Deus Ex Wiki:Policies and guidelines

The Deus Ex Wiki's policies and guidelines are editing guidelines that the wiki follows, and which aim to provide a framework that is comprehensive and contains the best practices for editors on this wiki.

Guidelines describe desired etiquette and common practice in the creation, editing and organization of articles on this wiki. Their goal is to make the wiki easier to use for both editors and readers alike and to make its appearance more consistent and streamlined.

If you need any additional clarification, please contact one of the wiki's admins or post on the forums.

If you are new to wikis, you may want to read the help pages.

Adding or changing policies and guidelines
Changes to the actual content or meaning should only be done with community consensus. To propose a new policy, make a post on the forum, via a blogpost, or message one of the active administrators. A consensus should be reached by the active users of the wiki regarding this change before it is implemented.

General

 * The Deus Ex Wiki uses all of the same writing conventions found in the.
 * In general, content should be written in a style appropriate for an encyclopedia. Descriptions should be clear and precise; speculations or uncertain facts should be avoided.
 * Do not be overly specific when writing, only as specific as necessary.
 * Use full sentences where possible.
 * Articles should generally be written in present tense.
 * The only exception are articles relating to events which took place before any of the Deus Ex universe content, i.e. before 2027; these may be written in past tense.
 * Do not overlink. Generally, a page should be linked to a given article only once, on its first occurrence. Links may be repeated if the first link is far up the page or if the manner the word is used in makes it necessary (e.g. in summary lists).
 * Do not add any attributions (like "written by XYZ") or dates ("written on 18/05/11") to articles. An accurate record of all contributions to an article is available via its "History" page.

Canon

 * Any action can be chosen by the player must not be marked in the main section of the article (since the canon about the choice is not set), but in the notes section. In the main section, you can write that "JC Denton or Adam Jensen etc. confronts the character etc." but that's all; never explain the choices; never write your favorite choice in the main section: choices are for the notes section.


 * Otherwise, for an action that is already reflected in the future (such as the rescue of Tracer Tong in Deus Ex: Human Revolution since he appeared in Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War), it is acceptable to write it in the main section because the action of the player is not taken into account, the future is already set.

Content criteria

 * All content should relate to the Deus Ex universe.
 * All content needs to be accurate. The Deus Ex Wiki aims to provide reliable information. In particular, adding bad speculation and personal inventions (fan fiction, fan art etc.) to articles is not allowed. To ensure accuracy, content should be referenced where appropriate.
 * All content needs to be verifiable. Other editors need to be able to check and verify it. Again, referencing information added ensures that this is the case.
 * All content needs to be informative. Information which is only of interest to the writer or to other editors (as opposed to readers) should not be included in articles.
 * All content needs to be objective. Opinions, gameplay strategy, and "my favorite"-style passages should not be added to articles. Accordingly, guides may only be posted as subpages of one's user page or as a blog.
 * All content needs to relate to the games as delivered by the developers; user modifications are not covered by this wiki. Unofficial mods have their own pages and information about them must be written on their respective page without interfering with the official content of the Deus Ex Wiki.
 * All content needs to abide by copyright regulations. Generally, content from other sites should not be copied unless permission has been granted. For example, do not upload magazine scans or add illegally obtained information, so as to avoid potential legal problems.

Language

 * American English is preferred at this wiki as it is the spelling most of the Deus Ex universe uses. However, discussions between users on their relative talk pages may be in any language that is not made up, but colloquialisms should be kept to a minimum so that other users can understand this via an internet translator if necessary.
 * Colloquialisms, slang, l33t speak and other informal styles are not acceptable.
 * Game-specific words should always use the in-game spelling, even in cases when it is incorrect. This does not include capitalization which should always follow the rules in the Formatting section below.

Specific language guidelines

 * For consistency across the wiki, the spelling of certain words has been agreed upon and should be used by all editors.
 * The word "e-mail" should include a hyphen.
 * "Majestic 12" and "MJ12" should be spelled without a hyphen.

Formatting

 * Put the article name in bold the first time it appears in the article itself. Any alternative names should also be bolded at their first occurrence.
 * Keywords for which readers are likely to be scanning may be in bold for emphasis, but this should be used sparingly.
 * Avoid using bold formatting for general emphasis.
 * Avoid using ALL CAPS.
 * Avoid using quotation marks for emphasis.
 * Avoid bolding words for general emphasis.
 * Avoid using double emphasis (e.g. combining bold and italics).
 * Avoid adding a point in paraphrase (e.g. gallery text or location text).
 * Use emphasis sparingly and only when necessary.
 * Article page names and links should not be over-capitalized, regardless of whether they relate to in-game subjects or not, and regardless of in-game spelling.


