Wikivoyage:Manual of style

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Our manual of style is a collection of rules of thumb and guidelines for giving Wikivoyage a consistent look and feel. Most of these rules have exceptions, but to put together a good reference work collaboratively, it's best to follow the rules unless they're quite inappropriate for a particular situation.

The manual is broken up into different pages so that this page is not overloaded with extraneous text. It makes it easier to find and update individual rules or concepts if they're on their own pages; and it's easier for people to link to particular rules from article talk pages.

If all this stuff makes your head swim, and you don't want to bother with it, by all means plunge forward and just start sharing your knowledge. Other Wikivoyagers will come through and bring your contributions more into line with the style guide.

If you have a question about the specifics of the manual, or want to see it changed/amended/clarified, use the talk page for the section in question. Requests for comment are issues currently being discussed.

Structural style

This section of the manual is for rules about the structure of Wikivoyage as a whole.

• What is an article? – how and when to start new articles.
• Other ways of seeing travel – approaching travel from different angles.
• Geographical hierarchy – how we divide up the world.
• Article naming conventions – how to name an article.
• Disambiguation pages – when to make them and how to use them.
• Bodies of water – how lakes, rivers, seas and oceans fit in.
• Categories – using the MediaWiki categories feature.
• Using MediaWiki templates – using the MediaWiki Template: transclusion feature.
• MediaWiki template index – a list of available MediaWiki templates.

Formatting style

These rules are about the formatting of individual articles—how we take raw information and put it in a format that's easily usable by travellers.

Article layout

• Article sections – what sort of information each section should contain.
• Article skeletons – consistent articles. Standard sections and formatting.
• Information for LGBT travellers – where to put LGBT info in a destination article.
• Where you can put it – finding a place to share your knowledge.

Formatting content

• Accessibility – how to make content accessible to people who have a disability.
• Avoid HTML – avoiding HTML formatting.
• Avoid long lists – lists of items should usually follow the 7±2 rule.
• Geocoding – adding latitude and longitude to destination articles.
• Information boxes – when, how and when not to use information boxes.
• Section headers – formatting guidelines for the section headers.
• Wiki markup – how to use the MediaWiki markup to present information.

Links

• External links – how and when to link to other websites.
• Internal links – linking to other articles in Wikivoyage.
• Inter-language links – linking to other language versions.
• Links to Wikipedia – how to make links to Wikipedia articles.
• Main Page guidelines – how to add links to the Main Page.

Listings

• Listings – for including business and attraction listings.
• One-liner listings – for regions, districts, cities, Go next sections, and other sections as appropriate.

Writing style

This set of rules describes how to write words, sentences, and paragraphs.

• Abbreviations – when and how to abbreviate.
• Air travel information – writing about airports, airlines and other air-related information.
• Avoid negative reviews – don't bother listing places not worth going to.
• Capitalization – when to capitalize words.
• Creating emphasis – use boldface for theme words and italics to stress certain words and phrases.
• Currency – consistent rules for displaying currencies.
• Don't tout – describe, don't push.
• Foreign words – using non-English words and names in articles.
• Measurements – formatting lengths, weights, temperatures, etc.
• No advice from Captain Obvious – if it's obvious or universally true, there's no point in adding it.
• Phone numbers – adding and formatting phone numbers.
• Romanization – for languages that do not use the Latin alphabet.
• Spelling – what spelling rules to use.
• Time and date formats
• Tone – the right tone for your prose.
• Trademarks – using trademarks.
• Use of pronouns – avoid using "I" and "we", but "you" is okay.
• When to use dates
• Words to avoid – some words and phrases to avoid in articles.

See also

• Help – for technical help with Wiki syntax.
• Directory of policies and guidelines – for Wikivoyage's collaboration policies.
• Project:Namespace index – all the "meta" articles in the Wikivoyage: namespace.
• Using talk pages