View source for Help:Manual of Style

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The '''Manual of Style''' ('''MoS''' or '''MOS''') is the style manual for all Dustloop articles. This primary page is supported by further [[Help:Writing_Character_Pages|Writing Character Pages]] and [[Help:Writing_System_Explanations|Writing System Explanations]]. If any contradiction arises, '''this page has precedence'''. Failing to follow this document is considered a violation of the user [[Policy]]. In the majority of situations no action will be taken against a user who fails to follow this guide because the Bureaucrat Team recognizes that mistakes happen, and not every user is confident and comfortable with editing wikis. With that made clear, the team does still reserve the right to remove user's edit access if that user makes egregious and intentional violations of this page.

{{clear}}

==Retaining Existing Styles==
Sometimes the MoS provides more than one acceptable style or gives no specific guidance. The Moderation Team has expressed the principle that "Format is flexible and individual users can push innovation". This does not mean anything goes. If you believe an alternative style would be more appropriate for a particular section, please discuss it in the Dustloop [https://discord.com/invite/d9tgMZg Discord].

Edit-warring over style is never acceptable.

==General Writing Style==
Dustloop aims at being an impartial, community driven source of information and education. In order to achieve that, articles need to be written in a manner conducive to maintaining trust, professionalism, and respect. Dustloop would also like to recognize that a significant audience of the site does not speak English as their first language, and so the administration of the site asks that sentences are kept relatively simple when possible.

<u>As a general rule of thumb:</u>
* Write in the 3rd person.
* Avoid excessively emotive language when possible. (eg: "insanely oppressive offense and abysmally awful defense")
* Try to be impartial and objective.
* Avoid using swears whenever possible.
* Never use slurs under any circumstances.

To add to that point, Dustloop needs to be written agnostic to the skill of the reader. Do not assume a particular level of reader competence so that the largest audience reasonably possible. An easy way to achieve this is to stick to the descriptive nature of what the character can do as opposed to what the player can do. Instead of "you can block while in the air", write "X Character can block while in the air".

Casual language and inside jokes are acceptable so long as they are kept in moderation.

===English, Please!===
Dustloop is an English website. Until the day comes that we have the resources, staff, and volunteers to set up an infrastructure for multiple languages, that will continue to be the case. Therefore, the wiki should remain in English. 

Furthermore, the English localization always take priority. If the English and Japanese text for a game on this wiki differ, the official English Localization take priority.

If there's a borrow word that is not normally a part of the English language, such as "okizeme", then it should be used with a tooltip the first time that it appears on the page in order to explain it to the reader. Terms like this which are commonly used on the wiki are included in the <code><nowiki>{{Keyword}}</nowiki></code> template. Otherwise, use the <code><nowiki>{{Tt}}</nowiki></code> template. For example:
<pre>
This character has a big emphasis on {{Keyword|okizeme}}. They have a good matchup against {{Tt|George Bush|Some guy from America}}.
</pre>
This character has a big emphasis on {{Keyword|okizeme}}. They have a good matchup against {{Tt|George Bush|Some guy from America}}.

====Why Using Non-English Text In Headers Causes Problems====
I'm typing this here because I wanted to include an example with my writeup, and I don't want to duplicate text between here and Discord chat.

Links to sections are generated based on the entire contents of the section header. Adding additional text to a section header that you plan to link to will have effects ranging from making the author add extra words when writing their link, or need to find and copy paste some wacky hyperlinks that aren't easily remembered.

===Using non-English Characters in Section Header===
Using non-English characters in a section header results in a generated section link with some wacky codes to represent the non-English characters. These are unreasonable for an author to remember, so they will have to find them and copy-paste them when writing a link in an article. Click the "Tell Me More" button for an in depth explanation and breakdown.

<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Tell Me More">
On Strive Anji's page the header <code>Kou / 紅</code> generates the following link <code>GGST/Anji_Mito#Kou_.2F_.E7.B4.85</code>

Another problem with using non-English characters in your link is that a direct copy-paste of the section header does not generate a valid link to the section.

Although the section header is <code>Kou / 紅</code>, the following mediawiki link, <code>[[GGST/Anji_Mito/Kou / 紅]]</code>, is not valid for two reasons.
# the link has a <code>/</code> character, which is not valid. It makes the link think you are pointing to a sub page
# the non-English characters are non recognized, and instead their code needs to be used instead.

'''Using Special Characters in Section headers'''
----
Special characters sometimes behave similarly to non-English characters and generate wacky links when used in section headers. A famous example of this one is Jack-O'. 

If you section was named <code>Jack-O'</code>, you could not use that as the link. Instead, you would have to use  <code>Jack-O%27</code>

'''Sneaky Broken Links'''
----
When you add stuff to the section header, you make it harder to remember what needs to be in the header to work. Let's give an example.

