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Of course, if you're the person who really likes the details and wants to know how to edit other people's work to be in line with the conventions, well, here's a bunch of conventions!
==
;Literary Style
Generally, articles should be factual and written from an in-world perspective. Exceptions to this include meta (out-of-world) pages such as articles on the actual book. In terms of in-world pages, Development sections and Trivia sections can include out-of world-references, however, all other sections should be written from an in-world perspective.
Remember that the Coppermind is '''not''' a repository of quotes. Do not simply copy and paste things from the novels directly; put things into your own terms and cite it. It is very obvious when you see a quote pretended to be an encyclopedia entry, because the novels are--shockingly--not encyclopedia entries! Use the primary sources to inform you, but don't copy them directly. When adding information to a topic, try and make it flow with the structure of the article. Or, restructure the article! But new facts should always flow in the article.
Generally, write articles in present tense, except when obviously necessary to write in past tense, such as in history sections. There may exist additional exceptions to this rule.
;Linking Other Pages
You don't have to wikilink every instance of every term on a page! That gets tedious really quick. Instead, you need only to link the first instance of a new term on the page (this is why many articles have their first paragraph full of links to other articles!). You can add additional wikilinks if it is convenient. Long articles, for example, can benefit from linking terms in each new section, but that remains your stylistic preference as an editor. However, new terms in the article should definitely be linked.
;Smart Punctuation from Word Processors
In a strange turn of events with the wiki software, there's a difference between the quotation marks that, say, Word produces and those that a plain text editor. Normal text editors like Notepad or the wiki edit screen produce characters like " and '. But, if you typed "Vin's" into Word, that apostrophe would be more "curly". Word does this because that makes things look better in a book or printed page, but the wiki software makes a distinction between normal quotes and the curlier "smart" quotes. When possible, use normal quotes. This is especially necessary when dealing with '''bold''' and ''italics'', as they use the apostrophe to delimit themselves.
Don't use dashes. Similarly to the smart quotes, dashes are things generated by a word processor. When you want to use a dash, use two hyphens. For example, if I were to give you an example--and wanted a parenthetical statement--I'd do it like this!
=== General Style Conventions ===
*Use American English (British English isn't a big deal, but the correct spelling will probably be eventually edited out in favor of its corrupt brethren). So, use [[aluminum]] instead of aluminium.
*To create a new paragraph, make sure you have an empty line. If you just press enter once, the wiki will render that new line as part of the same paragraph. Do not put each sentence of a paragraph on their own line, just write like you normally would.
*When you end a sentence, do not put two spaces after it (Grammar Girl agrees it is a silly, archaic habit that's entirely unnecessary anyway). One space will do.
*Use the [[wikipedia:serial comma|Oxford comma]]
*As in usual written text, typically do not use numerals. Use "one" instead of "1", and so on. There are of course certain exceptions, such as dates.
==Titles==
=== Article Titles ===
Titles of articles should be singular. However, it is easy to have wikilinks that are plural which direct to singular titles. For example: <code><nowiki>[[Highprince]]s</nowiki></code> instead of <code><nowiki>[[Highprinces]]</nowiki></code>. You can also use apostrophes similarly.
Generally speaking, character articles should be titled with the character's full name. For [[Shin]], this means the complete "Name-son/daughter-Parent" name. There are two exceptions to this: [[Vin]] is used over Vin Venture and [[Szeth]] is used over Szeth-son-Neturo or Szeth-son-son-Vallano. Articles are not always moved immediately after a character's name changes, as it is often unclear how often the new name will be used. For example, <code>[[Shallan Davar]]</code> was not moved to <code>Shallan Kholin</code> after the ''[[Oathbringer]]'' release and neither was <code>[[Moash]]</code> moved to <code>Vyre</code>. Generally, if you think a move like this should be made, check with the [[Coppermind:Keepers|Keepers]]. If a character's full name is not known ''and'' they are generally addressed with a title, the article's title should include the character's title. For example, it's <code>[[Mrs. Chamwit]]</code> not <code>Chamwit</code> and <code>[[Lady Lentin]]</code> not <code>Lentin</code>. Titles may also be used when the article name needs to be made [[wikipedia:Help:Disambiguation|unambiguous]], for example <code>[[Lady ZoBell]]</code> and <code>[[General Khal]]</code>. Characters with a title in their name should be added to [[:Category:Titled characters]].
