or template occurring further down. Duplicate links may be especially helpful on larger pages that would require scrolling to find a subject's first mention.

• The first instance of the page title should be bold. This should usually be in the first sentence of the article. No other instance of the page title should be bold. Bold print should be avoided for emphasizing other words.

• Italic print is to be used in the following cases:
  • When writing a direct quote from the in-game dialogue.
  • Foreign words and phrases that are not common in everyday English.
  • Scientific names of organisms (e.g. Liriodendron tulipifera) as described on Wikipedia.

• Underlining, s p a c i n g within words, different colors within words, ALL CAPS, and small caps styling is to be avoided at all times.

• Times of day are to be formatted as in-game, i.e., in a 24-hour clock format. Hours should have a leading zero.

• When making lists, be sure to categorize subjects in alphabetical order.
  • Ignore articles (a, an, the) conjunctions (and or &) or prepositions (such as for, in, of) except where they are used distinctively (e.g. The Baroness' Racetrack should be listed under 'B' for "baroness" and not 'T' for "the".).
  • Organizations whose title or name is an acronym or contain a single letter are alphabetized treating each letter of the acronym or single letter as a separate unit.

Lore and Cannon

As the wiki hosts multiple Star Stable Franchise games, lore and cannon should be separated by game so as not to confuse readers. For subjects that appear in multiple games, the "Main Overview" section (see Navigation Header below) should only include information from Star Stable Online. Information from other games like Starshine legacy, the Star Stable CD games, and Star Academy should be placed in the "Other Appearances" section.

• If the subject does not appear in Star Stable online, but does appear in other games, the "main overview" should cover information from the game the subject first appeared in, and the "other appearances" section should cover following appearances.
  • If the subject only appears in a single game, do not make a page for the "other appearances" tab.

Article Format and Sections

Different article types require different formats and sections:

• Horse Breed page format
• NPC page format
• Item page format
• Event page format
• Race page format
• Quest page format
• Location Page format
• Music Page format
• Book and Comic Page format

However, the sections below should exist on almost every page. Exceptions where this is not possible for obvious reasons such as Game platform, lists, categories, or disambiguation pages and Guides.

Any section that is not listed here or on the specific page format pages should be discussed with an admin.

Note that the bullet lists with questions in the following sections are not meant to be exhaustive guides but merely examples.

Navigation Header

The navigation header template, {{General Navtab}}, should be the first section on any article. As mentioned above, information on the first page (Main Overview tab) should default to Star Stable Online.

Intro

This section is located at the very top of the page, above everything else, generally including the table of contents.

This section has no heading. At the very beginning of the page, the infoboxes are placed. Below that, but above the article is reserved for redirection and link templates and possibly, certain decorations like a quotation or flavor text.

The first paragraph should start below the templates and flavor text and should contain the article's topic and alternative names in bold when first used. A classification should be made in the first one or two sentences:

• Is the subject an NPC, item, quest, horse breed, etc.?
• Is it available in Star Stable Online, Star Stable CD, Star Stable horses, etc.?
• What purpose does the subject serve in game?
• Where and when does the subject appear in-game?

Do not include spoilers (if it can be avoided), complicated wording, or anything else that is not required to gain a basic, general overview of the subject.

Timeline

This section should be omitted if there is no notable development of the subject to be included (such as topics in the CD games where the product had no further development after release).

Description

This section should involve a thorough description of the subject. Such as:

• Appearance (what the subject looks like in-game)
• Background information
• Relationship to other subjects in-game
• Function or process to obtain the subject.
• Possible unlocking conditions.

Depending on the subject, these topics may be split up into several sub-sections for better navigation.

Trivia

This section should be omitted if there is nothing notable to add.

This section of the page should have a bulleted list of facts that are related to the article topic but not necessarily to gameplay. Examples of trivia are explanations of the etymology of the name of the entity, explanations of why this content was added to the game, some developer quotes on the topic, scientific or genetic facts, etc.

Trivia should include possible references without proper citations. Trivia is not a place for personal biases or opinions.

References

This section should be omitted if there are no citations within a page.

This section of the page lists the references and footnotes used in the article text. Its only content should be <references />, which will produce a list of references and footnotes, if there are any of those on the page. See the Reference format page for the documentation how to cite references within a page.

• This section should only be called "references" do not title this section citations, notes, sources, footnotes, bibliography etc.

• Citations should be formatted using the Notes-Bibliography System (NB) of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). Specifically, one should use the most recent edition (currently the 17th Edition) when formatting references. See the above, Reference format page for specific formatting.
  • You can resort to use Owl.Purdue.edu as a secondary guide if the specific citation format you are looking for is not covered on the page.

Either the References section or the Trivia section is the last section of the page. Appropriate navigational templates should be placed at the end, followed by categories.