I want to link to Kliff's move "Limb Sever". My first instinct is to write out the link as game/character#move - [[GGACR/Kliff Undersn#Limb Sever]]. This actually doesn't work because somebody has appended the Japanese name to the end of the section header. Yet, the link will still show up as blue giving the author the impression that the link is valid.<br>

When a section link has a correct page, but an incorrect section, the link shows as blue, but simply takes the user to the top of the page as opposed to the section they desired. Because somebody has added to the section header, I would instead have to write the link to this section like so [[GGACR/Kliff_Undersn#Limb_Severer_.28Shishi_Otoshi.29]] to get the functioning link.
</div>{{clear}}

===Color Coding and highlighting===
If you've used the site for some time you will have noticed text with colors such as this: {{clr|3|c.S}} > {{clr|2|6K}}, using the <code><nowiki>{{clr}}</nowiki></code> template. For more information on how to use this on wiki pages, see [[Template:Clr/doc]]. This is a technique authors use on the site to make numpad notation more accessible to beginner players by relating the colors of the inputs with the colors used for button prompts in game. However, color coding can pose problems for users with color-deficient vision. Please be conservative and do not add color coding outside of recommended use cases in this list.

<u>Things you are encouraged to color code:</u>
* Move inputs (eg: {{clr|3|c.S}}, {{clr|1|j.236A|game=BBCF}}, etc)
* Tags (eg: {{clr|buff|BUFF}}, {{clr|reworked|REWORKED}}, etc)
* Difficulty ratings for combo tables (eg: {{clr|6|Easy}}, {{clr|8|Hard}})
<u>Acceptable edge cases for color coding:</u>
* Net Change values for combo tables (eg: <span style="color:DarkRed">-10</span>)
<u>Things you should not color code:</u>
* Move names (eg: Potemkin Buster, Lullaby Fist)
* Text you wish to emphasize

{{Note|Hot Links on standard text will be made blue in order to indicate to the user that the text is, in fact, a clickable link. Link colors do not fall under the guidelines listed above.|reminder}}

===Pronouns and Gendered Language===
We recommend an approach adopted from the APA Style. These best practices should not be taken as thoroughly vetted by the community nor representing consensus.

<u>Use "They/Their/Them" When:</u>
* If They/Their/Them are the official pronouns used, or if non-gendered pronouns are used.
* The gender of the subject is irrelevant to the point being discussed
* The gender of the subject is unknown
* There are multiple subjects with differing genders
<u>Use Official Gender Pronouns When:</u>
* The source material uses gendered pronouns for text that will be copied to the wiki
* The text needs the additional specification of gender to be clear
{{Note|Because there is a significant amount of content which already exists on the wiki and uses gendered pronouns to refer to characters, we do not recommend changing the existing pronoun usage unless it improves the quality of the article.}}

===Jokes and Captions===
<div style="float: right;">[[File:JokeCaptionCheatSheet.png|thumb|200px]]</div>
Dustloop has a long history of having joke captions under the images for moves, and sometimes even in the overviews. Some of these captions are genuinely funny and considered a welcome and fun part of the Dustloop experience.

The current stance of the Bureaucrat Team is that we do not want to do away with joke captions entirely, and would still like to grant them some good will, but joke captions will be treated with greater scrutiny in the future, and less of them will be allowed per-page. There is no hard limit, and will be handled case-by-case. Move captions should be on-topic. Personal discretion applies here, so  please operate on the honor system.

<u>Criteria for welcome jokes and captions:</u>
* Jokes that are relevant to the character as they appear in game 
* Explanations of what the moves do
* Comedic or lighthearted references to how the move is used
* Comedic references to the primary source material (the game itself, not anime or manga which it is based on)
* References to the metagame
* Anything that attempts to be informative or educational
<u>Examples of unwelcome jokes and captions:</u>
* Inside Jokes
* References/Quotes from YouTube/Twitter/social media
* References/Quotes to content not immediately related to the source material
* Memes that you would expect to find on Tik-Tok (YEET, etc)
* Political content or hateful content

{{Note|The purpose of the site is not to be a platform for jokes, but instead to be informative and helpful.|warn}}{{clear}}

==Character Overviews==
Character Overview Pages are the most commonly read articles on the entirety of Dustloop. As such, these articles will be held to the highest standard. 

Many readers do not have a long attention span, so get to the point. Be descriptive, detailed, and accurate, but avoid wasting time with flowery language. Overviews need to cover a lot of information in a relatively compact space so it is recommended that editors avoid making excessive use of adjectives fluff phrases. 

The overview for a given character should give a reader a basic understanding of what the character can do, what the character's gameplan is, crucial flaws, and key strengths are. The latter two points can be carried by the pros/cons table in the majority of situations, but it is sometimes appropriate to mention things in greater detail within the overview. A reader should walk away from an overview with a baseline understanding of how a character players at a macro scale.

