eRepublik Official Wiki talk:WikiProject Military/Style guide

MoS: Alliances

I'm not sure if this a just a pet-peeve thing or not, but I would like to amend the wiki's Manual of Style regarding the topic of alliances. This mostly comes out of the Terra naming convention. The alliance apparently went out of their way to not spell it with all capitals to avoid being yet another acronym name. While I commend that idea in spirit, and despite the fact that those who don't like the alliance are already giving it pejorative acronyms on their own, it is actually causing me some trouble when reading/editing the wiki. You see, spelling it Terra, as opposed to TERRA, makes it come off like a player name or something else and doesn't carry the weight of an alliance because all the others do spell their names with all caps. I'd like the MoS to indicate that all alliances be spelled in full capitals to address this point. Perhaps it is a small thing, but to me it just reads better knowing that an all-cap name = alliance. This would, of course, be something only limited to the wiki's MoS, not the game. What's the consensus on this? Would it be helpful? Could we just accept both forms? This also applies to Phoenix (which to me is a city in Arizona) and I suppose Fortis. In lower case, Terra is also a woman's name in the USA, as well as a certain very famous fictional plantation. -- Citizen 6   _Talk   10:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

-1 The fact is, it's wrong :P Phoenix isn't PHOENIX precisely because it's not an acronym. Presenting it as such essentially "just because" is a bit silly, imo. - John F Baker ^Talk/_{Royal Navy} 11:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding, I'm not suggesting an all-caps for alliances is a representation of an acronym. Basically, I am just suggesting a MoS for the wiki. Adjusting it for all caps doesn't mean it is an acronym, just how a particular thing in the wiki (this case alliances) are distinguished from other words. For example, what if an alliance was formed with the name "word", in all lower case. Wouldn't this cause problems when we write - as in: yesterday word declared a embargo against Phoenix. word representives were unavailable for comment and there was no word from word on the topic. You see what I'm suggesting, just that we have a uniform MoS to distinguish them, particularly when not blue linked. I'd also be willing to go with italics if that is a possible alternative. -- Citizen 6   _Talk   12:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

-1 Some things are acronyms, some are not. For example, under your system, we could have a war between the MEDITERRANEAN ALLIANCE and the NORTHERN ALLIANCE. That looks stupid. The Manule of Style (which was sort of started in this section of the MillProj) should be the exact opposite. It always annoys me when people had PHOENIX, FORTIS and the rest. They are not acronyms, so shouldn't be capitalised. Actually I was considering going through World War V and changing all the TERRAs, they make it really painful to read, at least for me.

And what you confuse the name with is not an issue, I for example might think about a war between a fiery bird and Mother Earth, perhaps being fought on the sun, however I don't because I know what the words mean in the context of this game. Plus there might be a regional difference, I would never consider Terra a girl's name, except as a superhero I believe, and whilst I do know geography and aware of Phoenix AZ, if I read that in this wiki it would be very obvious what was being referenced. Even Arizona don't mention the city, and if I saw that "Pheonix forces had captured New Mexico" I would be 99.99% sure who they meant. (It might still worry some in Albuquerque though :p)

Anyway, a lot of the MoS should be based on that the alliance calls itself. Don't you think it hurts when you see people going around using to Ipods or Ebay? Or do you do what most people do, follow what the thing itself calls itself and type iPod and eBay?

Anyway, that's my two pence sterling.--Martin23230 12:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

It's cool, I guess it is a matter of reading preference. Personally MEDITERRANEAN ALLIANCE and the NORTHERN ALLIANCE actually looks much better to me, but everyone has a different aesthetic preference. What about going with italics - i.e. Phoenix or EDEN? Would that still not be favorable? I went ahead and changed the caps in WWV for current MoS standards. -- Citizen 6   _Talk   13:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

0 I tend to disagree with the proposal and we use "Terra" instead of "TERRA" everywhere in the Wiki - after all, some contributors invested a lot of time reaching consensus on this: http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/eRepublik:WikiProject_Military/Style_guide. Related to using italics, I'm in favor of it, although it implies that some contributors need to invest a lot of time and effort to make the changes. So, disagree with all caps idea; and agree with italics idea, if passionate contributors wish to do massive amount of changes. Alternatively, we can use the RegEx to do it, if consensus is reached. --Belea2008 14:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

+1 for the italics, I guess. It would set the name apart. - John F Baker ^Talk/_{Royal Navy}

Actually I was going to suggest italics as a compromise. We would have to have a proper style guide though. For example, I would suggest alliances should be in italics in written prose only, i.e. in titles, infoboxes, bullet point lists etc it should be written out as normal. We would say:

EDEN forces attacked the United Kingdom, a member of Phoenix.

I can't be the only one who, when reading that in my head, sort of emphasises the names, like text usually in italics. Anyway, it reminds me of the practice of italicising names of ships, e.g. HMS Victory. I'm sure we could get used to it.--Martin23230 21:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Fairdoos then. Although, in the eRoyal Navy, we generally don't use italics for our ship names ;) - John F Baker ^Talk/_{Royal Navy} 23:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)