Acepedia:Manual of Style

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This page documents a policy for Acepedia.

It describes a standard that all editors should normally follow.

Feedback, suggestions, or concerns should be addressed on the talk page. Any changes should reflect consensus.

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AP:MOS

Acepedia's Manual of Style (often abbreviated as MoS or MOS) is a style manual for all main namespace articles and files. It helps keep articles in their highest quality by maintaining consistency, clarity, and precision. Please do your best to adhere to the guidelines outlined below whenever possible. Special cases may warrant exceptions to these guidelines. Keep in mind that the Manual of Style is a loose document to assist in better editing; it does not necessarily apply to personal or discussion areas.

Spelling

Language

American English spelling should be used on all canon encyclopedia articles, on all templates transcribed on articles, and on all official projects and blog posts. American spelling is preferred over British since Japanese culture surrounding English education leans more towards American. There are the following exceptions:

• Regional variations in spelling may be used in all other contexts on Acepedia, such as comments, message walls, user pages, blog posts, and Discussions.
• If quoting a source or transcript, never alter any part of the quotation, even if it does not use American spelling.

In addition, if a word is interchangeably used with or without a space in the middle (e.g. airstrike or air strike), prefer the version with the space in the middle (air strike).

Sic

The Latin adverb sic inserted after a quoted word or passage indicates that the quoted material was transcribed or translated exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous spelling.

On Acepedia, any instances of misspelling (or incorrect grammar) that occur in quoted material should be followed by an instance of Template:Sic. This signifies to the reader and future editors that the error was not an editing mistake, rather it was quoted directly from the Ace Combat game or other material cited. This should only be done for quoted material, transcripts, or the like, not for main article prose. False insertions of the Sic template are not allowed; if an editing mistake occurs, particularly in spelling, it should be corrected as per § Language.

Grammar

Voice

Use the active voice to outline and describe events. The passive voice should be used sparingly.

Incorrect	(passive):	Stonehenge was destroyed by Mobius 1.
Correct	(active):	Mobius 1 destroyed Stonehenge.

Tense

Past tense must be used on event articles, articles describing entities that are deceased or no longer exist, or sections of any in-universe article detailing past events. "Current" time in-universe on Acepedia is generally considered to be fixed at the end of the game furthest down the timeline.

Incorrect	(present):	Mobius 1 destroys Stonehenge.
Correct	(past):	Mobius 1 destroyed Stonehenge.

Present tense must be used on gameplay articles, and should be used everywhere else where it does not conflict with the past tense guideline.

Numbers

Standard

In prose, numbers less than 11 should be spelled out (seven targets, not 7 targets). Numbers greater than ten should be displayed numerically (77, not seventy-seven). The following exceptions apply:

• General numbers in the millions or higher can be displayed in the hybrid "X million" format (Nearly 1 million Useans became refugees after Ulysses).
• The above exception has its own exception when exact numbers must be provided, such as in aircraft or weapon prices. Never hybridize these numbers. When displaying these long numerals, commas must be used for separation of thousand-degrees whereas periods must be used to denote decimals if necessary (123,456,789.01).
• When referring to the passage of time, numbers should always be displayed numerically (under 7 minutes, 3 hours later).

Dates

In prose, dates follow the month-day-year convention with the month name written out in full: The Continental War ended on September 19, 2005. Do not use suffixes (–st, –nd, –rd or –th) in this style (September 19, not September 19th).

If a full date appears in the middle of a sentence, commas should appear before and after the year. If a date omits the day or the year, commas are unnecessary.

Incorrect	On September 19, 2005 the Continental War ended.
Correct	On September 19, 2005, the Continental War ended.
Incorrect	The Continental War ended in September, 2005.
Correct	The Continental War ended in September 2005.

Times

Times follow military 24-hour conventions and are presented in local time. No colon is necessary, and there is no space between the time and the "hrs" abbreviation (Operation Firefly commenced at 0000hrs).

All coordinates on Acepedia require references and should follow the degrees (°) N/E/S/W convention where possible (123°45"67'N, 89°12"34'E). Location coordinates shouldn't be presented in an article except in an infobox. Use relative positions in prose instead (Belka is east of Osea).

Other

• Third-person should always be used on articles (he/she/they, not I or you). In instances where a gender is not certain (the player playing a game or a player character who is never given a pronoun), the singular "they" and "themself" should be used.
• When using possessive forms of singular and proper nouns ending with s, append ' without an s at the end:

Incorrect:	Mobius's
Correct:	Mobius'

• Squadron names are collective nouns, which means they take singular pronouns:

Incorrect:	Wardog Squadron were in Sudentor
Correct:	Wardog Squadron was in Sudentor

Formality

Formal use of language is mandatory on all canon encyclopedia articles e.g. Mobius 1 is a highly-recognized ace pilot in Usea, not Mobius 1 the coolest pilot ever.

