Terraria Wiki:Style guide

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.

Page types
Different page types require different page formats. See the following examples:


 * For Enemies, see the Enemy page format
 * For Items, see the Item page format
 * For Biomes, see the Biome page format

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 always be linked, via double brackets (eg. ). Further mentions of the same item should generally not be linked, though multiple identical links can exist if they occur far from each other and would be helpful to readers. An example might be one link in the introductory section along with an identical link in a section, table, or template occurring further down. Duplicate links may be especially helpful on larger pages that would require scrolling to find an item's first mention.
 * 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
Here is a simple rundown of sections an article can include. For examples based on the article type, see Page types above.

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.
 * 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.

Guides
Guides can cover a wide array of subject matter, so a singly type of blanket template can't be applied to all of them. Even so, there are important guidelines to creating and editing guides.


 * Only authorized videos are to be placed in guidespace. Adding youtube links to a guide article is not permitted.
 * Strategy guides for combat situations are intended to guide players through them, not discuss individual experience. Take into account what a player will have at the point where such a guide is necessary- don't recommend a Terra Blade for use against Skeletron.
 * Pictures in guides are to be kept to a minimum. When used, they should demonstrate something that could not be conveyed through text. The image should always be cropped appropriately, and the interface should be disabled unless it is obviously necessary. Guidespace is not meant to show off individual achievements.
 * While guides are more informal in tone, they are not personal documents- names of individual players are to be left out, and proper spelling and grammar are necessary. Guides follow the same linking rules as the rest of the wiki- only the first instance, unless the page is running long.
 * If a guide doesn't demonstrate its usefulness, it will almost certainly be deleted. While permitted, guides that are just lists of things are not recommended.
 * Generally speaking, if you have the ability to go to the guide project page and add to the list but not to start the guide yourself, it's likely not a necessary guide.

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.