Illerai:Style guide
This style guide has the simple purpose of making the Old School RuneScape Wiki easy to read by establishing a certain format. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does things the same way, the articles will be easier to read and use, along with being easier to write and edit. Reading the style guide is important to ensure that each user's edits will be consistent with those of other users.
Article titles
Pages must have appropriate titles. Names, locations, and titles (like a quest) should all be capitalised, though not the whole title. Block capitals should not be used in titles (e.g. 'Article titles' instead of 'ARTICLE TITLES'). Try to make the article's topic the subject of the first sentence in the article. For example, write "This style manual is a style guide" instead of "This style guide is known as..." Use boldface (
in the edit tool bar) for the first (and only the first) appearance of the title.
Articles about items, monsters, quests, and non-player characters should be titled exactly as the subject's name appears in-game. A rule of thumb for article titles is that items only have the first letter of the first word in their name capitalised. There is no capitalisation convention for monsters or non-player characters. Unless the monster or character's name has more than one capital in-game, do not put a capital at the beginning of every word. This is a common mistake which often causes broken links and time being diverted to moving these pages. If you are in doubt about a name, please check it in-game. If you come across a page with an incorrect title, please move it to the correct title and edit it to make the correct title consistent. If a page's title conflicts with its content, make the content consistent with the title after checking in-game to ensure accuracy.
However, this rule should not be followed blindly and applied for every single subject encountered in the game. For example, "2/3 cake" is located in ⅔ cake due to the technical restrictions which exist in the software. In cases where the in-game name is ambiguous, disambiguation is necessary, such as swamp toad and swamp toad (item), the item.
Words such as articles and short prepositions in titles should be left un-capitalised, unless they are intended to be capitalised in Old School RuneScape. These include words such as 'a', 'the', and 'of'. For example, the article on the Tears of Guthix quest has the title 'Tears of Guthix' (the 'of' is left un-capitalised).
Sections and headings
Separating articles into sections makes them easy to read and navigate. Headings are used to split articles into sections.
Markup
Use two equal signs (==) style markup for headings. Start with ==, add the heading title, then end with ==.
This section's heading was created with the markup:
==Sections and headings==
This subsection's heading was created with the markup:
===Markup===
Wording
- In a heading, capitalise only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns, and leave all of the other letters in lower case. Quest titles, skills, names, cities, and so on should all have the first letter capitalised. For example, "Fishing equipment", not "Fishing Equipment".
- Avoid putting links in headings.
- Make sure that the heading has an appropriate and accurate title, as this is important to help readers navigate the article. For example, do not make a "Monsters" section in an article about an area or dungeon and then include non-player characters in that section. Instead, make an "Inhabitants" section with "Monsters" and "NPCs" as subsections.
- Keep headings short.
Lead sections
A lead (introduction) summarises the most important points of an article, creating interest in the topic. Thus, it should be limited to a few paragraphs. Certain information, such as strategies and trivia, should be in a separate section instead of in the lead. This applies only to articles that are of sufficient length to incorporate a lead.
Section organisation
An article should generally start with an infobox when applicable, followed by a lead section. This should then be followed by multiple sections each detailing subjects about the article's topic.
If an article has at least four section headings, a navigable table of contents appears automatically, just after the lead.
If the topic of a section is covered in more detail in a dedicated article, insert {{main|Article name}} immediately under the section heading.
Detailed instructions about section layout can be found at RuneScape:Style guide/Layout.
Text elements
Font colours
Coloured font can be used sparingly, though not in very bright colours. For example, you can use a dark colour for a warning. Note that certain colours will not show up well against the article's light brown background.
Invisible comments
Invisible comments are used to communicate with other editors in the article body. To do so, enclose the text which you intend to be read only by editors within <!-- and -->. For example, using <!-- This is a comment --> will be hidden in the article.
