GTA Wiki:Manual of Style

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This page documents the former Manual of Style.

For the updated 2024 Manual of Style, see here.

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This page documents the Official Policy of the GTA Wiki.

It concerns standards that all users should follow.

In order to ensure the wiki provides the best information in its best format, there are a set of Manuals of Style that enforce different editing guidelines concerning different subjects. We, the contributors of GTA Wiki, want to ensure that all readers have a convenient reading experience and enough information to reference their Grand Theft Auto game(s).

GTA Wiki Manuals of Style

Games

GTA Titles Articles regarding Grand Theft Auto titles & DLCs.	Missions Missions, side-missions and activities.	Events Events.

People

Gangs Articles concerning gangs and gang cultures.	People Articles concerning real people - Voice actors, game producers/artists etc.

Places

Neighborhoods Neighborhoods, districts, boroughs and regions.	Roads Roads, streets and highways.

Miscellaneous

Weapons Hand guns, melee weapons and explosives.	Radio Stations Radio Stations.

General wiki style rules

The GTA Wiki Intent

GTA Wiki;

• Intends to provide users with accurate information.
• Concurs that information, events or claims not visible to all players, easily repeatable, attainable or otherwise difficult to obtain should be cited with a supporting reference.
• Believes that anything and everything in or about the official Grand Theft Auto series should be documented.
• Treats all articles as documentation of a fictional game, and not a fandom recreation or replication of the real world.
• Welcomes all users, suggestions and constructive criticism.

Language Usage

• In general, please do not change American English to British English (or vice versa), as it is considered unnecessary.
  • Examples, as retrieved from Wikipedia: American and British English spelling differences, include:
    • Japan: American English,
    • most of eastern Asia: American English,
    • India: British English,
    • most of western Europe: British English.
  • The following lists numerous words typically found on vehicle pages that must abide to the origin of the real-life vehicle
    • US: airplane, UK: aeroplane
    • US: aluminum, UK: aluminium
    • US: trunk, UK: boot
    • US: windshield, UK: windscreen
    • US: racing car, UK: race car
    • US: gas(oline), UK: petrol
    • US: customization, UK: customisation
    • US: color, UK: colour
    • US: accessorize, UK: accessorise
    • US: aging, UK: ageing

Grammar, Spelling and Rules of Language

• All article titles are to follow title case - all words in page names are to begin with uppercase, with the exception of short connectives, conjunctions and determiners (up to 3 letters maximum), such as "a", "and" and "the" (unless of course the page title begins with such connectives).
  • In circumstances where the subject matter does not canonically start with a capital letter (e.g. eCola, then the page title should be title case but {{DISPLAYTITLE:eCola}} should be used to amend the article title to the correct case.
• Article titles should ideally avoid beginning with punctuation, however individual exceptions may be given - in all instances, a redirect without punctuation-starters should be created.
• Page content is to be written in third person in the perspective of the player, the protagonist or other specific characters. First person (singular pronouns such as "I") and second person (personal pronouns such as "you") are not permitted unless they are part of a quote from a character or written text.
• Numerous words are often written as one word when they are in fact separate words, or hyphenated. e.g.
  • paintjob/paint job

Word choices

In several situations, various words may be grammatically correct and seemingly interchangeable and acceptable, but for consistency and specific reasons spelled out below, the GTA Wiki prefers the use of one over another:

Featured Vs Appearing

Particularly notable in lead paragraphs of location/building and business articles.
Everything we document (apart from some Beta content) appears in the games, by default. In order to use featured in, the subject matter needs to actually have some importance. An enterable interior, interactivity for a gameplay feature, a prominent appearance in a storyline mission or the base for a side-mission etc.

Role in Vs Role of

Whilst it is grammatically correct to call a character either a {role} of a title or a {role} in a title, the former is becoming obsolete and being replaced by the latter, even in literary/cinematic situations where the plot/story is the only content of the title. In the GTA games, the story is not the only part of the title. That is the whole point of these being Open world sandboxes. So any character appearing in the games is only the {role} in the story line of the game, not of the entire game. In should be the preference in all article contexts.

Bold, Italics and Link Usage

• The subject (page name) of any article must be bold when appearing in captions of galleries, infoboxes, and any other pictures where the page name is mentioned.
• Italics are to be used on any mention of a Grand Theft Auto game, or any other game mentioned. The full form of a GTA game is to be used in the lead description (beginning line of an article), as well as be linked to the corresponding game's article. It is not mandatory to use full forms for any other mentions, however they must still be italicized.
  • Following from this, headings of GTA games must be both full form and italicized, but not linked.
• Titles of television, film and radio programs, musical albums (but not individual songs), games and newspapers and magazines within the GTA universe itself, as well as real life equivalents of these, must be italicized as well.
  • Following from this, headings of these in-game works must also be italicized, but not linked.
  • When linking off-wiki to content for other media titles, preference should be given to a Fandom.com wiki, the Wikipedia, then any other source.
• Direct quotes from the game, be it character dialog, media reports (radio, TV, print, internet, social media) or onscreen instructions/tooltips should never contain links, internal or otherwise.

Galleries

• The gallery is to be located before the Trivia section (if either exist) on any article.
• Generally speaking, galleries should meet the following criteria across all articles:
  • Width: 250px when 4 or more images, 270px when 3 or fewer images.
  • Spacing: small
  • Position: center

For example:

<gallery position="center" spacing="small" widths="250px">

Infobox images

Infobox images should represent the highest quality, most relevant depiction of the article subject.

As with any gallery image, infobox images should ideally be in .png or .jpg format, use a 16:9 resolution where possible and depict the content in the best possible conditions (lighting, time of day, consideration for color, brightness, etc). They should not be edited externally (except if they are cropped or rescaled). Use of modifications, particularly graphics modifications, is prohibited.

Montage images

Montage images are a mashup of various screenshots, be it official material or in-game screenshots. Due to their larger size, montage images should ideally be in .jpg format and in one of the following aspect ratios:

• 1:1
• 8:9 (2 16:9 images stacked, or 1 16:9 image with 2 rows of 2 16:9 images underneath, 1920 x 2160)
• 16:27 (3 16:9 images stacked, 1920 x 3240)
• 32:45 (1 16:9 image with 3 rows of 2 16:9 images underneath, 1920 x 2700)

Montage images should be named in the format Location-GTAgame-Montage.jpg.

Captions for montages should describe the depicted content in a clockwise from top format.

Trivia

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Main article: Manual of Style:Trivia

Trivia sections on all articles are actively discouraged and if required, should be at the foot of any page content; i.e. the last content section only above any "References", "See Also", or "Navigation" section headings.

Notes

• To discuss about adding another Manual of Style or about changing the format, please do so on the talk page.
• Content on this page and/or its sub-pages are subject to change or extension by the discretion of administrators.
• While users will not be warned for initially failing to meet the expectations of the Manual of Style, it is advisory and repeated offensives may result in blocks.
• Any user can create a Manual of Style. Users may use the talk page to ask for help in creating a Manual of Style. Administrators will then verify whether the guidelines meet the general wiki criteria and structure and make changes if necessary.