Uncontracted forms such as do not or it is are the default in encyclopedic style; don't and it's are too informal.

On encyclopedia articles, avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in a less-than-encyclopedic tone. Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, and call into question the reason for including the information in the first place. Do not tell readers that something is ironic, surprising, unexpected, funny, amusing, coincidental, unfortunate, etc. This supplies a point of view. Simply state the sourced facts and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. Uses of however should be minimal since it takes up unnecessary space.

Canon encyclopedia articles should be written as if the in-game world was the real one. Mission names and other gameplay elements should not be stated in a sentence, and the characters should not be treated as fictional constructs.

Article titles

An article title is a convenient label for the article, which distinguishes it from other articles. It does not have to be the name of the subject; many article titles are descriptions of the subject or disambiguate from similar article titles.

The following points are critical to formatting article titles:

• Use "sentence case" or "sentence-style": The initial letter of a title is capitalized; otherwise, capital letters are used only where they would be used in a normal sentence e.g. Aircraft carrier, not Aircraft Carrier.
• Use the singular form: Article titles should be singular e.g. Tank, not Tanks.
• Use full names without ranks for characters: Articles about characters should avoid the title or rank, unless the character is known only by the title e.g. Allen C. Hamilton, not Major Allen C. Hamilton.
• Use parentheses to distinguish similar articles: e.g. Kei Nagase (AC2), Kei Nagase (AC5), or Kei Nagase (Ikaros).

Section headings

• Headings should not contain links.
• Heading should not contain citations.
• Headings should not contain images of any kind.

For sections that feature a combination of quotes, main article links, images, and infoboxes directly below the heading, the following guidelines should be practiced:

• A section should only start with an image or an infobox (or neither), not both. These take first priority over quotes and main article links.
• A section should only start with a quote or a main article link (or neither), not both. These should come after an image or infobox at the start of a section, if there are any.

Capitalization

Unnecessary capitalization should be avoided. For example, use coup d'état rather than Coup D'état. This is sometimes referred to as the "down style". Capitalization should be reserved for proper nouns and the start of sentences only.

"The"

In general, do not capitalize a definite article in the middle of a sentence. However, some idiomatic exceptions, including most titles of artistic works, should be quoted exactly according to common usage.

Incorrect	(generic):	an event article about The Liberation of Gracemeria
Correct	(generic):	an event article about the liberation of Gracemeria
Incorrect	(title):	a mission article about "the liberation of Gracemeria"
Correct	(title):	a mission article about "The Liberation of Gracemeria"

Ranks and titles

• In generic use, apply lower case for words such as lieutenant and captain e.g. Bartlett was an air squadron captain.
• In parts of a person's title, begin such words with a capital letter e.g. Captain Bartlett, not captain Bartlett.
• Public office names are treated as proper nouns e.g. the President of Osea. Royal styles are similarly capitalized e.g. Her Majesty; exceptions may apply for particular offices.

Locations

• Names of institutions are proper nouns and must be capitalized e.g. Heierlark Air Force Base.
• Generic words for institutions should not be normally capitalized e.g. air base, air force base. In situations where a generic term may conflict with another proper noun, try rewording the sentence:

Incorrect	(name):	they retreated to Heierlark air force base
Correct	(name):	they retreated to Heierlark Air Force Base
Incorrect	(generic):	the Osean Air Force Base near Oured
Misleading	(generic):	the Osean air force base near Oured
Correct	(generic):	the Osean air base near Oured
Correct	(generic):	the OADF air base near Oured

Calendar items

Seasons should be in lower case e.g. in the summer; the winter holidays.

Celestial bodies

Names of celestial bodies, such as planets and constellations, are proper nouns and therefore do take capitals e.g. Earth. However, capitalization of a definite article should follow common usage e.g. the Southern Cross, not The Southern Cross.

Generic descriptors of celestial bodies should remain lowercase e.g. a moon of Jupiter as opposed to a Moon of Jupiter. Generic descriptors should only be capitalized if a subject is commonly referred to by that descriptor e.g. Earth's Moon.

Italics

Titles of works of literature and art, especially games, should be italicized at all times e.g. Cipher is the hero of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War or Cipher is the hero of Ace Combat Zero.

Missions, published articles, chapters, songs, and other short works should not be italicized. Instead, use double quotes around them e.g. "Sitting Duck". Quotations should not be italicized either; see § Quotation marks for the proper punctuation.

When italicizing a link, put the apostrophes outside of the brackets instead of masking the link. Link masking should only be done if more than the article name is being italicized, but consider reorganizing the link in those circumstances:

Incorrect:	[[Ace Combat|''Ace Combat'']]
Correct:	''[[Ace Combat]]''
Incorrect:	[[Ace Combat|''Ace Combat'' games]]
Correct:	''[[Ace Combat]]'' games

Punctuation

Quotation marks

• Do not use typographic marks, otherwise known as curly or smart quotation marks.