Bulleted lists
Bulleted lists can be used in quest walkthroughs and lists. For example, you can use bullets if you're listing what levels to train a certain skill or locations of an item. Do not forget proper punctuation. To add bullets, put an asterisk (*) before the name. For example:
* List name 1 * List name 2 ** Sub-list
would come out as:
- List name 1
- List name 2
- Sub-list
Numbered lists
All the rules for bulleted lists apply also to numbered lists. Numbered lists can be used for listing steps in a process. To add a numbered list, put a number sign (#) before the list name. For example:
# List name 1 # List name 2 # List name 3
would come out as:
- List name 1
- List name 2
- List name 3
Bold and italics
Place two apostrophes (''Italicised text'', or 
in the edit tool bar) on either side of a selection of text to italicise the selection. Italics are mainly used to emphasise certain words, though they should be used sparingly. Also note that Old School RuneScape should always be italicised. Long stretches of italics are hard for some users to read.
Place three apostrophes ('''Boldfaced text''') on either side of a selection of text to boldface the selection. Bold is used as a stronger emphasis than italics, although it should be used extremely sparingly within articles, such as for a few critical points, and ideally not a whole sentence. However, the first appearance of an article's title in the article should always be boldfaced, i.e.:
- Weird Gloop is found in...
Place five apostrophes ('''''Boldfaced and italicised text''''') on either side of a selection to use bold and italics in combination on the selection. Bold and italics combined emphasise selections well, but should be used extremely rarely: bold italics represent more emphasis than is normally ever necessary.
As you can see, bold works well to emphasise sentences as well as short phrases and single words, while italics are a much weaker emphasis for sentences, but work well on short phrases or single words. Bold and italics are used in combination very rarely. Excessive use of any of these text elements will make the entire article difficult to read, so please use them in appropriate situations.
Italics should not be used on any quotes, which should always be delimited with quotation marks. The final punctuation mark of an italic section should sit outside of the italics.
Grammar and spelling
Case
All prose, including bold text at the beginning of articles, should conform to standard capitalisation in English.
- Proper nouns
- Proper nouns are to be capitalised. The following is a non-exhaustive list of proper nouns:
- For example: the King Black Dragon is a black dragon; the Kraken is a Slayer boss; there are elves in Tirannwn; the elite Varrock Diary is the final Achievement Diary in the Varrock region.
- Common nouns
- Common nouns, such as the names of most items and monsters, are to be lower case. If an item name contains a proper noun, the proper noun should be capitalised. For example, helm of Neitiznot, mask of Ranul, Sanfew serum
- Notes & Exceptions
- Page titles, as well as the
{{Infobox}}representations of items, NPCs, and other game objects are to reflect their exact name as depicted in-game, except where distinctions have been made for navigational purposes, or for other technical reasons — these vary on a case-by-case basis. In the event of a conflict between in-game representation (e.g. transcripts) and the game cache's data, preference is given to the cache. - When mentioning a skill, it should always be mentioned by its proper name. For example, "The queen can be smooshed by mining the pillar, requiring level 10 Mining."
- Achievement Diaries are to be written following the case-sensitive pattern:
<difficulty> <Region> [Achievement] Diary
Abbreviations
Try not to use abbreviations. For example, use "battleaxe" instead of "baxe". Some players may not know what these abbreviations mean. And, as far as looks go, it's much more pleasing to the eye to look at "Dragon claws result in higher overall damage output than Bandos godsword at Vorkath." than "Dclaws are better DPS than BGS at Vork". It's even worse when you type something in "Leet Speak" also known as "1337 5P34K". This wiki's preferred language is British English, not numbers.
Also try not to use ampersand (&) instead of and, unless it is part of a proper noun (e.g. Big Cats & WWF, Romeo & Juliet).
Punctuation
Punctuation marks like semicolons, brackets, and commas are essential for clarity, structure, and emphasis in writing guides and editing pages. They help organise ideas, prevent misunderstandings, and enhance the professionalism of the text.
- Commas
If you are listing multiple things, like different runes, each of them should have a serial comma (also known as an Oxford comma) at the end. For example, "fire runes, earth runes, and water runes" would be proper, "fire runes, earth runes and water runes" would not be.
- Brackets
If you are compiling a list of drops for a monster in the bestiary pages, try not to use brackets to denote quantities. For example, instead of "nature runes (5,17,35)" it should be "5, 17 or 35 nature runes". The reason is that brackets can be part of the in-game description, and a monster that drops 2 full waterskins would be very confusing if the brackets system was used (e.g. "Waterskin (4) (2)"). The same problem applies to potions. This is not a problem when using the DropsTableHead and DropsLine templates, as there is a section for the quantity.