===Lore Blurbs===
Lore blurbs are optional fields in the overview for a character designed to communicate some information about the character outside of gameplay. Whenever possible, these blurbs should be taken word-for-word from official sources. An example of this would be [[Granblue Fantasy Versus]]. Each character, at the time of writing this article, has an [https://versus.granbluefantasy.jp/characters/gran?lang=ja official lore description] available on their website. In the event that user wishes to write an unofficial lore summary, the summary should be kept short and simple. Four (4) to Six (6) sentences should be considered a safe upper limit for the length of the lore blurb. 

If the quote field is used, it should either use quotes from official sources, such as Arc System Works' websites, or quotes which are directly verifiable within their respective game.

===Playstyle Summaries===
Playstyle summaries are single sentence summaries of their respective character's overview. These do not need to be incredibly detailed and are meant to be read at a glance. The template will force every playstyle summary to start with an icon of the character and the character's name.

===Strengths and Weaknesses Tables===
Strengths and Weaknesses tables, also known as the pros/cons section, are potentially very contentious and can be damaging to the site's reputation when handled without care. As such, these sections should be collaborative efforts which are frequently cross referenced and verified. Below is a non-exhaustive list of guidelines to follow when editing this section. The Bureaucrat team reserves the right to make rulings on these sections on a per-case basis.

* Begin every bullet point with a bolded summary of the bullet point, followed by an un-bolded colon.
* Try to Keep each bullet point to a maximum of 4 lines of text.
* Be specific. If a point depends on a specific set of moves or situations, enumerate them. 
* Be fair. It is natural to want to emphasize how weak a character's option may be, or how strong it may be. Keep these lists metered and avoid making absolute statements as to what is best and worst in the game.

This section is one of the most scrutinized by outside eyes, and as such it should contain the absolute bare minimum of jokes.

====What Constitutes a pro and a con?====
This is constantly up for debate, and sometimes people's opinions will change with time. The goal with these lists should be to inform readers as to the following traits:
* What does this character excel at?
* What can I abuse as this character to gain an advantage?
* What flaws do I have to play around with this character?
* What about my character can opposing characters exploit to gain an advantage over me?

=====A note about Execution=====
High execution should only be a weakness if the character loses something significant from execution mistakes.
Think through these examples:
{{Quote|What does the character lose by dropping a hard combo, and how integral is that to playing properly?}}
'''Example A) Sol''' 
<pre>
Sol drops a Sidewinder. The opponent techs out at the top of the screen.
Does he die for it? No.
Does he have to play neutral again? Yes
Is Sol's neutral good? Compared to the majority of the cast, No

So is solid execution a big deal? It's not the worst thing, but it forces him to go back to instances where he's inherently at a disadvantage. It's still important to consider.
</pre>

'''Example B) Johnny'''
<pre>
Johnny drops a Killer Joker FRC, or an Enkasu, or a Tk Ensenga.

Does he die for it? Possibly
Does he have to play neutral again? You betcha
Is Johnny's neutral good? It can be, but he eats shit for a single whiff/getting low profile'd

Is all of this important to playing the character? It's pretty important, yes. Probably comparable, if not worse than Sol.
</pre>

'''Example C) Chipp'''
<pre>
Chipp flubs a j.2K FDC/Instant Air Alpha/basic IAD string

Does he die for it? Very much so
Does he have to play neutral again? Can't play neutral if you're dead
Is Chipp's neutral good? Unless you're on point, you're gonna have to jump around and if you get touched, you're dead. His buttons are fantastic but most of them don't lead to a proper knockdown or any solid damage.

Is this vital to playing Chipp? Absolutely. A single drop spells death, meaning you either commit hard to the actual damage and make certain you have it, or you commit to small hits left and right, and you'd better not mess those up either.
</pre>

Given these examples, Example A is '''not''' a con, Example B can be listed as a footnote to the table (by adding the <code>|footnote=</code> argument with an explanation), and Example C '''is''' a con and can be listed in the right column of the table.

===Move Lists===
Move lists leave freedom to the community to act as a guide in addition to a fact source. Every move contains a description area where editors can give advice on how a move can be used, the important drawbacks of a move, and so forth.  Specific details on how to style these sections can be found on [[Help:Writing_Character_Pages|Writing Character Pages]], but in general this section is open to whatever people feel is appropriate.


===Bad Moves VS Situational Moves===
[[File:ManualOfStyle BadMove.png|950px|thumb|center|[[GGACR/Venom#Red_Hail|Red Hail]] on Venom's page. The move carries many flaws, costs meter, and is hard to use in the first place. Yet, there are niche ways to use it.<br>A good description for a BAD move.]]
[[File:ManualOfStyle BadMove2.png|950px|thumb|center|[[DBFZ/SSB_Gogeta#Punisher_Drive|Punisher Drive]] on SSB Gogeta's page. The move is described as limited and reactable with low reward, but useful in neutral and in TOD combos.<br>A good description of a SITUATIONAL move.]]

