Valheim Wiki:Manual of Style

This Manual of Style is the guideline by which Valheim Wiki articles should be written. Please consult the Manual of Style before making significant edits. 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.

General formatting

This section can not list every single formatting rule & guideline for every page type on the wiki. Therefore, the following points are the most general formatting rules & guidelines. If you are a new(er) editor, it is a good practice to study the page format of other similar pages before starting to edit or even creating a new page. The subpages of the MoS are a useful resource. (You can access them via the navigation at the top of this page.)

• Pages on the wiki should use American English (this also means, use the American dash "–") unless the in-game name is British English. For instance, "colour" should be "color", "behaviour" should be "behavior", "centre" should be "center", and so on. Please refrain from using contractions and uncommon abbreviations where possible. Always spell out "don't", "haven't", etc.
• In the lead sentence of a page, make the page name bold.
• When using the word "Valheim", make it italic. Do not mention that the feature is "in Valheim" (see #Common mistakes).
• Pages with great amount of text should be formatted to justify (by adding <div style="text-align:justify;"> on top and </div> at the bottom of the page).
  • If certain paragraphs might not be relevant to most readers (e.g. "expert knowledge", i.e. only understandable for readers with coding skills, etc.), make these paragraphs collapsible and collapsed by default (by adding <div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" data-expandtext="Show details" data-collapsetext="Hide details"> before and </div> after the paragraph. Please exchange the expand and collapse text with fitting button names based on the content of the paragraph or its headline.
• Avoid long bullet point lists for text, in place of prose.
• Generally, all tables must be collapsible (by adding mw-collapsible to the tables). In case of many large tables on a page, you might set them collapsed by default (by adding mw-collapsed after).

Casing and capitalization

The following kinds of casing are used:

• Title case refers to all words capitalized, except for articles, prepositions and conjuctions
  • The second biome is Black Forest.
• Sentence case means the first word is capitalized, even in the middle of a sentence
  • Black metal can be smelted from Black metal scrap in a Blast furnace.
• Lowercase means the term is lowercase, unless at the start of a sentence
  • A campfire can be used for spawn-proofing.
• In-game case means the in-game casing is followed. In the middle of a sentence, the first word is always capitalized. This only applies to direct labels, descriptions and Runestones often deviate from them and cannot be used as a source.
  • Boars and Greydwarfs fear fire.

Title case is used for biomes, dungeons, structures, uniquely named weapons and creature spawners. In-game case is used for creatures and their trophies. Otherwise all terms are in sentence case. Lowercase is acceptable for non-functional buildings. Terms that contain other terms inherit the casing, e.g. Cooked Asksvin tail (after Asksvin) or Fallen Valkyrie trophy (after Fallen Valkyrie). This applies to both links to other pages as well as plain mentions. Expand the table below for reference.

Generically named weapon refers to weapons only named after the material they are made of, like Bronze sword. In contrast, Jotun Bane or Staff of the Wild are unique names.

Page titles cannot be in lowercase (the first letter is always capitalized). Headings should be in sentence case.

Images

• Images must be official artwork or from screenshots of the game. Fan art is not preferred. Images must pertain to the pages that they are added to.
• Avoid uploading images without using them, or they will be removed. Low-quality screenshots or artworks will also be removed.
• Inventory icons of items must be datamined, not screenshots, and be in PNG format. Names of images used to describe terms should follow the casing of the term.

Linking

There should be only one link to the same article per paragraph. If the term appears constantly in a lengthy article it may be feasible to have a link every few paragraphs.

When linking pages, use page links, not hyperlinks (URLs). Sections can be linked using the [[Pagename#Section]] or [[Pagename#Section|Alias]] syntax.

Numbers

• Spell out numbers if it is below 10 (zero to nine) and is mentioned as a single number in the context. Use numeric (Arabic) notation otherwise.
• Where large numbers are mentioned, every three digits should be separated with a comma, such as 1,234,567,890. Spaces are not required.
• Periods should be used as decimal separator, such as 0.5 etc.

Perspective

Articles in the main namespace should always be written in the third-person perspective and without terms referential to the reader ("you", "your", etc.). The exception to this is guide pages, where in most cases "you" is the most appropriate pronoun to use when referring to the player. Try not to use abbreviations of words either. For instance, sentences like "You'll find Boars in Meadows." should be written as "The player will find Boars in Meadows."

Adding trivia

The following guidelines should be observed when adding real life trivia to an article:

• Citation should be added to show legitimate factual backup to the theory.
• The information should be relevant to the content of the article.
• The article and the real life "thing" must share more than a common name; however, having a name in common is a major part of connecting the two things.

Plural vs. singular

An entity (a person, monster, or god) in Valheim that is unique is referred to as a single object. Whenever more of one such entity exists, the page should be written with plurality in mind.

Common mistakes

Redundant words or sentences

Please be precise and get straight to the point when editing. Refrain from adding totally redundant parts like "in Valheim" or "available to players". Also, if it is obvious that XY is an item, you do not need to point out "XY is an item". However, writing "XY is an item obtained by smelting A in B" (or similar to this) is ok. Advice or suggested ways to play have no place on any other than guide pages.

Authoritative statements

"Recommended", "Advised" and other authoritative statements should only be used when the editor is prepared to cite who recommends or advises the reader to take certain actions. The cited source must be credible. If no such source exists, avoid using these words and rephrase the sentence.

Drawing attention

"Note that", "Note the" and other similar phrases are used to draw the reader's attention to certain information, but as this wikia is strictly an information source that does not tell people what to do (except guide pages), such phrases are considered superfluous. On the other hand, conveying relevant information in as few words as possible is a desirable trait.

Difficult words

This is a list of "difficult" words. Only use the following and no other variations: Tameable, multitarget, greydwarfs, lox, off-hand, 2-star, 3-hit combo, miniboss