- Semicolons
If you are writing and need to use semicolons, make sure you follow these guidelines:
- Make sure there are two short independent clauses you can link. For example, "Thurgo is hungry; he needs a redberry pie."
- Place a semicolon before conjunctive adverbs (e.g., however, therefore) when they are linked to independent clauses. For example, "Magic leaves are not accurate in their cost in-game; therefore, do not use them with sharks to make rations for profit."
- Use semicolons to separate items in a list when the items themselves contain commas. For example, "The Goblin Diplomacy quest involves only talking to General Bentnoze, the Goblin General who wears red; General Wartface, the Goblin General who wears green; Wyson, the head gardener in Falador Park; and Aggie, the witch from Draynor Village."
- Use a semicolon to balance closely related sentences, especially if the second explains the first. For example, "At the end of the Slug Menace quest, the player character is promoted to the rank of Proselyte within the order of the Temple Knights; this promotion comes with increased responsibilities."
Usage and spelling
- Old School RuneScape and RuneScape should be italicised.
- Jagex should always be spelled as Jagex, not JaGEx or JAGEX or any other variations.
- British spelling should be used at all times. Common examples include:
- A herb instead of An herb, as the 'h' is pronounced with British prose.
- Analyse instead of analyze
- Anti-dragon shield instead of antidragon shield
- Armour instead of armor
- Artefact instead of artifact
- Behaviour instead of behavior
- Capitalise instead of capitalize
- Centre instead of center
- Colour instead of color
- Defence (and offence) instead of defense
- Dialogue instead of dialog
- Duelling instead of dueling
- Equipped instead of equiped
- Favour instead of favor
- Fulfil instead of fulfill
- Grey instead of gray
- Honour instead of honor
- Humour instead of humor
- But humorous instead of humourous
- Jewellery instead of jewelry
- Licence is the noun. License is the verb. The same goes for practice and practise.
- Rumour instead of rumor
- Tradeable (and untradeable) instead of tradable
- Travelled (and levelled) instead of traveled
- For directions and compounds, hyphens should be included. For example:
- Counter-attack instead of counterattack
- South-west instead of southwest
- North-east instead of northeast
- East-north-east instead of east-northeast
Exceptions:
- The item Nitroglycerin uses the US spelling.
- The NPC Brother Tranquility only has one "l" in his name, per the American spelling.
- The item Ring of dueling uses the US spelling.
See also: American and British English spelling differences and variations.
Tense
A rule of thumb is to use present tense in all cases. For example, articles for quests, skills, activities, non-player characters, etc. should be written in present tense. An exception to this rule would be events that have occurred in the past, or for in-game content that has been removed. For example, holiday events that have already occurred should be written in past tense. For future updates and upcoming content that have been confirmed by Jagex, use the future tense.
- Past tense: Past events and in-game content that has been removed
- Future tense: Future updates and upcoming content that have been confirmed
- Present tense: All other cases
Common grammatical errors
then and than
- Despite their pronunciations being very similar, they are different in meaning.
- Then is used in one of the three following cases:
- 1. at that time; at the time in question.
- "I was living in Cairo then."
- 2. after that; next; afterward
- "She won the first and then the second game."
- 3. in that case; therefore
- "If you do what I tell you, then there's nothing to worry about."
- "Well, that's okay, then."
- 1. at that time; at the time in question.
- Than is used in comparing two elements in a sentence
- "He was much smaller than his son."
- or in expressions introducing exceptions or contrasts
- "He claims not to own anything other than his home."
- Then is used in one of the three following cases:
its and it's
- Its is the possessive adjective and possessive pronoun form of the personal pronoun it.
- "He chose this area for its atmosphere."
- On the other hand, it's is a contraction (shortcut) for it is OR it has.
- it is – "It's my fault."
- it has – "It's been a hot day."
their, there, and they're
- Their is possessive, referring to an object, or objects, belonging to a certain number of people.
- "The ball is their property."
- There is an adverb, referring to a certain position or area.
- "We went on to Paris and stayed there eleven days."
- They're can also be confused with their and there. They're is a contraction for they are and they were, depending on how the sentence is constructed.
- "The reason that they're going to the store is to buy more milk."
should of
- The reason people write "should of" when they mean should have is because the contraction of should have (should've) is pronounced like "should of". Avoid "should of" like the plague. Instead, write "should have".