Incorrect:	‘...’ and “...”
Correct:	'...' and "..."

• In-text quotations should be surrounded by "double quotation marks". Do NOT use the in-game << arrow quotes >> e.g. "Yo Buddy, you still alive?" not << Yo Buddy, you still alive? >>.
  • Quotations inside of quotations should be surrounded by 'single quotation marks' e.g. "Decrypting message. 'Yo Buddy, you still alive?' It's...!"
• Punctuation marks following quotations should go outside of the quotation marks, except if the same punctuation will end the surrounding sentence or the quotation itself:

  Pixy said, "Looks like we were just a couple of decoys."

  "Looks like we were just a couple of decoys", Pixy said.

• When the title of an article appearing in the lead paragraph requires quotation marks (for example, the title of a mission or song), the quotation marks should not be in boldface since they are not part of the title e.g. "Sitting Duck".

Ellipses

An ellipsis is an omission, often used in a printed record of conversation. The ellipsis is represented by ellipsis points: a set of three dots.

Style

Ellipsis points (plural ellipses) have traditionally been implemented in three ways:

• Recommended: Three unspaced periods (...). This is the easiest way in the context of web publishing, and gives a predictable appearance in HTML.
• Not recommended: Three spaced periods (. . .). This is an older style that is unnecessarily wide and requires non-breaking spaces to keep it from breaking at the end of a line e.g. " . . . ".
• Not recommended: Pre-composed ellipsis character (…); generated with the … character entity, or as a literal "…". This is harder to input and edit, and too small in some fonts.

Implementation

Use an ellipsis if material is omitted in the course of a quotation, with the following guidelines:

• Put a space on each side of an ellipsis, except there should be no space between an ellipsis and...
  • a quotation mark directly following the ellipsis
  • any bracket the ellipsis is inside of
  • sentence-final punctuation, or a colon, semicolon, or comma directly following the ellipsis
• Only place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis if it is textually important (as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks).
• Use non-breaking spaces ( ) only as needed to prevent improper line breaks, for example:
  • To keep a quotation mark from being separated from the start of the quotation ("... we don't have to worry about any radar").
  • To keep the ellipsis from wrapping to the next line ("Those nukes are exactly why the Belkans have lowered themselves to ... pitting two countries against each other").
• Do not use ellipsis to represent a pause in speech, unless it is a direct quotation that includes the ellipsis.
  • In the very rare cases where ellipses are used for both material omission and speech pauses for a single quotation, the ellipsis used for material omission should have square brackets around it [...]. Do not use square brackets otherwise.

Others

• If a list element is only a name or otherwise not a full sentence, no punctuation is necessary at the end.
• Image captions do not require punctuation unless the caption has more than one sentence.
• Commas should be used according to serial comma usage. However, in cases where it would cause ambiguity, try rephrasing the phrase.

Incorrect:	Cipher, Pixy and PJ
Correct:	Cipher, Pixy, and PJ
Ambiguous:	Yellow 13, a flight mechanic, and Yellow 4
Correct:	Yellow 13, Yellow 4, and a flight mechanic

• Colons should only be used to indicate the start of a list or the start of a sentence that describes what came before the colon. The first word following a colon is capitalized if that word begins a new grammatical sentence. Operation names do not have colons unless directly specified.
• Semicolons can be used in place of a period between two independent but related sentences, but should be used to separate items in a list when commas are also used in the middle of an item's description.
• Hyphens must not be used except in specific circumstances. Instead, use an em dash (—) in place of commas and an en dash (–) for number ranges. Do not use spaces before or after either of these dashes.

Abbreviations

Games

Do not abbreviate game titles in prose e.g. Cipher is the hero of ACZ. Only abbreviate game titles in situations where space is limited such as infoboxes or tabbers. Use the following abbreviations in those situations and do not italicize abbreviations:

AC1, AC2, AC3, AC04 (note: AC04, not AC4), AC5, AC6, AC7

ACZ, ACX, Xi, JA, AH, Legacy (or 3D), Infinity (or INF)

If using multiple game abbreviations, such as in an infobox, denote them chronologically separated by slashes e.g. AC2/3/04/X.

Organizations

An organization's abbreviated name must follow the convention provided by the latest game e.g. "Independent State Allied Forces" is shortened to "ISAF" as stated in Ace Combat 5, not "Allies" as sometimes stated in Ace Combat 04.

Asteroid terminology

Use the following terms to refer to certain aspects of asteroids:

• asteroid: the main celestial body itself e.g. the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid
• fragments: the pieces of an asteroid splitting apart in the atmosphere e.g. Stonehenge attacked Ulysses fragments
• meteorite: any asteroid fragments that land on the planet surface, sometimes causing a crater, e.g. the meteorites that struck Farbanti
• meteor: the flash of light from a fragment entering the atmosphere, not the fragment itself e.g. meteors were visible over Gracemeria