Nookipedia talk:Manual of Style

Update date and time standards

Closing discussion in favor of the Month Day, Year and AM/PM formats for dates and time as well as various related guidelines to be implemented for the standardization of how dates and times are written across Nookipedia. ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 16:51, September 7, 2020 (EDT)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.

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I noticed that our Manual of Style allows for two different ways of writing both dates and times: Day Month Year or Month Day, Year for dates and a.m./p.m. or am/pm for times. For the sake of consistency across Nookipedia, I propose that we change the date format to only Month Day, Year and the time format to AM/PM. The proposed date format is what is already used pretty much exclusively here, and it is the standard in the United States. As for times, despite not being listed in the Manual of Style, the AM/PM format is already widely used across the wiki, including in our bug/fish/sea creature Cargo tables. ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 12:53, August 30, 2020 (EDT)

Thanks for bringing this up! Would be great to standardize. That all sounds good to me. I'd also like to get more specific for the time:

• Top-of-the-hour should be written as a single number (e.g. 5 PM, not 5:00 PM)
• AM/PM will have a non-breaking space before it.
• For time ranges in prose, use "to" (e.g. 5 PM to 5:30 PM)
• For time ranges in tables, use an en-dash with surrounding spaces (e.g. 5 PM – 5:30 PM)

I'm not totally attached to the above, if someone has other preferences. ~SuperHamster Talk 13:16, August 30, 2020 (EDT)

I think those are all good points! If I have one suggestion, it's to write top-of-the-hour times fully only when used in a time range with a non-top-of-the-hour time for consistency, otherwise use a single digit (e.g. 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM or 5 PM - 6 PM)~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 19:03, August 30, 2020 (EDT)

 Support - I agree that it would be great to be more specific in our guidance on this, and I like what you've proposed SuperHamster, including the suggestion above from AlexBot2004 regarding top-of-the-hour times. (talk) 20:12, September 1, 2020 (EDT)

Per the discussion, I've updated the Manual of Style to the suggested standards. Thanks SuperHamster and sunmarsh for your input! ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 16:51, September 7, 2020 (EDT)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.

Standardization of appearances sections of pages

I've noticed there are two formats used for sections of pages that have subsections for a subject's appearance in various games. The first, and seemingly more common, one is In <short game name> (e.g. In New Horizons). The other is simply the full game name (e.g. Animal Crossing: New Horizons). The latter appears to be used more often in special character, location, and event pages, while the former appears to be used more often in villager, bug, fish, sea creature, art, and fossil pages. I don't really favor one over the other, but no matter which way we go, it should be standardized between all pages. ~ AlexBot2004 (Talk) 15:41, November 7, 2020 (EST)

I prefer the shortened version personally. It starts to feel like...uh...waffle when you're continuously using the full name format. Drago (talk)

The shorter version is better I think, especially since multiple games sometimes appear in the same section title. The only reason to keep the longer name might be for search engine optimization, although I'm not sure how/to what extent it might make a difference. (talk) 12:35, November 8, 2020 (EST)

Also support the shorter version. Re. SEO I'm not too concerned, especially if the leads to most of these sections start with "In Animal Crossing: New Horizons..." ~SuperHamster Talk 03:43, November 27, 2020 (EST)

I'm in favour of the shorter version as well. It just reads better, and I don't think it's necessary to throw in "Animal Crossing" all the time. I have no real opinion on whether we keep the "In" part, but I agree we should standardise it one way or another (personally I've always just gone with whatever format the article is already using). -- Dorsal Axe (talk) 04:15, November 29, 2020 (EST)