- "Those rookie editors made the mistake of writing 'should of' when they meant 'should have'".
a herb and an herb
- A herb is the correct term on the wiki as the "h" at the start of herb is not silent in British English. American English silences the "h", which means that an herb would be correct.
- "Guam is a herb that can be farmed"
partyhat and party hat
- Although they are often called "party hats", the correct term for these items is partyhats, without a space in between.
amount and number
- Amount refers to a quantity that can be measured. Number refers to a quantity that can be counted.
- "Higher skill levels require a greater amount of experience."
- "The maximum number of players that log into any world is 2000."
much and many
- As in the above example, much refers to a quantity that can be measured. Many refers to a quantity that can be counted.
- "How much total experience do you have?"
- "How many people are in your clan chat?"
alter and altar
- An altar is a piece of furniture used in worship. To alter is to change something.
affect and effect
- One thing may affect (or change) another. The result of an action is its effect or effects. Also, to effect is to produce.
your and you're
- The word your is the possessive form of the word you.
- The word you're is a contraction of the words you are.
duel and dual
- You would have a duel against another person.
- You would dual-wield two swords, or have a dual personality, meaning you have two sides to you.
a part and apart
- The term a part is to signify a piece or portion of something larger.
- "The left skull half is a part of the skull sceptre."
- The term apart is to signify separation or independence of two or more subjects.
- "Ross and Ben are actually considered a single non-player character; they are not separated apart from each other."
3rd age should be used when referring to the items, Third Age when referring to the era.
Point of view
When deciding whether to use first or third person in articles, the following should be taken into consideration:
- For wiki content that refers to in-universe events, never use "you" – use "the player" or "the player character" or similar.
- For wiki content that "breaks the fourth wall" (i.e. is self-aware that we are all playing a video game), prefer "you" where practical. This includes instructional content, guides, and instances of the player you interacting with gameplay mechanics.
- Trying to find ways to avoid explicitly naming the subject is allowed, but ideally this should not be done at the expense of general readability and flow.
- For cases where there is not a clear separation between #1 and #2, lean towards a wording that will be easier to parse for the reader.
- Edits whose primary purpose is to change the grammatical person (in either direction) should be discouraged unless they improve readability.
References and citations
References or footnotes are notes which appear after a section of text and are linked with a specific part of the text. They are used for long explanations which cannot be worked into the paragraph naturally and for citations. Non-citation references should only be used sparingly, however references used as citations can be used as often as necessary. Detailed usage and syntax instructions can be found at RuneScape:Style guide/References and citations.
Images
Some general guidelines which should be followed are listed below.
- Right-alignment is preferred to left- or centre-alignment. However, centre-alignment can be used for some images in the quest pages, such as the reward picture.
- If there are too many images in a given article, consider making a gallery with a level two heading.
- If there are more than four to five cutscene images for a quest article, create a Cutscenes subpage.
- Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
- Make large images a thumbnail.
- Specifying the size of a thumbnail image is not recommended.
- Skill or icon clickpics may be used in lists and tables, but not in paragraph form, or on the paragraph header.
Uploading images
- The preferred formats for images are PNG.
- Images of items should have a transparent background.
- Personal images which are only used on a User page should not be uploaded. Images should be able to be used on main space articles, else they will be deleted.
- Please name your files descriptively to avoid confusion. For example if you are uploading a picture of a weapon, name it Rune longsword.png and not just Sword.png or RL.png.
- Don't upload images we already have. We have many users doing this and it is not good to have multiple images of the same item! Before you upload an image, search the wiki if someone has already uploaded a version of it. We don't need
[[File:Fire rune.PNG]]or[[File:Fire rune.gif]]if someone has already uploaded[[File:Fire Rune.PNG]].
Captions
Complete sentences in captions should always end in a full stop (period). If the caption is not a complete sentence, it generally should not have a full stop at the end. Captions should also not be italicised.
Links
Internal links
- You don't have to link every single mention within an article. For example, lobster may be mentioned five times. You only have to link to lobster once. You can link to articles more than once if the page is very long.