Sometimes characters have moves that are questionably helpful. In some cases, the community can come to the conclusion that the move is more risk than it's worth, and advise players to avoid using said move in most circumstances. In others, it's helpful in enough scenarios where the move is simply referred to as "situational." Despite this, it's rather common for writers to list many moves with considerable downsides as simply being situational, which is ill-advised due to its vague narrative, dishonesty, confusion to new players and potentially contradicting competitive expertise.

Ask yourself the following questions if you can't decide what a move should be described as:
* Does the move only become helpful in few, select situations?
* Does the move have reactable startup, punishable recovery, avoidable hitboxes, or otherwise high risk characteristics?
* Does the move give low reward for landing it?
* Does the move have a cost such as meter, cooldowns, health, or a character-specific resource?
* Does the move replace other moves? Is it possible to revert the replacement in the middle of the match?
* Does the move have an easy obvious counter, reducing the attack to a knowledge check?
There are also three simpler questions, but these are prone to more debate so handle these with care or use them as tiebreakers.
* Will top level players, character discords, or the community at large advise against using the move?
* Does the character have an objectively better choice for the same situation?
* Is this move so bad you will simply be killed immediately for using it no matter what, or invariably puts you in a worse situation regardless of success? ''This will be discussed again later.''
If you find that too many of these can be checked off, you are likely staring at a '''bad''' move, not a situational one. It's important to differentiate the two, as you don't want readers to believe that a move is better or worse than it really is, but also don't want readers to believe that a helpful move limited to certain scenarios is bad simply because it's not all-purpose. Likewise, just because a move is reactable or has limited range does not make it bad on its own, unless these flaws are so pronounced it will never realistically be feasible to use the move.
[[File:ManualOfStyle BadMove3.png|750px|thumb|center|There are rare circumstances where moves are so bad, there are no upsides. Describing these moves as "situational" is wrong.]]
{{Note|Please exercise caution when describing certain moves as "bad" in a hyperbolic sense, unless it truly is deserving of such harsh criticism.|warn}}

==Using Move Names or Inputs==
Depending on the context, both move names and inputs can be appropriately used, and both come with advantages and disadvantages. Some players know moves by their inputs, other by their names. In order to reduce confusion for readers who are less familiar with a character you can use tooltip data to clarify the basic info for that move—the image, startup, recovery, advantage, and guard requirement. 

<u>Rule of Thumb:</u>
The first time a move is mentioned in a section—excluding its own—use the MiniMoveCard template to remind them.

===Example===
<pre>
<div>
How low profile is Grand Viper? Imagine low profile enough to go under 75% of moves in the game, and then go lower.
*{{Character Label|GGACR|Baiken}}'s {{MMC|chara=Baiken|game=GGACR|input=236D|label=FB Tatami}}
*{{Character Label|GGACR|Venom}}'s {{MMC|chara=Venom|game=GGACR|input=2141236S|label=Dark Angel}}
*{{Character Label|GGACR|Johnny}}'s {{MMC|chara=Johnny|game=GGACR|input=2D|label={{clr|5|2D}}}}
*Burst, which can score a powerful reset in the corner
</div>
</pre>
{{FP Box
|content=
<div class="attack-gallery" style="padding-right: 2em;">
<gallery widths="210px" heights="210px" mode="nolines">
GGAC_Sol_214S.png|Grand Viper
</gallery>
</div>
<u>How low profile is Grand Viper? Imagine low profile enough to go under 75% of moves in the game, and then go lower.</u>
*{{Character Label|GGACR|Baiken}}'s {{MMC|chara=Baiken|game=GGACR|input=236D|label=FB Tatami}}
*{{Character Label|GGACR|Venom}}'s {{MMC|chara=Venom|game=GGACR|input=2141236S|label=Dark Angel}}
*{{Character Label|GGACR|Johnny}}'s {{MMC|chara=Johnny|game=GGACR|input=2D|label={{clr|5|2D}}}}
*Burst, which can score a powerful reset in the corner
}}

===Tips===
The Mini move card template is, to some degree, intelligent. It can infer data to allow you to write short-hand code.
* If the game parameter is not given, it will assume the game from the current directory <code>(''GGACR'' in ''GGACR''/Venom/Combos)</code>
* If the chara parameter is not given, it will assume you want the character the current directory belongs to <code>(''Venom'' in GGACR/''Venom''/Combos)</code>
* The template can be called with either MMCR or MiniMoveCard interchangeably

The only part that is always mandatory is the input. The input you provide must match the input for that move on the character's data page.