Help:Articles

This guide is to assist in the writing of articles.


 * An "article" is a content page on the wiki, usually containing information about a GTA game or feature etc. Examples of articles include Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Dan Houser, Taxi, Carcer City, Phil Cassidy.
 * Pages that are not articles include images, templates, discussion pages, the Main Page and many sub-pages.

Whilst other pages around the wiki just have to be functional, the primary purpose of articles is to convey information effectively. This is why it is important that articles adhere to certain standards and guidelines, to ensure consistency and relevancy, and to avoid disputes.

Article Titles
Most articles should be called by what they are most commonly known as, rather than a little-known "technical" or "correct" name. This is so people can easily find an article.


 * Phil Cassidy is not called "Phillip"
 * Big Smoke is not known as "Melvin Harris"
 * The United Kingdom is never called "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"

Articles directly about games should use the full title (eg Grand Theft Auto: Vice City), but other articles surrounding the subject need only use a shortened version (eg Missions in GTA Vice City). See GTA Wiki:Consistency for details on this.

Article Titles Should Always be in Title Case, Like This Sentence. See GTA Wiki:Consistency for details.

Sections & Contents
You should break long articles into sections by using section headings. These should be of a logical and consistent nature.

For example, mission pages tend to follow a standard format of: Overview, Walkthrough, Transcript, External Links

There should always be an introductory paragraph at the start of an article, before the first section header, which explains what the article is about. The article name should be in bold here, and links to the important related pages should also be given - particularly the games/eras to which this article applies. For example:
 * Jury Fury is a mission in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City given to protagonist Tommy Vercetti by lawyer Ken Rosenberg from his office in Washington Beach, Vice City.

The first mention of "Grand Theft Auto" in the page should always be stated in full.

If there are more than 3 section headings in the page, a table of contents (TOC) should be used, and one will be automatically generated. Use to float a TOC to the right (like this page), or  to float one to the left.

Infoboxes
Large quantities of information can be expressed quickly in an infobox table. For example Grand Theft Auto IV uses Grand Theft Auto IV/infobox. These should only be used where they are easier to read than text or bullet points would be; and they should only be used for basic information and statistics.

Complex infoboxes (using more than around 20 lines of code) should be placed on a sub-page. This removes clutter, allowing users to edit the content of the page without being put-off by lots of meaningless code; and also removes the chance that someone will break the page by accidentally editing (or removing) the infobox code.

Images
An article should have a relevant image displayed in the top-right corner. Many infoboxes have a provision to show an image inside the infobox.

If you can't find a relevant image directly of the subject, then try and use a related image. This could be a map showing its location, or (for example) a photo of multiple vehicles/characters, one of which is the one in question.

If no image is available, the tag could be used to draw attention to this problem, which will place the article in Category:Images Needed.

Make sure all images adhere to Copyright Policy. Any of a GTA game is fine to be used on this wiki, because screenshots are property of Rockstar Games. But any images made by individuals, such as modified maps or artwork, should only be used with permission (or where the license allows it).