Blooncyclopedia:Style guide

This page details Blooncyclopedia's guidelines for structuring, writing, and categorizing articles.

Article titles

Main article: Blooncyclopedia:Article titles

Article text

• The first occurrence of the article's title (excluding distinguishers and "list of" if applicable) within the article should be bolded.
• Names of media (e.g., games and series) should be written out in full the first time they appear in the article. Later uses of the name should be abbreviated.
• Names of media should always be italicized, including abbreviations.
• Text taken from official sources (e.g., in-game descriptions) should always be transcribed exactly as written. Errors should be noted rather than corrected.

Writing style

Main article: Blooncyclopedia:Writing guidelines

• Your writing within articles must follow the basic rules of English at least. Unless transcribing in-game text directly, you should capitalize the first letter of each sentence, end sentences with a fullstop, use proper grammar and spelling, et cetera.
• Don't insert speculation, don't state the obvious, don't use overly verbose or flowery language, and don't editorialize. This is a wiki, not fanfiction.
• A little bit of flippancy or casualness is fine as long as the text is mostly focused on conveying factual information. Don't just waste the reader's time with jokes.

Spelling

• Because Bloons games are not very consistent with their usage of American English vs. British English spelling, this wiki allows either spelling standard to be used by editors.
• If the article's title requires a specific standard (e.g., Town Center or Large Calibre), then the text of the article must use the same standard; otherwise, the spelling is up to the editor.
• If an article is already clearly written in one spelling standard, then any additions/changes should be consistent with what the article uses. For example, if an article has clearly established its use of British English by other editors, then any additions/changes to the article must also be in British English from that point onwards. Editing an article to make the spelling more consistent is constructive, but changing all the spelling from one to the other without reason is unconstructive and edits of this nature will be reverted.
• If an article links to another article with a title that uses a different spelling standard, the link text should not be changed to match. For example, Large Calibre (BTD6) should not render links to Town Center as "Town Centre".
• Note that this only applies to spelling. Dates and timestamps should always be formatted as DD/MM/YYYY regardless of the spelling standard used.

Numbers

Note: In the visual editor, these symbols can be inserted from the symbols toolbar by clicking on the "Ω" button. In the source editor, they can be inserted from the "special characters" tab.

When not transcribing in-game text directly, numbers and quantities should be formatted in specific ways.

• Numbers with more than three digits should always be delimited with commas, e.g. "1,000" instead of "1000".
• Use unspaced en dashes (–) instead of hyphens for ranges of numbers, ranges of dates, or comparing two numbers (such as score tallies).
• Use hyphens (-) for negative numbers, as in "-15%", or notating upgrade tiers, e.g. "0-0-0 Dart Monkey".
• Use multiplication signs (×) instead of the letter "x" for multiplication or for quantities in lists of numbers.

Usage	Incorrect	Correct
Delimiting numbers	Ground Zero has 2000 pierce	Ground Zero has 2,000 pierce
En dashes	Quincy shoots two arrows at a time at levels 6-18	Quincy shoots two arrows at a time at levels 6–18
Multiplication signs	Overdrive shoots 3x faster than Tack Sprayer	Overdrive shoots 3× faster than Tack Sprayer
	*Red Bloon x1 *Blue Bloon x2	*Red Bloon ×1 *Blue Bloon ×2

Headers and sections

• The lede section of the article should be a concise summary of the subject. It should not be more than a few paragraphs long; specifics should be written in other sections of the article if it would make the lede too long (e.g., a mechanics section, layout section, etc).
• Major sections should start with level 2 headings (==Heading==). Level 1 headings (=Heading=) should never be used; it is reserved for the article's title and is automatically inserted by the software this wiki uses.
• Like article titles, headers should be written in sentence case; only the first word and proper nouns should be capitalized.
• These level 2 sections at the bottom of each page serve specific purposes and should always be in this order:
  • Gallery: Images of the subject.
  • Voice lines: If applicable, the subject's voice lines.
  • Trivia: Miscellaneous facts that don't fit in anywhere else in the article. In general, it's best to avoid having these kinds of sections unless they're absolutely necessary; see the section below for more information.
  • In other languages: A list of in-game names and descriptions of the subject in the game's other supported languages, and any notes on differences in translation. This should only contain official translations.
  • Footnotes: If a page contains any footnotes via the {{fn}} template, this section should be added and only contain the template {{footnotes}}.
  • References: If a page contains any citations via the {{cite}} template, this section should be added and only contain the template {{references}}.
  • External links: Links to official Bloons-related websites and social media posts, and articles with further information about the subject on other wikis such as Wikipedia and the PC Gaming Wiki.
  • Navigation: All navigation templates and categories should be placed under a section titled "navigation". That way, it's easier to find the navigation templates on the mobile view and editors only need to edit the "navigation" section to add or remove categories.

Trivia sections

The purpose of headers and sections is to organize information in a way that makes finding specific topics easier. Sometimes information is worth noting but is not significant enough to warrant its own section, in which case it usually belongs in a "trivia" section. Unfortunately, some editors, especially new users, tend to ignore this and just dump everything they want to write about into trivia sections, which can quickly lead to trivia sections becoming bloated with information that is irrelevant, or repeats information already explained better elsewhere, or could be expanded into its own section.

