Path of Exile Wiki:Manual of Style
Article titles
Article titles should generally follow the rules of capitalisation for the English language. Titles should appear in sentence case when referring to concepts (common nouns), and in title case when referring to proper nouns. There are many instances where this differs from the capitalisation used in game, since the game's user interface capitalises certain words to emphasise them as game mechanics or concepts. For example, damage, resistance, area of effect and duration are usually capitalised in game. These are not capitalised on the wiki because they are concepts not proper nouns.
Sometimes there are edge cases that make it difficult to determine which capitalisation to use. Chilled ground is a game concept although it sounds as though it might be a proper noun. On the other hand, Corrupted Blood and Glimpse of Eternity are the names of specific debuffs, which makes them proper nouns. For such edge cases, use your best judgment and try to follow what other editors are doing.
When distinguishing between different item variants name them after their stats and not their appearance, for example Avian Twins Talisman (Fire Damage taken as Cold Damage).
Article layout
Order of article elements
The following are standardised article elements listed in the order that they should appear on the page. Articles are not required to have all of these elements.
- Header
- Disambiguation hatnotes
- Message boxes
- Infoboxes
- Article content
- Lead section
- Table of contents
- Body sections
- Gallery
- Version history
- Appendices
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
- Footer
- Navboxes
- Categories
- Interwikis
Section headings
Do not use level 1 section headings like = Section title =. Your top-level section headings should be level 2; work downward from there.
== Top-level section ==
=== Subsection ===
==== Sub-subsection ====
Writing articles
Consistent style
When creating new pages, try to keep to the same style as other similar pages. This helps both readers and editors. Readers get accustomed to where they can find what they're looking for, and editors can quickly create pages by copy and pasting from other pages.
Things to try and keep similar are
- Headings
- Section order
- Referencing style
- Navigation boxes
- Categories
Article creation templates
There are templates available that make it easier to create certain types of articles.
The following article creation templates do exist, although it is highly recommended to use PyPoE to create these types of articles instead.
Future proof your text
When writing explanations of mechanics or other things ask the question "Will this be correct next patch also?" with a slightly pessimistic mindset. Path of Exile is an ever changing game and therefore exact numbers changes all the time but the underlying mechanic often stays the same.
The solution is simply to avoid going too specific, for example:
- Instead of writing "+(2-4)% increased Damage" write "#% increased Damage".
- Link to the pages that deals with the specifics. Instead of "(2-4)% increased Damage" write "increases Damage".
If you insist on using exact numbers try to use any of our querying templates so the number stays updated even after patches.
Use British English
British English should be used throughout the wiki to remain consistent with the spelling variants used in Path of Exile.
The following are examples of preferred spellings in British English, compared to their alternate spellings in American English.
| Preferred | Alternate |
|---|---|
| defence | defense |
| armour | armor |
| jewellery | jewelry |
| channelling | channeling |
Where appropriate, create redirects from American English spellings to their British English spellings.
Version history
The main text of an article should always describe the current version of Path of Exile. (Articles that explicitly describe historical game content are an exception.) Avoid phrasing that compares the current state of the game to previous versions, such as "Before the changes in version 3.0.0…" or "As of version 3.16.0…". Such retrospective elements should be constrained to a section titled "Version history", placed near the bottom of the article.
In the "Version history" section, mention any noteworthy changes that are relevant to the subject of the article by constructing a version history table using {{version history table header}}, {{version history table row}} and {{version history table end}}. This section may also include a historical summary or any other information of interest about previous game versions.
When listing changes in the version history table, it may be preferable to use excerpts from the official patch notes released by Grinding Gear Games, as long as those excerpts accurately and succinctly describe the relevant changes. Such excerpts do not need to be quoted or explicitly attributed, and no citations are required. It is also acceptable for editors to modify the language of these excerpts to better convey the changes, or even to describe the changes in their own words. In cases where changes are not described in the patch notes at all, it may be necessary to include a citation to a reference or note that explains the changes.
"Character" vs "player"
- Use "character" when describing things that arise as a result of gameplay such as attributes, damage, etc.
- Good: "Chaos Inoculation makes the character immune to chaos damage"
- Bad: "Chaos Inoculation makes the player immune to chaos damage"
- Use "player" when describing things related to the interface of the game
- Good: "The player can identify an item with a Scroll of Wisdom"
- Bad: "The character can identify an item with a Scroll of Wisdom"
Quotation marks
Use "straight" quotation marks rather than “curly” ones. For single quotes, 'straight' rather than ‘curly’. This guideline promotes a consistent look across the wiki and makes plain text searching more predictable when quotation marks are involved.
