League of Legends Wiki:Manual of Style

This Manual of Style outlines a standard of clean, consistent formatting for articles in League of Legends Wiki. The formatting described here is a guideline and can be overridden where circumstances warrant it. These guidelines will never be unerringly perfect for every situation. However, please try your best to keep to the advice outlined in this article so others may use your edits as an example when creating and editing their own articles.

These guidelines are a summary of the most important guidelines for the League of Legends Wiki, but a more expansive set of guidelines can be found on Wikipedia at Wikipedia Manual of Style.

Grammar and punctuation
When writing articles it is important to follow these rules of the english language:
 * 1) Don't use netspeak or any similar slang. We are compiling a professional resource for League of Legends fans.
 * 2) Keep your writing around a 6th Grade reading level. You don't need to fill it with big words just to make it sound smarter, especially if you're not certain how the word should be used.
 * 3) Vary your words. When writing, try to vary the words you use and the length of your sentences. It makes things sound more interesting.
 * 4) Capitalize words when appropriate. (see below)
 * 5) Use correct punctuation. This includes commas, periods, quotation marks, and apostrophes. (see below)
 * 6) Know the difference between homophones: there, their, and they're; here and hear; it's and its; who's and whose.

Capitalization

 * 1) Capitalize the first word of every sentence. (eg. Annie uses mainly her spells, instead of normal physical attacks.)
 * 2) Capitalize proper nouns. (eg. Steve Mescon)
 * 3) Capitalize the first and important words in a title. (eg. "League of Legends", "Shaco the Demon Jester")
 * 4) Do not capitalize titles like "champion", "summoner" or similar except when used as a proper name.
 * 5) Capitalize the names of champions, spells, items, runes, and masteries (e.g. Annie, Alpha Strike, Flash, Cloth Armor, Lesser Mark of Desolation, Strength of Spirit).
 * 6) Don't capitalize champion statistics (e.g. armor, magic resistance, magic penetration, lifesteal, tenacity). Acronyms are still capitalized, of course (e.g. MR, AD).

Punctuation
In addition to basic punctuation, it is important to know how to punctuate titles. Titles are always either in italics or inside quotation marks.

Italics
Italics are used for large works like games, movies, comics and books.
 * Example:
 * League of Legends

To use italics on Wikia place two single quote marks before and after the title:

These are single quotes ('), not double quotes ("). Alternately, highlight the title you want to put in italics with your mouse and click the "I" button in the toolbar above the edit box (in between the B for bolding and AB for the Internal link).

Links
To link to another article inside League of Legends Wiki, you must put around it. To link to an article in Wikipedia, use and put the article title inside. If an article does not exist by that name, the link will show up as dark red, like this. External links will show up as blue.

You only need to link to another page once in any given article. Most of the time this is the first time that article's title comes up, but there are some exceptions to this.


 * Examples:
 * Annie the Dark Child
 * the wikipedia entry for the game.

Champion articles

 * In the Story section of a Champion article, link to an article the first time it appears even if it's been linked to previously.
 * In the Trivia section, only information which is relevant to the article, has a cited source or reference (such as a link to a wikipedia article), and is not common knowledge should be included.

Links to champion articles
When referencing a champion, a majority of the time they can be referred to by just their name leaving the title away, e.g., Twisted Fate instead of Twisted Fate the Card Master. To assist with creating links inside pages, redirects have been established for the characters with unique names (Master Yi, Nunu, Janna, etc.). This reduces the amount of typing without affecting the appearance of a link.


 * Examples:
 *  Twisted Fate  works just the same as  Twisted Fate the Card Master  and  Twisted Fate 

If it is necessary to have the link display something other than the title of the link, that information should be placed after the pipe (the vertical bar) inside the link:  first map .

For ease of use and to give media wiki a more colorful appearance Champion Icon template has been made in order to be used every time a link to champion article needs to be made.


 * Example:
 *   results in.

If you need to add a custom link text, add it as a next parameter after champion official name:
 *   which results in.

Links to item articles
For ease of use an Item Icon template has been created in order to provide graphic representation of the item icon before the link.