• Trivia sections should be bullet-point lists. Each point should be clear and concise. If the topic is too big to be summarized in a few sentences, then it probably belongs in its own section.
• Be mindful when creating or adding to a trivia section. If a trivia section already has five bullet points or more, see if you can move any of it to a different section of the article or to another article.
• Trivia sections should never have sub-headings. If there's enough information on a specific trivia point for it to have its own section, then it's not trivial and should have its own section elsewhere.

Spacing and line breaks

• Line breaks should be used to break up text into more digestible paragraphs. Too few breaks causes paragraphs to become excessively long and difficult to parse, but too many line breaks disrupts the flow of the text. The exact size a paragraph "should be" is subjective, but in general, a paragraph should be just long enough to develop an idea or point and are usually at least two sentences long, often 3–5 sentences long. One-sentence paragraphs should be used sparingly.
• If a topic would require a lot of short paragraphs, such as describing an upgrade that has many distinct effects, use a bullet-point list instead of a paragraph. Bullet-point lists in the lede are acceptable.
• Don't insert more empty space between paragraphs. In the source editor, a paragraph break is created by inserting one blank line between paragraphs, but inserting more than one blank line creates a much larger gap between paragraphs that is unnecessary.

Quotations

• This wiki has two templates for quotations: {{quote}} and {{blockquote}}.
  • {{quote}} is for informal text, usually shorter than blockquotes. This should be used mainly in cases where it makes sense to attribute the quote to a single author, such as a developer, a game character, or update notes posted by a developer.
  • {{blockquote}} is for formal text, such as game descriptions on store pages. Usually, these are placed below section headers that state where the quote is from, so they often do not need to list what the source is (because it would be redundant).

Linking

• In general, only insert a link the first time the term appears in an article. If the word "monkey" is used 10 times in a page, then only the first occurrence of the word should be a link. Repeating links is acceptable on longer articles, but try to limit it to once per major section (level 2 headings).
• In the source editor, try to optimize links as much as possible. For example, you can use [[Monkey]]s instead of [[Monkey|Monkeys]] to render the link text in plural form. (See Help:Links for more information.)
  • If you need to link to a subsection and it has a redirect, just link to the redirect instead of using a piped link. For example, use [[Paragon power]] instead of [[Paragon#Power|Paragon power]] when linking to the section about Paragon power. That way, the link doesn't need to be updated in case the section is split into its own article at a later point.
• Avoid having multiple links directly adjacent to each other in article text (what's called a "sea of blue"). For example, [[Camo Bloon|Camo]] [[Ceramic Bloon|Ceramic]] [[Bloon]] (Camo Ceramic Bloon) makes it difficult to tell at a glance that each word links to a separate article. Two adjacent links is acceptable, but anything more than that should be revised. Consider using more specific links (e.g., [[Camo Bloon|Camo]] [[Ceramic Bloon]]) or rephrasing the article to introduce one of the links earlier.

Foreign languages

• Foreign text written in a non-Latin script (e.g., Hangul or Cyrillic) should be romanized.
  • If it is in the body of the article or in a table, the romanization should be added using the {{hover}} template, which will display the text in its native script in the body and its romanization when hovered over or tapped on.
  • If it is in the article's title or a section heading, it should just use the romanization.
  • If a word in a foreign script is itself a transliteration of an English word or name, then use the original English word instead (e.g., Fēijiāngjūn Quincy instead of "Fēijiāngjūn Kūnxī").
• If foreign text does not have an official translation, then an unofficial translation should be placed next to it in parentheses and italics. This mainly applies to voice clips in foreign languages and content exclusive to the Chinese version of Bloons TD 6, and should not be used for content that already has an official English equivalent.

Foreign text	Usage	Result
C'est la guerre !	C'est la guerre ! (''That's war!'')	C'est la guerre ! (That's war!)
아싸, 지렸다리~	{{hover|아싸, 지렸다리~|Assa, jiryeotdari~}} (''Oh yeah, I was awesome~'')	아싸, 지렸다리~ (Oh yeah, I was awesome~)

Categorization

Main article: Blooncyclopedia:Category guidelines

• Category titles follow the same rules as article titles, except they should always be plural if possible.
• Category pages should contain a brief summary of what the category means.
• A category should not be added to an article if it belongs to a subcategory of that category. Quincy should not belong to both Category:Heroes and Category:Monkeys, for example, because Category:Heroes is a subcategory of Category:Monkeys.

Other namespaces

Stats

Main article: Blooncyclopedia:Stats guidelines

Stats articles contain lists of gameplay-related technical information that is either really interesting or really boring, depending on who you ask. Sections on these articles are designed to be able to be transcluded onto other pages, so only the stats page needs to be updated whenever balance changes happen.

Strategies

Main article: Blooncyclopedia:Strategy guidelines

Strategy articles contain community-created tips, tricks, and strategies for using a subject.

Galleries

Main article: Blooncyclopedia:Gallery guidelines

Gallery articles collect images and audio for the subject and present them in a more structured manner than media categories.

Once and only once

"Once and only once" is an adage in programming that states that there is no point in doing something repeatedly when it only needs to be done once. The same principle applies to this wiki: don't repeat yourself. That is, you should avoid duplicating the same information across different articles because it makes it more difficult to keep that information up-to-date. For example, stating what each targeting option does for every tower and upgrade in BTD6 is unnecessary when targeting options have the same effect on most towers and upgrades and users can just go to the articles for those targeting options to find out what they do. In this case, these articles should only note exceptions to the rule, such as attacks that always target strong.