Terraria Wiki:Style guide


 * This page is currently a work in progress. Feel free to contribute to it if you are familiar enough with the wiki. Also see Terraria Wiki:Rules.

The following is a guide to creating or editing mainspace pages at Terraria Wiki in accordance with the established article style (these do not apply to Guide: pages). It describes accepted and established practices at Terraria Wiki, and should not be used to impose changes to the wiki. These guidelines are not set in stone, but they should generally be followed in order to maintain consistency across pages, unless there is a good reason to make an exception.

General guidelines

 * The first instance of the page title should be bold. This should usually be in the first sentence of the article. No other instance of the page title should be bold. To make a word or phrase bold, place three apostrophes (') on each side. For example:  . Bold can also be used for emphasis on other words in rare cases.
 * All item names should be capitalized (eg. Iron Broadsword).
 * The first instance of an item name on a page should be linked, via double brackets (eg. ). Further mentions of the same item should not be linked.
 * Be sure to read the page before editing. Editors frequently add notes, tips, and trivia items that duplicate information already contained in the article's paragraphs above.

Standard sections
The lead (or intro) section of a page should describe the article topic. For items, describe the item first, then state how it is acquired (for crafted items, do not include details of how the item is acquired within the lead; use a separate Crafting section, as described below).

Any or all of the following additional sections can be included in an article. They should generally be in the order they are presented in below (Crafting section first, if applicable; then Notes below it; then Tips, etc.). Sections are added via. For example,  would add a "Notes" section.


 * Crafting: Only for crafted items and/or crafting materials. For crafted items, use the crafting recipe template. For crafting materials, use the crafts top, crafts row, and crafts bottom templates. These can be complicated for beginners, so feel free to ask for help from an active editor, or post a message at Terraria Wiki:Community portal.
 * Notes: Bulleted list of short facts about the article topic. Bugs and anomalies can also be listed here, but if the list of bugs becomes long, or if there are no other Note items (only bugs), a separate Bugs section may be better (see below).
 * Tips: Bulleted list of helpful hints regarding effective practices and what to avoid.
 * Trivia: Bulleted list of facts relating to the article topic, which may be interesting but have no bearing on the game. Explaining the etymology of an item name could be one example. See below for an expanded guide to Trivia sections.
 * Bugs: List of bugs and anomalies, with each item using the bug or anomaly templates. If only a few bugs are present, they can go at the bottom of the Notes section.
 * History: List of changes to the article topic from various game updates, with each item using the history template. A history section should almost always be included, with at least one item stating which update introduced the game element.

Trivia
Trivia sections tend to be magnets for speculation. They often need to be pruned down after a multitude of editors have posted low-quality "cruft" and other unsubstantiated opinions. Below are some pointers regarding what is and isn't helpful to include in these sections.


 * Valid trivia items are points that are not immediately obvious and are interesting beyond Terraria. Explaining who George's Tuxedo is referring to would be a good example.
 * Trivia should not describe an item's function, interesting things that can be done with it, or ways it might malfunction in the game. Those items may belong in a Notes, Tips, or Bugs section, assuming they are legitimately reproducible.
 * If trivia seems far too obvious (e.g. "Boreal Wood is wood from a Boreal Forest"), it's probably not worth mentioning.
 * Many items that appear to reference other games or movies are actually referencing older ideas. A good example is the Broken Hero Sword: while other games contain similar elements, most of those games actually draw from historical imagery surrounding knights, which could be the actual source of the idea in Terraria. Try to research whether or not an idea has older roots before assuming that a game or other contemporary media is being referenced.
 * If a game item merely looks like something you saw somewhere else, it doesn't necessarily merit mention (starting a trivia item with "might be a reference" is often a sign that the item isn't worth mentioning) &mdash; unless the reference is undeniable, or you can substantiate that the developers intended to make the reference. If the developers have stated a reference, include a link to the developer's posting.