Mobius Encyclopaedia:Manual of Style

Headlines and sections
To create a new section in an article, surround the text with two or more == (equal signs). When you have the header, there is no blank line needed beneath the header. The wiki engine will automatically create a table of contents based on the headers in an article.

Avoid using links in headers. Depending on the browser's default settings, some users may not be able to see the links properly. It is much more useful to place the appropriate link in the first sentence after the header.

Paragraphs and formatting
Inexperienced writers have a tendency towards "run on" paragraphs. Some of these may number dozens of lines and many column inches without a break. This makes the articles difficult to read as everything seems to flow together. It also makes it tough to quickly skim articles for data points.

A good paragraph (grammatically speaking) is two to five sentences in length on average. It covers one thought or idea or piece of information. Any time there is a change in the thought, idea, or piece of information, there should also be a paragraph change.

When formatting paragraphs, adding an empty line between paragraphs looks better in the articles than the traditional "paragraph indent" on the first line. It makes for a more definite "break point" visually, and allows the reader to more easily see that they are reading a new paragraph at that point.

As an example of what NOT to do, here's every thing just typed done as one big block (the way many articles tend to be done):


 * Inexperienced writers have a tendency towards "run on" paragraphs. Some of these may number dozens of lines and many column inches without a break. This makes the articles difficult to read as everything seems to flow together. It also makes it tough to quickly skim articles for data points. A good paragraph (grammatically speaking) is 2-5 sentences in length on average. It covers one thought or idea/piece of information. Any time there is a change in the thought/idea/piece of information, there should also be a paragraph change. When formatting paragraphs, adding an empty line between paragraphs looks better in the articles than the traditional "paragraph indent" on the first line. It makes for a more definite "break point" visually, and allows the reader to more easily see that they are reading a new paragraph at that point.

Quotations
When quoting a person in an article, and the quote is at least a full sentence, the quotation should be "italicized and quoted."
 * Julie-Su said, "How on Mobius could you even agree to side with Dimitri?!!"

However, if the quote is just a single word or a sentence fragment, it should not be italicized.
 * Robotnik would often call Sonic "rodent."

For uniformity and to avoid problems with the wiki software and the search utility, use straight quotation marks and apostrophes, and avoid curved marks such as the backtick or so-called "smart quotes". Punctuation marks should be placed inside of the quotation marks, unless the quotation marks surround a title such as shown in the second example above.

Background information and comments
On occasion, it is necessary or appropriate to include commentary about an unusual or contested point of information in an article. If there is a sufficient amount of information, it should be contained in a separate section, named:
 * ==Background Information==

Alternatively, comments and information may be described in a short paragraph (no longer than three sentences) that is indented and italicized.


 * The date of the Xorda attack was originally took place a little over three thousand years ago. The date was later changed to over twelve thousand years ago.