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Please see the discussion page for additional information, your opinion is welcome.

Depending on which writing style people have been taught in school and which region they are from, there are going to be differences in opinion about how words are typed and used on the Overwatch Wiki.

This guide will hopefully help people adhere to a consistent standard of style and formatting throughout Overwatch Wiki articles. Covering all situations would take a long time and the following is only meant to be a reference for Overwatch Wiki specific guidelines. For a complete manual of style the Wikipedia Manual of Style should be consulted.

Notability

Articles are only allowed on the main namespace if they fit the following criteria. Articles that do not fit the criteria may be moved or deleted without notice.

General

  1. Articles must contain enough information to warrant a full page. If they do not have enough content, they should be merged with other similar articles.
  2. Articles must pertain directly to Overwatch or the professional scene in some way.
  3. Article content should be based on information available from the game or other publications made by or in collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment and the developers of Overwatch. Please refrain from adding theories, "headcanons", conjecture or opinions, and other kinds of non-factual information.
    • Community created content, such as fan fiction, Workshop game modes, builds or detailed guides are not allowed in the main namespace, unless they are made official by Blizzard Entertainment or its affiliates.
    • General strategies and advice are allowed in "Strategies" and "Match-Ups" sections.
  4. Articles that are identical to real-world locations (e.g. cities and countries) should only be created if there is information available specific to the setting.

Redirects

Redirects may be created if they fit one of the following criteria:

  1. Alternate spelling, such as Armour instead of Armor.
  2. Alternate or shortened name, provided the name is common usage, such as Torb instead of Torbjörn.
  3. Alternate capitalization or form, including changing the title to plural case.
  4. Parts of a multi-topic article, such as respawn timer.

User namespace

Articles in the "User:" namespace are exempt from the notability policy, as they are not part of the formal wiki content. They can be used for anything, provided they follow the other wiki rules. However, it is still strongly recommended that they are kept clean as to not clog up maintenance categories. As such, user pages may be eligible for blanking upon inactivity of the user.

General writing style

Articles should be written in the third person if possible. While writing on Overwatch Wiki doesn't need to be neutral, you should try to avoid personal reference. Sentences such as "I like to duck behind the boxes because it gives me better cover" could easily be phrased as "Ducking behind the boxes provides better cover".

Formatting functions like bold, italics, and linking are provided to improve readability of articles, so use them (see Wikipedia cheatsheet for additional help). If you wish to emphasize a word use italics rather than bold or CAPITALS. Use of the bold face type should be limited within an article whenever possible to definitions, table headers, and name highlighting (although names should only be highlighted once in an article). Double emphasis should also be avoided but can be used for text such as important warnings by making the word bold italic. Italics and quotation marks are also used in names of pieces of media. For example, game names are italicized.

Do not use:

Spelling

Dialectical variations of English will occur depending on the nationality of the author. There is no preferred variation for articles and users should be aware of this, however, consistency should be maintained. If the article was written in American English, then this form should be used throughout; British English, Canadian English, or Australian English users should not change to their variation part way through.

If possible, try to avoid the situation altogether by using common substitutions, for instance: "analyze the situation" could be changed to "examine the situation".

This does not extend to the discussion pages where users can use variations freely.

General spelling and grammar should be legible and correct. Use the preview button to check your work for errors before you submit your edit. If English is not your first language or you have difficulties with writing, it is recommended you bring up your point in discussion so that other editors may add it. This makes copy-editing additions much easier.

Article titles

Article titles should be short, simple and to the point. As a general rule, article titles should use sentence case, meaning that the first word should be capitalized and every subsequent word should be in lowercase, unless it is a proper noun or some other term that should be capitalized (see Specific wording). Superfluous words such as "properly", "correctly", and "the right way" should be avoided, as should the use of pronunciation marks. Articles are usually on one subject so the title should not be on multiple topics.

Examples of good titles

Examples of bad titles

Introduction

The introduction of a Overwatch Wiki article is the section before the first heading. The table of contents, if displayed, appears between the lead section and the first headline.

The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, briefly describing its most important points. It should contain up to four paragraphs and should be written in a clear, accessible style so as to invite a reading of the full article.

The article's subject should be mentioned at the earliest natural point in the prose in the first sentence, and should appear in boldface. For example:

The Workshop allows players to create and save custom games.

