Help:Style guide

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Defer questions of style to The Wikipedia Manual of Style.

Wiki Navigation

Redirects

SpiralKnights:Redirect - list of reasons to redirect, and how to tag them.

Categories

Whenever fitting, articles should be categorized. See Special:Categories for a list of categories.

Naming Convention

Articles

Here are some guidelines for general pages:

• Wikipedia's naming conventions
• Wikipedia's disambiguation page

As a game, Spiral Knights has its own special names, so the Wikipedia guidelines will not always be appropriate.

Files (Images)

Uploaded files should be named clearly and plainly. All images should have the appropriate image tag included in the file description. The preferred image format is PNG. For images created by the Spiral Knights community, please follow the following naming conventions:

• Bomb_Name_blast_radius.png - Used for bomb radius images
• Crafting-Item_Name.png - Used for crafting item icons
• Equipment-Item_Name icon.png - Used for equipment item icons (armor, helmets, shields, weapons)
• Equipment-Item_Name Stats.png- Used for equipment stats (armor, helmets, shields, weapons)
• Item_Name-Equipped.png - Used for equipped items (armor, helmets, shields, weapons)
• Item_Name-Equipped 2.png - Used for alternate angles (armor, helmets)
• Monster-Monster_Name.png - Used for monsters (128x128px)
• Vendor_Name-Mugshot.png - Used for vendors

Templates

Infoboxes

Gear:

• {{ArmorInfo}} ^(Usage) - For Armor items
• {{HelmetInfo}} ^(Usage) - For Helmet items
• {{ShieldInfo}} ^(Usage) - For Shield items
• {{TrinketInfo}} ^(Usage) - For Trinkets
• {{WeaponInfo}} ^(Usage) - For weapons including Bombs, Handguns, and Swords
• {{SpriteInfo}} ^(Usage) - For Battle Sprites

Aesthetics:

• {{CostumeInfo}} ^(Usage) - For Costume items
• {{FurnitureInfo}} ^(Usage) - For Furniture items

Other:

• {{Monster}} ^(Usage) - For Monsters

Table of Contents

• {{TOCright}} ^(Usage) - For moving the TOC to the right
• {{CompactTOC}} ^(Usage) - For an ABC type TOC to replace the standard type. Used for alphabetical lists.

Other

• {{SKLink}} ^(Usage) - For making links visible in tables with dark backgrounds
• {{Star}} ^(Usage) - For showing the star rating graphically

Visuals

Spiral Spy files (and files created in relation to Spiral Spy) should never be uploaded to this wiki, no matter the circumstances.

Images

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Tooltips

An "Item equipped" image in an infobox represents an item as it appears in the tool-tip rotation in-game. Images should generally be the first clear frame of the tool-tip unless the item is obscured or at a terrible angle (as with certain accessories). Alternate angles should be shown in a gallery elsewhere on the page.

Due to how the game has changed overtime, filenames might seem to be...inaccurate. Images were uploaded (for quite a long time) to file destinations that had "equipped" in the name, because being "worn" or "equipped" was the only consistent view available at the time. Later on, tool-tip rotations were introduced. Since it would require a large chunk of time to change existing filenames (either by moving or reuploading), and nobody actually sees these filenames on published pages, the "inaccurate" naming convention remains.

Battle Sprites

Use example images on the Maskeraith (Spiralhorn) page. Details to come - basically, the inspect window shows the size comparison between T1/2/3 sprites and keeps dimensions consistent, compared to cropped images.

Animations

We want high quality animations! No .gifs! Boooo! We prefer to use APNG.

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Tooltips

Tooltip animations for an item should be 201px (width) by 222px (height) and feature a full 360° rotation. The animation should be captured from the tool-tip rotation in-game and not from spiral spy. When capturing costumes (or helmets, armor, etc.), make sure they dont have any accessories attached. Compare the angle of the tooltip with similar items already uploaded to maintain consistency around this wiki.

You may use the following guide to create Animated PNG pictures:

Overworld

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Compare your item with existing files on this wiki. A picture is worth 1000 words, an animation is worth 1000x more. Then use this guide:

{{Showhide|Overworld Animations|content= Use Fraps or a screen capture program that produces high quality files that you are comfortable using.

Establish a "cameraman." This cameraman can be you, or another knight that you control. Whatever the case, you must not film yourself with yourself, because the screen moves with you. We don't want that! Only film other people, or film yourself with an alt, etc.

Have the cameraman uncheck "show rank" and select "on hover" for show names in the chat tab of the Options interface.

Find someone (might be you) that has the item you wish to film. It is very much preferred to find outfits that are not heavily accessorized so that the focus can be on the item you are filming.

Ask the target politely to pose in a way that shows the item in a consistent manner with other similar animations on this wiki. Do not offer to pay them, or demand payment, etc. Wiki work is volunteer.

Ask them if they wish to be credited on the wiki - only give credit in the upload comment (file page) because the wiki is about game content, not users, but files should have source information in general. It also makes people more willing to help, haha - but many people like to remain anonymous, especially for rare items so people don't bother them about selling their precious shinies and for various other personal reasons.

Make sure the person you're filming has time - including yourself!

Find a clean area that has very visually obvious tiles that is not likely to have people join in. Empty guild hall rooms or the Private Training Hall are excellent choices, since these are not affected by weather changes during events.

Spend as much time as it takes to get a good visual that's relatively easy to loop. Users will have to do different things for different items. In general:

• Aesthetics:

(accessory, costume, helmet, armor, shield): compare to animations already uploaded on wiki. Have them wiggle, turn, and walk around a 3x3 area twice before returning to the same spot.

Gear:

Link to external videos (like youtube) in the "external links" section to really help users get an idea of the weapon in action, whenever possible. See #videos below for details about posting videos on this wiki.

• Bombs: charge up, plop down, detonate. Loop that. The first frame should show the radius of the bomb (indicated by the white ring visuals). If you can, have them stand in the center of the area in the private training hall - example on Fang of Vog page.

• Handguns:

regular: shoot the full clip. Loop that. Make sure the first frame shows the tile range of the bullet.

charge: charge up, and set charge off. Make sure the first frame of the charge shows the range and any awesome effects (like the birds of light in the antigua line).

• Swords:

regular: swing once. Then immediately swing once AND until the knight no longer swings - this is a "combo" of sorts. Some swords swing twice, three times, or many times.

charge: charge up, set off charge. Make sure the first frame of the charge shows the range and any awesome effects, like the Obsidian Edge. If the charge is radial, have them stand in the center of the area in the private training hall - example on Fang of Vog page.

Videos

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"You may post videos in the "external links" section of a wiki page, or on your own user page, provided that the video does not contain material that violates our Terms of Service. It's fine if the video you're linking is monetized, but the YouTube description must credit SEGA and Three Rings, and must provide a link back to our game." - Spiral Knights Support, 09 March 2015

Wikipedia MoS regarding "external links." Importantly:

Do not include the external link in the body of the article.

Keep the list short (on this wiki, it will usually be one demonstrative video).

Embedding videos seems to currently have technical issues.