- When a skill is linked to, the name of the skill should be used, not a short form or a different spelling of it. Instead of saying "
this item can be [[Mining|mined]] by..." you should state "this item can be obtained through the [[Mining]] skill by ...". - Piped link formats for simple plurals are generally unnecessary. For example, use
[[lobster]]sinstead of[[lobster|lobsters]]. - On the other hand, use
[[wolf|wolves]]instead of[[wolf]]swhen appropriate. Don't be afraid to use a piped link when necessary, particularly if avoiding them contorts the language unnecessarily or introduces spelling or grammatical errors into the article. Piped links have legitimate uses in an article. - When including wiki-links in an article, there is no need to use underscores or initial capitalisation, since the software produces them automatically. For example,
[[fire_rune]]and[[Fire rune]]work the same as[[fire rune]]. - Do not place the last letters of a plural outside of a link that already has alternate text. For example,
[[chinchompa (hunter)|chinchompas]]should be used instead of[[chinchompa (hunter)|chinchompa]]s.
Interwiki links
If the subject of an article is covered by different versions of RuneScape, the articles on their respective wikis should be linked using the {{External}} template at the top of the article. This generates coloured tabs with icons that link to the other wikis shown next to the "Discussion" tab above an article's title. An example of this can be seen on the article for Hammer, where {{External|rs|rsc}} was added at the top of the page, adding links to the RuneScape and Classic versions of the page.
External links
Feel free to link to other sites, such as the RuneScape home page. However, you may want to avoid linking to other fansites, unless it has exceptional content that cannot be reproduced here or because of copyrights. For example, JavaScript mouseover maps of the 6 levels of the Waterbirth Island dungeon are very useful to players attempting this dangerous area. This also includes referencing external fan content, such as YouTube videos, unless explicitly referenced by Jagex in an update or newspost.
Writing articles
Everyone is encouraged to contribute meaningfully to the wiki.
Ownership and bias
- Keep personal bias out of articles. Even if "Mining is for noobs" or "Smithing is awesome", we do not need to hear it in the articles.
- Nobody owns articles. This is a wiki, after all. This means words like "I", "we" or "me" should not be included in articles.
- Do not include specific usernames of players or groups of players (clans) in articles, unless they highlight specific historical events or achievements, such as naming the first player to earn two hundred million experience in a certain skill. These should be kept relevant, and should be supported well, with an external link.
- Do not try and claim "facts" such as "player x was the first to complete this task" without any verifiable proof.
Facts and trivia
If you have a piece of information or trivia that you would like to add to an article, yet are unsure of its accuracy, leave a note on the talk page of the article so that all editors can discuss it. Do not engage in edit wars on the article page.
Numbers
For numbers, a comma should be used as a thousands separator. Jagex uses a comma in the statistics screen.
Floor numbering
Jagex uses the British convention for floor numbering in Old School RuneScape. Ground floor is the American lobby, 1st floor is the American 2nd floor, etc. When referencing a specific floor, the FloorNumber template should be used in place of "[number] floor". For example, {{FloorNumber|uk=0}}, would replace of "ground floor" to display "ground floor[UK]1st floor[US]".
Dates
Use the day before month format (dd/mm/yyyy – 1 May 2008) rather than the month before day format (mm/dd, yyyy – May 1, 2008). Note that no commas are used in the day before month format. Jagex (British) and most of the world uses the day before month format. To prevent ambiguity, all-numerical dates (e.g. 1/5/2008) should be avoided.
- See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) as well as Calendar date.
Time zones
The time zone used to indicate event start and end times in game should be UTC, as this is a constant time that does not need to be adjusted for daylight saving time, as well as the one that this wiki uses and the one on which Jagex servers run.
Drops
Drops should be in descending order from most common to least common. For known drop rates or conditions, they should be added to the dropped item or dropping monster using the raritynotes parameter. The following is a list of inclusive ranges which indicate what descriptor is to be used.
- Always: 100%
- Common: 1/2 to 1/25
- Uncommon: 1/26 to 1/99
- Rare: 1/100 to 1/999
- Very rare: 1/1,000+
- Varies: For drops that fall under multiple descriptors because of a condition e.g. dark warriors dropping mysterious emblem is 1/146.5 for level 8 and 1/72.5 for level 145; these fall under Rare and Uncommon respectively, so Varies is the preferred descriptor.
If two or more items of the same descriptor have known drop rates, they should also be ordered by frequency e.g. 1/60 would be above 1/70.
See also
- Other style guides:
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