Zombie Panic! Official Wiki:Manual of Style

This is the Manual of Style for all articles on the Zombie Panic! Wiki. This wiki is generally written in American English — in accordance with the English localization of Zombie Panic! — and may use some specific rulesets which may be different from other wikis or communities. Please read this page carefully to maintain the consistency across the wiki.

More content should be added to this page should style issues arise.

Feel free to discuss improvements to this guide through this page's Talk page, or the wiki's Discord server.

Section Order

For consistency, all articles must follow a general layout:

1. Notices
2. Hatnotes
3. Infobox
4. Introduction or general description
5. Article content (See the Page Layout Guides for specific sections)
6. Trivia
7. Gallery
8. Video Guides
9. Notes
10. Other Languages
11. Change History
12. References
13. Navboxes
14. Categories
15. Interwikis

Article Titles, Sections, and Headings

Titles and Headings

• Use title case for article titles and section headings, unless the in-game title is not in title case.
• Page titles must be singular by default; page introductions may be plural if desired.
  • For example: Satchel, not Satchels
• Do not use "A," "An," or "The," as the first word of an article title or section heading, unless it is inseparable or part of the in-game title.
  • For example: Roanoke Police Department, not The Roanoke Police Department, but A Hand Grenade, not Hand Grenade.
• Do not use links or references in section headings.
• Do not add whitespaces before or after section headings.
  • For example: ==Section==, not == Section ==.

Section Organization

Main page: Category:Page Layout Guides

Redirects

• Do not create redirects or disambiguation pages for generic titles, even if they have only ever been used by one character.
• Do not create redirects for forms of address.
• Full name and alias redirects of characters should only be made if they are used in in-game material such that a link would be convenient to use.
• For technical reasons, appropriate redirects may be created when any of the following is true of a page name:
  • Contains a diacritic
  • Begins with any punctuation mark
  • Ends with a question mark

Article Content

• Bold the first use of the page title in the article, which is typically in the first sentence.
  • Do not include links within this bolded portion.
• The usage of most magic words in articles is disallowed, with the exception of the following:
  • Behavioral Switches
    • __TOC__ — shows the Table of Contents at the position of its usage
    • __NOTOC__ — hides the Table of Contents
  • Technical Metadata Variables
    • {{DISPLAYTITLE:text to display as the page's title}} — commonly handled by infoboxes
  • Page Name Variables, only to be used with subst: to avoid issues on transclusion, should be used inside {{subst:#titleparts:magic word}} to avoid HTML entities being left on the article.
    • {{subst:PAGENAME}} — full page name without namespace (e.g., Module:Weapon Information and Stats/data → Weapon Information and Stats/data)
    • {{subst:FULLPAGENAME}} — full page name with namespace (e.g., Module:Weapon Information and Stats/data → Module:Weapon Information and Stats/data)
    • {{subst:BASEPAGENAME}} — full page name without the lowest subpage (e.g., Eugene Grant/Lore → Eugene Grant)
    • {{subst:SUBPAGENAME}} — lowest subpage's name (e.g., Eugene Grant/Lore → Lore)
    • {{subst:ROOTPAGENAME}} — root page's name (e.g., Eugene Grant/Lore → Eugene Grant)

Vocabulary

• Avoid using second person (i.e., "you"). Possible alternatives include using "players" or "the Carrier" or rephrasing the sentence to use passive voice.
  • For example, replace "(If you have completed Shredding Field)" with "(If Shredding Field has been completed)."
  • Second person in the form of commands is acceptable in the following cases:
    • Navigational aids (e.g., "See also").
• Avoid using contractions (such as "can't," "shouldn't").

Italics

Italics must be used in the following types of names or titles:

• Achievement categories
• Achievement titles
• Video games

Grammar and Spelling

In accordance with the English localization of the game, the Zombie Panic! Wiki follows the following rules:

• Use the American spelling of words.
• Use the serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma).
• Use "neutral" (straight) quotation marks (" " and ' ', not “ ” and ‘ ’) and apostrophes (', not ’).
• Use double quotation marks for quotations. When nesting quotations, use single quotations. For example: Paimon exclaimed: "What do you mean 'hehe'!?"
• Place commas and periods within the quotation marks. ("Like this," not "like this".) This does not apply to other punctuation.

Date and Numbers

• Present dates in the format YYYY/MM/DD, or Month DD, YYYY when written out.
  • Never use MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY due to the format's inherent ambiguity.
• Present times in the format HH:MM AM/PM (UTC±X). The hour should always include a leading zero when it is a single digit. When presenting a time in the 24-hour clock format, omit the AM/PM.
  • This rule does not apply when referencing the in-game Time System.
• Delimit numbers exceeding 999 into groups of three digits with a comma.
  • For example: 1,000,000 but not 1000000

Symbols

• Use a proper multiplication symbol (× or ×), not the letter X (x).
• Transcribe em dashes (—) as they are shown in the game (written —). Do not replace it with the en dash (–) or two hyphen-minuses (--).

Deviation from In-Game Text

Grammar and spelling errors in transcriptions of official Zombie Panic! material should not be corrected, but rather highlighted using the {{sic}} template. Erroneous translations should also be noted using a reference note or added to the Trivia section if they impact understanding of the game's gameplay or lore. The Wiki will be updated after HoYoverse (miHoYo) corrects the localization errors.

References

• Add references after punctuation (E.g., Biotec is located north of Barlowe.<ref>Reference to Biotec</ref>, not Biotec is located north of Barlowe<ref>Reference to Biotec</ref>..)
• Do not add explanatory notes into references. Create a reference group for these notes and display them separately.
  • The reference group and the section heading for these notes should usually be named Note and Notes, respectively.
• No more than 2 references should be used for the same claim.
• When placing references or notes in the same group together, they must be ordered in ascending numerical order. (E.g., [2][5] and [Note 2][Note 5], not [5][2] or [Note 5][Note 2].) Note that numbers are automatically assigned, so it is strongly recommended to preview the page to help order references.
• When references and notes are used together, references must be placed before notes. (E.g., [2][Note 1], not [Note 1][2].)
• When placing notes in different groups together, they must have the same order as the invoked lists of notes. For example, if a page lists notes from the Note group first and the Assumption group second, then a claim that has notes from both groups should look like [Note 5][Assumption 3], not [Assumption 3][Note 5].
• Notes should be used sparingly. While attaching something like [1][5][Note 2][Note 3][Assumption 2] to a claim would technically be correct and compliant, there might be better ways to present that information. Alternatives that can be considered are condensing notes, directing readers to Trivia, and even integrating the information into the article body when appropriate.
• {{Ref}} templates are used to automate reference formatting for editors.

Interwiki

• Interwikis must be added at the end of the page, after categories if there are any.
• List each language in a new line and in alphabetical order.
• Template and module interwikis are listed in the documentation page inside a <noinclude>.
• If the template or module has no documentation, add the interwiki inside an <includeonly> in the main template page.
• Do not add interwikis in File namespace.

See Also

• Wiki Syntax Formatting Guidelines