Keeping articles concise and up to date

In short, articles should only contain information that is up to date, i.e., implemented in the latest full version of the game. Anything that is outdated should be moved to the History section of the article. When something changes, note the change in the History section and remove the outdated information from other sections of the article. It is unnecessary to mention when a particular feature was implemented; this is once again reserved for the History section of the article.

The issue with this is that old information is scattered with new information. The introduction should state the current description of the hero with the current release. History information is good, but for clarity, it should be described in the chronological order in a single place: the History section of the article.

Future

Content added in future updates may be added to the article in the main content, provided the features are marked using {{upcoming}} and have appeared in development versions. If the update contains major changes to the article, then the content may be noted as a subsection of a main section, or as its own section called Upcoming. These sections should be marked with {{upcoming|section}}. Upcoming features must be noted as well in the history section using the proper upcoming header.

Upon the release of the update, all content that is now outdated must either be moved to the history section or removed, and any usage of {{upcoming}} may be removed.

Over- and underlinking

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking


The use of links is a difficult balance between providing the reader enough useful links to allow them to "wander through" articles and excessive linking which can distract them from their reading flow.

Underlinking can cause the reader to become frustrated because questions may arise about the article's contents which can only be resolved by using the search option or other sources for clarification, interrupting and distracting the reader.

Overlinking may distract the reader because links are usually colored differently causing the eye to shift focus constantly. Additionally if the same word is linked multiple times in the same paragraph it can cause the reader to question if the links are directing them to different articles or not.

The guidelines for linking are:

Citing information

Any information or content that were obtained by means other than your in-game observation, must be cited. For example, if you go through all hero abilities by yourself and collect a list of abilities that stun, you may add that to an article without citing. However, if you found a pretty list or video made by someone else, it should be credited to the author by adding a reference. Similarly, your own screenshots do not need to be cited, but any images you found on the internet must be.

See Wikipedia's instructions on how to add citations in the editor.

Strategy sections

Strategy sections usually contain advice instead of neutral statements about gameplay, so writing "you," giving commands, being accurate and being brief are preferred to encyclopedic language. Whenever applicable, the scope of a strategy should be specified. In some cases, this will require phrases that are normally weasel words, such as "probably" and "on occasion."

Many strategies will be impossible to cite, so use judgment. The best strategy entries will apply universally and will not require enemy players to be stupid, inexperienced or foolish. For example, strategies requiring deception are poor advice because they will never work against excellent players. Success in general can be a poor measuring stick, since any strategy will work against sufficiently poor enemies. Give advice that would succeed against the best possible foes.

Specific wording

Capitalization

Words that should be capitalized

Words that should not be capitalized

Terminology

Abilities

Map objectives

Binds

Regardless of the platform Overwatch is being played on, players may change their default control binds. Therefore, references to commands should refer to those controls in simple, bind-neutral terms, including default key assignments only as extra information (possibly added in parentheses, and not repeated at additional mentions of the same command within the article). For example, "Press Q to use D.Va's Self-Destruct" would be more appropriately phrased, "Use D.Va's Self Destruct (default key Q)" or, if previously described with key bindings, simply "Use D.Va's Self Destruct."

Exception: Referring to abilities across heroes is done via their hotkey, as they often share similar traits (E abilities are frequently your main ability, Q is always the ultimate, for example.) In circumstances where this is more correct, always use the default key bind. Even if the ability is passive (cannot be used), provide the default hotkey that corresponds to it.

Date formatting

The Overwatch Wiki is used around the world. As such problems with some date formats (e.g. 12/11/10) can arise. Instead use follow either the Month DD, YYYY format, or the ISO-8601 standard (YYYY-MM-DD).

Categories

When adding categories, do not leave any leading spaces after the namespace or replace spaces with underscores, for example: 

[[Category:Cassidy images]]<!-- Correct -->
[[Category: Cassidy images]]<!-- Incorrect -->
[[Category:Cassidy_images]]<!-- Incorrect -->

While all of these will add the page to the same category 'Cassidy images', they make automated category moves annoying as each is a different string match.

Uploading files

Wiki has some file naming and sizing conventions to make it easier for users to search them as well as to use them in templates. Remember to categorize any files you upload. (See Category:Images, Category:Sound files)

Quotes and voice lines

Front page hero icons

Ablity icons

Cosmetics

Other files

Article layouts

See also

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