 * Names for Deus Ex games or when we talk about the Deus Ex universe in general should be italicized.
 * Incorrect: Deus Ex: Invisible War is part of the Deus Ex series of games.
 * Incorrect: The Deus Ex world exists in an alternate timeline.
 * Correct: Deus Ex: Invisible War is part of the Deus Ex series of games.
 * Correct: The Deus Ex world exists in an alternate timeline.


 * Proper names, such as Diamond Back .357, Zenith, or IMM Austin should be capitalized. But common words or descriptive names, like nano-augmentation, stealth pistol or cleaner bot should not. This also includes names where part of the names constitutes a proper name, like Matsu-Gravas GV-4 Nightingale medical bot.
 * Incorrect: The Stealth Pistol is a silenced 10mm pistol.
 * Incorrect: The Matsu-Gravas GV-4 Nightingale Medical Bot is a type of medical and transplant bot developed by Matsu-Gravas which appears only in Deus Ex.
 * Correct: The stealth pistol is a silenced 10mm pistol.
 * Correct: The Matsu-Gravas GV-4 Nightingale medical bot is a type of medical and transplant bot developed by Matsu-Gravas which appears only in Deus Ex.


 * Generic character names should not be capitalized.
 * Incorrect: A UNATCO Soldier killed a NSF Terrorist with an Assault Rifle.
 * Correct: A UNATCO soldier killed a NSF terrorist with an assault rifle.


 * Species names should not be capitalized. In the same way as cat or dog would not be capitalized, greasel and karkian are also not capitalized.
 * Incorrect: The Greasels were originally created by VersaLife.
 * Incorrect: VersaLife also created the Karkians and the gray death.
 * Correct: The greasels were originally created by VersaLife.
 * Correct: VersaLife also created the karkians and the Gray Death.


 * Names of skills and level (e.g. Environmental Training, Master Heavy Weapons, Medicine) should be capitalized when referring specifically to game mechanics. The same words, however, should not be capitalized in other uses.
 * Incorrect: Walton Simons is a Master of Heavy Weapons.
 * Correct: The player will need high Electronics or Lockpicking to go through this path.


 * If it's not clear whether a name is a proper name or a common one, naming should be discussed and decided on a case by case basis.

Categorization

 * Please see the category tree for the categorization system currently in place on the wiki.
 * All content pages (articles and files) should belong to at least one category. Disambiguation pages and redirects are not considered articles in the sense of this rule.
 * A content page should be placed in all the categories to which it logically belongs.
 * A content page should be placed only in the most game-specific category (or categories) out of a given branch of the category tree.
 * For example, a weapon appearing in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided should be added to the categories for weapons appearing in those games. It should not be added to the general category "weapons".
 * An article should always be categorized by characteristics of the topic, not characteristics of the article. A character article which contains descriptions of bugs, for example, does not belong in Category:Bugs.
 * An article should never be left with a non-existent (redlinked) category on it. Either the category should be created (most easily by clicking on the red link), or else the link should be removed or changed to a category that does exist.
 * User pages should not be placed in content categories. They may be placed in certain categories which explicitly allow to do so, otherwise they should remain uncategorized.

Sections
As a guideline on how to lay out article pages, a possible format is:
 * Introductory paragraph - a relatively brief paragraph that introduces the topic of the article in a broad sense. Often, an infobox may be included at the beginning of the article as well as the intro.
 * Main article section(s) - this makes up the bulk of the article. Content-wise it should contain information about history, current activities, plot, etc. It may contain just one or multiple section headings. These sections can have sub-sections, particularly if the article is lengthy.
 * In the case of characters, the main section should be titled "Biography". Sub-sections can reference specific parts of the characters life such as "Early life".
 * Notes - if any information related to the topic of the article needs to be clarified, it should be added to the notes section. This is also the section where the choices offered to players that do not have a set canon are included.
 * Trivia - this section, if needed, should contain interesting real-world information about the subject of the article or references found in the games.
 * Gallery - if there are images that do not fit embedded into the main article paragraphs, they can be included in a gallery section at the end of the page.
 * References - where applicable, the references section should appear in all articles. When adding content to articles, a reference to the source of that information should also be added. The references section is where these sources are displayed.

Images

 * See Image policy.

Videos

 * Embedded videos may only be used in articles if they illustrate issues which cannot be expressed by written text at all or only with difficulty. Examples for acceptable videos are game trailers or a video illustrating how to find an item which is in a hard-to-find location.