In situations where a character is addressed both with and without a title and one isn't much more common than the other, consider the surrounding context (e.g. the two lords who switch their votes from [[Ashweather Cett|Cett]] to [[Ferson Penrod|Penrod]] are given the pages [[Lord Hue]] and [[Lord Habren]]; Lord Habren has an equal number of references with the "Lord" title and without it, but Lord Hue is always called Lord Hue, and so Lord Habren's page is titled "Lord Habren" to match Lord Hue's), but you should generally consult with the [[Coppermind:Keepers|Keepers]] when naming the articles in grey areas like this.
Beware that, article titles are case sensitive for all letters except the first (so, there is a difference between <code>[[BioChromatic Breath]]</code>, <code>Biochromatic Breath</code>, and <code>Biochromatic breath</code>, but not between <code>[[BioChromatic Breath]]</code> and <code>[[bioChromatic Breath]]</code> [though, even if you made that first <code>b</code> lowercase when you created the page, MediaWiki would still render it as uppercase]). Always use standard capitalization for terminology. MediaWiki also differentiates articles depending on whether apostrophes are smart quotes or not, so be sure to use regular quotes, not the curlier quotes a rich word processor like Microsoft Word produces.
===Section Titles===
Do not apply formatting to section titles, and do not put wikilinks in them either. It just looks tacky.
Section titles should use title case, like "Food and Drink" rather than "Food and drink."
==Capitalization==
*Verbs and Modifiers related to Metallic Arts - burn, flare, store, tap, charge, spike, atium shadow, pulse, etc.
*Steel Ministry Rankings when not used as an honorific - obligator, prelan, high prelan, lord prelan, etc.
*Terms with the
*Mundane terms - boxing, mists, ashfalls, streetslot, etc.
===Stormlight Archive===
===Elantris and Emperor's Soul===
'''Things to be capitalized:'''
*Magic related things - Aon
'''Things to never be capitalized:'''
*Magic related things - seon, skaze
===Warbreaker===
'''Things to be capitalized:'''
*Awaken and its variants
*God King
*Locations: Idris, Hallandren
*Type Two BioChromatic entity
*Lifeless
*Command
*Breath
===White Sand===
'''Things to be capitalized:'''
*Diem
*Dayside/Darkside
*Taisha/Taishin
*Profession (when referring to the official Professions)
*Slatrification (as a noun)
*Sand Lord
'''Things to never be capitalized:'''
*sand mastery/master
*Diem ranks (except for the title Lord Mastrell)
*deep sand
*general fauna and flora (e.g. sandling, tonk, dorim vine)
===The Rithmatist===
'''Things to be capitalized:'''
*Line of Warding etc.
*Glyph of Rending
*Professor (if used as honorific)
*Knight-Senator (if used as honorific)
*The names of the Defenses (i.e. Easton Defense)
*Warding Hall, Making Hall (and two others)
'''Things to never be capitalized:'''
*inception ceremony
*chamber of inception
*the office
*campus
*(Rithmatic) lines, defenses, offenses etc.
*(wild) chalkling
=== Sixth of the Dusk ===
'''Things to be capitalized:'''
*Sixth of the Dusk, or Dusk for short
*Aviar
*Pantheon
*the Ones Above
'''Things to never be capitalized:'''
*"normal" lifeforms (nightmaw, nightwind fungi, deathant, deepwalker etc.)
*trapper
===Cosmere===
'''Things to never be capitalized:'''
*[[focus]],
*[[cosmere]] (this is not consistent, but it is not capitalized in [[The Letter]], and that is our current convention. This may change)
'''Note''' that we follow capitalization rules of the main sequence of published novels. Other, secondary titles--especially [[Mistborn Adventure Game]]--may not follow the same styles.
=== Cytoverse ===
'''Things to be capitalized:'''
*FTL travel
*Sense (when referring to Cytonics sensing)
'''Things to never be capitalized:'''
*cytonics(it is capitalized in ''[[Defending Elysium]]'', but Skyward does not capitalize it)
*telanium
*mindblade
*(cytonic) suppression
[[Category:help|{{PAGENAME}}]]
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