BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style/BattleTech Style Guide

Note: This style guide details stylistic elements that all editors should incorporate to help present a uniform style for the BattleTechWiki articles. It was borrowed from a similar guide being built by Editor Mbear.

Abbreviations

• When writing an article, write out the full name and only use abbreviations in subsequent mentions. When editing an article, be careful to ensure that at least the first mention is written out. For example, any reference to House Davion's preeminent university should first be "New Avalon Institute of Science", while only subsequent mentions may be abbreviated as "NAIS." This means that no page should ever have an abbreviated and linked word/phrase, unless that is the sole name for it (e.g. ROM).

Article titles

• Article titles should be in the form of a singular noun, such as BattleMech.

BattleTech-specific names

The following words always appear in the form shown below:

• AeroSpace Fighter
• BattleMech
• BattleTech
• DropPort
• DropShip
• JumpShip
• 'Mech
• MechWarrior
• OmniMech
• OmniFighter
• ProtoMech
• WarShip

These words retain their capitalization wherever within a sentence they are used.

This section is an adaptable part of the guide; as new terms are introduced—in a stylistic way—with new products, they will be added here.

Boldface

Most commonly, the article's subject is stated as early as possible in the first sentence, and placed in boldface.

Ex: Nueva Castile is a small proto-state residing within the Deep Periphery.

Only the first occurrence of this word or term is placed in boldface.

• If the subject of the article is often (or previously) known with an additional name (and has a redirect pointing to the article), it is common for that alternate name to appear in boldface in its first occurrence.

Ex: The Binary Laser Cannon was a laser weapon previously considered ineffectual, but its effectiveness underwent reconsideration following the re-introduction of double heat sinks. The Binary Laser Cannon is also known informally as the Blazer.

Capitalization

• Standard grammatical rules should be followed with regards to capitalization. Should emphasis be needed, it should be given in the form of italics or boldface, not all caps.

Correct - BattleMechs are not robots.

Incorrect - BattleMechs are NOT robots.

• One notable exception: Sarna capitalizes the proper name of military operations.

Ex: Operation BIRD DOG, Operation SAKKAKU

• The families ruling the five Successor States should be referred to with capitals, i.e. House Davion, House Kurita, House Liao, House Marik, and House Steiner.

• Clan commands are always capitalized, such as with Point, Star, Nova, Trinary, Supernova, Cluster, Galaxy, and Touman. Clans do not have an "officer" or "enlisted" corps. They have trueborn and freeborn, and every rank is a regimented form of their "Warrior Corps". These include Point Commander, Star Commander, Star Captain, Star Colonel, and Khan, which are capitalized.

• "Clan" should be capitalized whenever referring to the descendants of Kerensky. Clan Jade Falcon. "I am a Clan warrior." The Northwind Highlanders also use the term "clan", of course, and should be capitalized only when used with a proper name: Clan McDougal. Yakuza clans are not capitalized excepted when used as part of a full name: the Nogachi Clan.

• Military commands are also capitalized:

Correct - Twenty-first Galedon Regulars, Ninety-seventh Adder Sentinels, Seventh Deneb Light Cavalry

Incorrect - Fifth sword of light, 8th orloff grenadiers

• The word "century" is not capitalized.

Ex: The 20th century, the 31st century

For the stylistic use of capitalization of certain BattleTech names, seee the BattleTech-specific names section.

English language

There are many different countries that speak and write in English, leading to different spellings of some words. Since BattleTech is created by an American company, it is most appropriate to write articles using American spelling and grammar. Editors who are familiar with other methods of spelling are not mandated to write articles in 'American' English since they are unfamiliar with it, but the article should be converted to American style by those that do.

Military Commands

• When military command article titles involve numbers, the text should always be represented as a number.

Ex: 1st Davion Guards, 304th Assault (Clan Ghost Bear)

• When writing about military commands in the body of an article, the numerical portion of the command's title should be spelled out, unless it is higher than one hundred.

Ex: First Davion Guards, 304th Assault (Clan Ghost Bear)

• The full name of a command should be used rather than an abbreviation, however common.

Ex: Valexa Capellan March Militia instead of Valexa CMM.

• All Clan commands should have the Clan name after the title in parenthesis.

Ex: Golden Keshik (Clan Wolf-in-Exile)

Numbers

• Write out any number under 11.

Ex: Three, Seven, Nine, 13, 15, 23

• Use commas to aid in understanding every three spaces.

Ex: 2,983,802,928

• Use decimal points to indicate numbers smaller than one, not commas.

Ex: 394.09

For the use of numbers in military commands, see the Military Commands section.