Sandbox
Use sandboxes for experimental wiki editing.
- For general page editing use User:YourUserName/sandbox. They can be created in your own userspace. Click on My User Page and create subpages from there.
- For template editing see Template:Sandbox.
- For module editing see Module:Sandbox.
Providing references
Often when you want to contribute something to a topic it is new knowledge you've recently learnt that the wiki was missing. We, the readers, would like to know as well where you got that information from to determine how reliable the statement is now. When citing sources it is common practice to include page address, author, page title, publisher, date and the date when you read the source.[1]
Defining a reference
To avoid clutter, use list-defined references with {{reflist}} and use {{cite web}} when citing websites.
Below is an example with the preferred style and templates:
Dual StrikeDual StrikeCritical, Attack, Melee, Strike
Level: (1-20)
Cost: 5 Mana
Attack Speed: 70% of base
Attack Damage: (125-244)% of base
Effectiveness of Added Damage: (125-244)%Attacks with both weapons, dealing the damage of both in one strike. Dual wield only. Does not work with wands.100% more Critical Strike Chance against Enemies that are on Full Life
60% more Damage with Hits and Ailments against Enemies that are on Full Life
Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
+(1.5-30)% more Damage with Hits and Ailments against Enemies that are on Full LifePlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket.
only deals damage once, equal to the sum of calculated damage from each weapon.[2]
Dual strike only deals damage once, equal to the sum of calculated damage from each weapon.<ref name="DualStrike" />
(...)
==References==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name = "DualStrike">{{cite web
| author = Mark_GGG
| date = Sep 10, 2012
| title = Dual Strike
| url = https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/13701/filter-account-type/staff/page/2#p635984
| publisher = Official Path of Exile Website
| accessdate = June 29, 2017
}}</ref>
}}
Quality of references
Before referencing, some thought about the quality of the references should be given. Primarily, a reference should be from a trustworthy and recent source.
Trustworthiness
- Optimal: Primary sources i.e. from the developers themselves always take the highest priority:
- Posts from any known Grinding Gear Games employees on social media (such as reddit, official forums, etc).
- Pages on the official website (excluding the forums).
- Videos where one of the developers talks about the game.
- Good: Sources like information given to the press or other persons by the developers also get a high priority, however, if possible direct information should be preferred:
- News articles from known websites sites that are based on information that was specifically given to the press (for example, from press-only events about upcoming releases.
- Collaboration between the developers and third party sources, as long this can be verified (for example, collaboration between ZiggyD and Grinding Gear Games. Please note that this goes only for the productions in which content from the developers are involved and not content from the same source otherwise.
- Questionable: Sources from any regular user or a member of community. Please note that if the information is replicable by any other user there is no citation needed (such as information from the game itself or its data). This kind of source should always have some kind of evidence included in the source and not just claims by a user:
- Video showing in game content and explaining it; this serves as evidence and is generally acceptable.
Age
Age of a reference is an important factor for Path of Exile, since the game is receiving constant patches and something that may have been true in the past may get outdated soon. In particular, if there are mentions of changes in a patch note and the information given in a source is outdated, the source should no longer be cited.
Please note that how much the age matters also depends on the topic in question; numerical information (such as explicit damage values) is highly subject to change, while mechanical information (how something works in general) tends to only change in major updates.
Determining the age of a reference:
- Optimally the version of the game should be visible in the publication, such as the league version on the top right corner of the screen.
- When from an official source (such as the developers), the date of the publication was made can be used
- When from an unofficial source, the date of when the information was released can serve as a base line, however please be aware that information may have been released from an old version of the game then what the date on the publication may indicate. Publications may also have been edited retroactively.
Avoid referencing
Avoid referencing information from sources that:
- can be verified with very little ease (for example, there doesn't need to be a citation on the name of an item, because everyone can just find this value in game easily)
- have been known to manipulate users or change their information to suit their own needs (such as market manipulation)
- have issues with their methodology of obtaining said information (for example, poor use of statistics, such as "I've killed 5 monsters and got 1 exalted orb, as such the drop rate of exalted orbs is 1/5")
- dismiss certain aspects of information
References
- ↑ (June 23, 2017). "Wikipedia:Citing sources". Wikipedia. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
- ↑ Mark_GGG (Sep 10, 2012). "Dual Strike". Official Path of Exile Website. Retrieved June 29, 2017.