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Wikitravel:Manual of style

From Wikitravel

Contents

• Structural style
• Formatting style
• Writing style
• See also

Our Manual of style is a collection of rules of thumb and guidelines for giving Wikitravel a consistent look and feel. Most of these rules have exceptions, but to put together a good reference work collaboratively, it's best to follow the rules unless they're quite inappropriate for a particular situation.

The Manual is broken up into different pages so that this one doesn't get overloaded with extraneous text. It makes it easier to find and update individual rules or concepts if they're on their own pages. Finally, it's easier for smarty-pantses to link to the particular rule being broken from talk pages for articles.

If all this stuff makes your head swim, and you don't want to bother with it, by all means plunge forward and just start sharing your knowledge. Other Wikitravellers will come through and bring your contributions more in line with the style guide.

If you have a question about the specifics of the Manual, or want to see it changed/amended/clarified, use the talk page for the section in question. A list of issues currently being discussed can be found here.

[edit] Structural style

This section of the Manual is for rules about the structure of Wikitravel as a whole.

Main Page guidelines - how to add links to the Main Page
What is an article? - how and when to start new articles
Other ways of seeing travel - approaching travel from different angles
Geographical hierarchy - how we divide up the world
Article naming conventions - how to name an article
Disambiguation pages - when to make them and how to use them
Bodies of water - how lakes, rivers, seas and oceans fit into Wikitravel
Categories - using the MediaWiki categories feature
Using Mediawiki templates - using the MediaWiki Template: transclusion feature
Mediawiki template index - a list of available Mediawiki templates

[edit] Formatting style

These rules are about laying out individual articles. That is, they describe how we take raw information and put it in a format that's easily usable by travelers.

Article layout:

Article templates - starting points and formatting guidelines for consistent Wikitravel articles
Section headers - dividing an article into sections
Where you can stick it - finding a place to share your knowledge
Information for gay and lesbian travellers - where to put GLBT info in a destination article

Formatting content:

Avoid HTML - avoiding HTML formatting
Information boxes - when, how and when not to use information boxes

Links:

External links - linking to other Web sites
Inter-language links - linking to other language versions
Internal links - linking to other articles in Wikitravel

Listings:

Accommodation listings - for the Sleep section of articles
Activity listings - things to Do
Attraction listings - things to See
Bar listings - for the Drink section of articles
Restaurant listings - for the Eat section of articles
One-liner listings - for Regions, Districts, Cities, and Get out sections, and in other sections as appropriate

[edit] Writing style

This set of rules describes how to write words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Tone - the right tone for your prose
Wikitravel:Don't tout
Spelling - what spelling rules to use for Wikitravel
Neutrality of medium - referring to the medium the article is in
First person pronouns - avoid using "I", "we", and their ilk
Second person pronouns - using "you" and friends is ok
Foreign words - using non-English words and names in articles
Romanization - for languages that do not use the Latin alphabet
Don't overlink - when to make links in article text
Use boldface to call out important topics - using boldface for theme words
Use italics for emphasis - putting stress on certain words and phrases
Links to Wikipedia - how to make links to Wikipedia articles
Links to Open Directory - how to make twin-pages links to Open Directory topics
Avoid negative reviews - don't bother listing places not worth going to
Measurements - formatting lengths, weights, temperatures, etc.
Currency - proper method of displaying currency
Time and date formats
Phone numbers - including and formatting phone numbers
Trademarks - using trademarks

[edit] See also

Help - for technical help with Wiki syntax
Community policies - for Wikitravel's collaboration policies
Wikitravel:Namespace index - all the "meta" articles in the Wikitravel: namespace
Using talk pages