The Manual of Style is a codified guide to maintaining a high level of academic professionalism and uniformity throughout the articles of this online encyclopedia. All editors are expected to follow this guide to the best of their ability. Please refrain from adding or making changes to the Manual of Style unless you have been instructed to do so by one of the wiki’s administrators or bureaucrats.
Language
Since this is an American-based wiki, it’s expected that all editors should have a reasonably good understanding of the English language. To that end, any edits made in another language will be removed promptly. For spelling inconsistencies, please use the Canadian/American spelling of the word instead of the British spelling. The word “center” should never be spelled “centre”.
Perspective
All articles should be written from an authoritative, third-person, out-of-character perspective. This encyclopedia is not a lore wiki and should never refer to in-game characters or events as if they actually exist. In keeping with the out-of-character perspective, editors should not hesitate to introduce information known to the player but not to characters of the Gangstar media universe. Editors may tie in real-world references or names where they are appropriate.
Scope
Editors of this online encyclopedia may create any article vaguely related to the lore or gameplay of any Gangstar game or related media. Fanfiction or completely unrelated articles should not be posted to this wiki. As a general rule of thumb, any person, place, or thing that makes an appearance in one or more Gangstar games is completely acceptable. As there are literally hundreds of vehicles and weapons in most of the games, there is really no shortage of relevant articles.
Article Naming
The most important rule of article naming is that all articles should be named after their subject matter. Likewise, an article‘s content should reflect its name and never stray beyond the scope of its original subject. Article names should be as succinct as possible while still accurately reflecting their content. For example, the primary article on Alain Boudreaux should be called “Alain Boudreaux” instead of “The character Alain Boudreaux” or (even worse still) “The biography of Alain Boudreaux”.
Capitalization and Punctuation
The first word of the article's name should be capitalized along with any other proper nouns. Beyond that, lowercase should be used for all other words in the article title. For example, “Death of Yuri the Red” is a correct title format but “Death Of Yuri The Red” is not. It’s also important not to use any punctuation in the article‘s title unless it is part of a proper noun‘s actual name. An article about Las Vegas should never be titled “Las Vegas.”
Use of Articles
When naming a wiki page, it’s tempting to start the article name with “a”, “the”, or “an”. This is a highly discouraged practice as it makes effective categorization of articles almost impossible. Unless the subject’s name starts with an article (the official title of “the”, “a”, and “an”), the use of these words is frowned upon.
Article Structure
All articles (save for stubs) should follow the same general format and structure. This standard format consists of three distinct parts: the leading section, infobox(s), and article body. Editors should do their best to maintain such a structure in every article they create or edit.
Leading Section
Think of an article's leading section as its summary. It should be clear, concise, and cursory. Editors should not go into any major details in this first section. As a general rule of thumb, the leading section shouldn't be longer than a paragraph at most.
Infobox
Infoboxes are handy and efficient ways of displaying information. Editors should make sure to insert the infobox before the leading section in order to keep it in place. Editors should add only relevant infoboxes and fill them out to the best of their ability. In many cases, not all fields will be able to be filled. This is perfectly fine. Editors should leave them blank instead of writing "unknown".