 * Example:
 *   results in.

Naming articles
Note that Wikia handles capitalized words differently than lowercase words. Entering them into search will bring up two different articles.


 * Article names should be in singular form, not plural.
 * The initial letter of a title is capitalized. Otherwise, capital letters are used only where they would be used in a normal sentence.
 * Do not use a, an, or the as the first word, unless by convention it is an inseparable part of a name.
 * The final visible character of a title should not be a punctuation mark.

Champions
There are a few simple rules to follow when naming a character article.


 * 1) Articles are named using the name and title of a champion if both are known, i.e. Shaco the Demon Jester.
 * 2) If a champion's title is not known from a official source, then it is all right to use only a first name, i.e. Urf.
 * 3) If a champion's name is not known from a official source, then it is all right to use only the title, i.e. The Plant King.

You may want to create redirects for common address of a character. For example:
 * Redirect Morgana to Morgana the Fallen Angel
 * Redirect Cardmaster to Twisted Fate the Card Master
 * Redirect Guinsoo to Steve Feak

Administrators may move articles without consultation if they do not conform to the Character Naming Policy.

Items
Item articles are named for the items precisely as they are presented in-game. Each item in the shop has the title and it must be titled exactly as written. This includes capitalization and punctuation, but does not include the quotation marks around the title.

Please note that it may be appropriate to create redirects from one or two common misspellings or mis-capitalizations of titles to make users' searches easier. Administrators may move articles without consultation when they don't conform to the Episode Naming Policy.

Summoner spells and masteries
Summoner spell and mastery articles are named precisely as their in-game counterparts. Each spell or mastery has a title and so it must be titled exactly as it is written by Riot.

Section headers
All of the guidelines for article titles above applies to section headings as well. Headings provide an overview in the table of contents and allow readers to navigate through the text more easily.
 * Section and subsection headings should preferably be unique within a page; otherwise, after editing, the display can arrive at the wrong section (see also below) and the automatic edit summary can be ambiguous.
 * Headings should be descriptive and in a consistent order
 * Headings should not normally contain links, especially where only part of a heading is linked.
 * Headings should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer.
 * The nesting hierarchy for headings is as follows:
 * the automatically generated top-level heading of a page is H1, which gives the article title;
 * primary headings are then ==H2==, ===H3===, ====H4====, and so on until the lowest-level heading ======H6======.
 * headings should be nested sequentially, neither using random heading levels (e.g. selected for emphasis, which is not the purpose of headings), nor skipping parts of the sequence.
 * Spaces between the == and the heading text are optional (==H2== is equivalent to == H2 ==). These extra spaces will not affect the way the heading is displayed to readers.
 * Include one blank line above the heading for readability in the edit window.
 * Headings should be nested sequentially, starting with level 2, then level 3 and so on (level 1 is not used, as this is the auto-generated page title),

Formatting guidelines
The Articles on League of Legends Wiki that constitute a set of types (Champions, Items, Minions, etc.) have usually a preset "template" that are very useful in case you don't know how to start or need guidelines on how certain information needs to be presented. The following pages give you an example of what the page should look like overall as well as provide a set of guidelines and rules to be used for that particular type of article.



General information
The following guidelines are currently an unwritten rule throughout the wiki, certain things are done certain ways on numerous pages, and numerous users have come to agree upon using a certain way to present same information over and over. So, this section will finally document these guidelines.


 * For champion abilities that gain bonus damage from attack damage, the conversion factor is typically written as percentage. Example: : attack damage scaling modified to 100% of bonus attack damage from 50% of total attack damage.
 * For champion abilities that gain bonus damage from ability power, the conversion factor is typically written as a decimal fraction. ''Example: : ability power ratio reduced to 0.7 from 0.8.

Categories
Pages are not placed directly into every possible category, only into the most specific one in any branch. This means that if a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not placed directly into C. Normally a new article will fit into existing categories – compare articles on similar topics to find what those categories are. Editors should categorize every article or file that currently has no category.

Particular considerations for categorizing articles:
 * Each article should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs.
 * Categorize articles by characteristics of the topic, not characteristics of the article.
 * An article should never be left with a non-existent (redlinked) category on it. Either the category should be created, or else the link should be removed or changed to a category that does exist.
 * By convention, category declarations are placed at the end of the wikitext.

For more information about categories, see Wikipedia:Categories.

Images

 * Images are preferred to be Right-alignment to left-alignment. Although this is allowed when other objects interfere or make it visually unappealing.
 * Any given article shouldn't have too many images. If there are too many images in the article, consider making a gallery with a level two heading at the bottom of the article.
 * Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
 * Large images should be presented in an article using a thumbnail that is of appropriate size.
 * Complete sentences in captions should always end with a period. If the caption is not a complete sentence, it generally should not have a period at the end. Captions should also not be italicized.

Uploading images

 * Please name your files descriptively to avoid confusion. Uploading an image with the name "0239235jgjgkdgdf.jpg" will be deleted or moved according to the opinion of the administrator.
 * Do not upload images we already have. If you plan on uploading an image, look around the League of Legends Wiki first to see if it has already been uploaded by someone else.
 * Abilities, Items, Skins, Champion Squares and any other image should be in .jpg, .gif or .png format. This is in order for pages to load faster. There are strict guidelines on how to name those.
 * Abilities should have the 64x64px dimension, Squares (Infobox Portraits) should have the 120x120px.
 * Other images (renders, in-game screenshots, etc.) are allowed to be in other formats.
 * You are allowed to upload personal images, ie. images that are going to be used only on non-article pages, but you have to prefix those with your username and put them in the "Personal files" category. Failing to do so will result in the image being deleted without any prior notice. Example name of personal image: user123_riverside_scenery.jpg.
 * Although there is no hardcap on the number of personal images you are allowed to upload, common sense should be applied, as this wiki is not your personal upload repository.

To change image extensions one may use one of the recommended applications:
 * CoolUtils.com Image Converter
 * Online-Utility Image Converter

Protected images
To make edits or uploads to the following images you need to contact an Administrator first:

Point of view
Articles on the League of Legends Wiki are written from an in-universe point of view as if the person, object, or event actually existed or occurred.


 * Use tense the same way a standard encyclopedia would.
 * Real world information inside cannon articles should be indented and italicized or preferably located at the beginning "Background Information" section. This information is covered by the real world point of view.

Real world point of view
The real world point of view applies to articles that that are written about companies, Riot Games employees, events, or other game information which are not part of the core League of Legends universe. They should be written the same as a standard encyclopedia entry in present day. All of these articles are marked with a   tag.

For all articles where it is necessary to include a link to an external site for a real-world article, use italics for books, movies and songs. Use regular text for all other links. Examples:
 * Google — non-italicized link
 * Riot Games — italicized link to the company article

User-related Manual of Style
At the moment when it comes to the user's pages (talk, profile, sandboxes, etc.), the user can be creative. The only restrictions are as follows:
 * personal image naming guidelines outline above.
 * absolutely no inappropriate content (if you need to ask someone if the content is appropriate, get rid of it.)

Deletion
Reasons for deletion include, but are not limited to, the following (subject to the condition that improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable to deletion of an entire page):
 * Copyright violations and other material violating the non-free content criteria.
 * Vandalism, including inflammatory redirects, pages that exist only to disparage their subject, patent nonsense, or gibberish
 * Advertising or other spam without relevant content (but not an article about an advertising-related subject).
 * Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed.
 * Redundant or otherwise useless templates.
 * Categories representing overcategorization.
 * Files that are unused, obsolete, or violate the Non-free policy.
 * Any other use of the article, template, project, or user namespace that is contrary to the established separate policy for that namespace.
 * Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia.

Since only Admins are able to delete the pages, regular users may mark the page for deleting by using the   template.

If you are working/developing a page, but at the moment it is appearing as incomplete and might be considered for deletion by others, please put the   tag on it, indicating that it is a Work In Progress.

Article tags are typically placed at the top of the page content so they can be noticed easier.