Third person formal for SacredWiki, not first person

[gogoblender 3,070]

Hi everyone

 

I've been meaning to write about this for a bit, but with so many projects for Wiki always around the corner, it seemed to get waylaid.

 

Just a quick note regarding verb tense and writing style for SacredWiki. Best Practice is to not use first person, but instead third person formal. Think of the Wiki as an Encyclopaedia and we always refer to readers The Player or third person. We never address the reader as you, and, as well, contractions should not be used, instead full formal writing out of word, as, for example,can not, instead of can't.

 

There has been some leniency allowed for quest writeups. After some discussion, we have swayed a bit for just that section as we feel that humor for this game is so ingrained, and that the ability to connect to readers via first person is very sacredish.

 

And while this works for the player contributed personal guides and quest writeups (within reason) when it begins to appear in the Wiki proper it can become confusing and add the element of bias to the formal writing.

 

Again, thanks everyone for putting so much time into this addiction for the Sacred Wiki.

 

Edit on!

 

 

 

gogo

[Silver_fox 397]

I'm using 'your character' and 'you' in the quests' detailed walkthrough and on NPCs' informal descriptions (since I feel that these sections are somewhat alike). I hope that it's OK. What do you think?

[Silver_fox 397]

I'm using 'your character' and 'you' in the quests' detailed walkthrough and in NPCs' informal descriptions (since I feel that these sections are somewhat alike). I hope that it's OK. What do you think? But actually, such an adressing can be found in almost all the categories, even in those I never touched.

[gogoblender 3,070]

It sounds like it's going to be okay. And this is not urgent issue, just something to keep in mind for making new pages for editors making pages.

 

Silver do you have a link to page you brought up?

 

I can take look as well now

 

 

gogo

[Silver_fox 397]

Well, just... everywhere. Really. Just try to read the walkthrough for the Daemonic Rituals, or click on any NPC in this quest. I even used 'you' in the notes for Power of NIF. And my pages are written very formally compared to Zeno's and some other pages. But actually... Sacred isn't a deadly serious thing, so I prefer to make wiki articles in publicistic (magazine) style, not in a dictionary one. I like to make these articles a dialog with a player who reads them (and no doubt that the only interested people would be current or future players). I don't want to make them boring, I really want people to enjoy reading our wiki.

[gogoblender 3,070]

I just read through, and it feels right, considering the kind of humor this game has, and it connects to the reader differently than third person formal.

 

For quests and player contributed guides this is fine.

 

 

gogo

[Silver_fox 397]

I really think that such a style fits for the 'creative' descriptions that are requested for some places on the wiki, like walkthroughs, NPC general description, place general description (well, if in the templates Schot asked to be creative, I think that it means 'you may not sound like a dictionary'). I agree that the formal description of the game mechanics and terms should be done in a formal language, but when the page has to do with the plot and stories, it may be written in the magazine article-like style.

[gogoblender 3,070]

Well, so far the places where the "you" has been used is engaging, except for places where we speak as authority instead of telling a kind of personalized story. I

 

f anyone has a question though about a page where they are using it, please just post and we'll take a look at the link.

 

 

gogo

[gogoblender 3,070]

Hi everyone, we've had a lot of great new contributors to the wiki in the last few weeks, I'm going through some of the ideas that help guide the Wiki and will bump up some topics put up over the last few years. This is a quick one to note that information added to the Wiki should be done in third person rather than first person, to keep the writing style formal and non-personal except for, possibly, quests and player contributed guides.

 

Thanks!

 

 

gogo

[gogoblender 3,070]

Hey guys!

Seeing lots of edits going up, it's awsome!

It's actually kind of fun reviewing all the codes and tricks again for wiki editing, like going back to school

Just a quick bump to this topic so that our contributors remember to keep the verb tense in third person formal for most of the wiki, instead of how we speak "first person singular"

Exceptions are being made for quest contributors, easter eggs and guides.

All other parts of the wiki should remain true (I know it's a pain) to third person formal, just like they do in Wikkepaedia or oblivion Wiki, possibly the most ambitous wiki's in the world.

As well, please be careful of choice of words and using slang. The wiki is currently being read by almost 20 countries, and our objective is to present information with as little of a bias as possible, so as to provide clarity for anyone using a translator.

Think dictionary, at least for most of it

gogo

[Ysne58 236]

I see that people are going in and fixing other things on the pages I'm sorting. That is a really good thing. Many of those pages were set up before the 3rd person rule was adopted. I'm glad to see those getting fixed.

[Knuckles 904]

Knuckles may have been guilty of this several times. He has a problem talking in the third person. He will try as hard as he can not to do so in the future

[gogoblender 3,070]

hahahah

I do too. Third person is much tougher, probably because we don't use it too much. We're all really used to using informal language, and over the last few years, what was considered the informal has begun transforming writing styles. With Emails and Texting being so popular, informal has become much more commonplace, while formal is more like and old school waltz or writing with a featured pen.

If we're having too much fun enjoying what we're writing, it means we're probably not using third person formal

 

 

gogo

[masteff 64]

masteff (sic) was necessitated by Knuckles' post to sign into the message board system (See "Help Topic: Logging in and logging out" here for assistance with this feature) for the primary purpose of clicking the "Like This" button on Knuckles' most recent post above (the "Like This" feature appears to be incompletely documented and users are cautioned to auto-save prior to feature activation). A casual reader of this forum might note that Gogoblender's subsequent post violates the "Third person formal" rule no less than a half-dozen times; masteff was not amused.

 

 

 

(This might make a fun off-topic thread... tell something from your day in third person formal!!!)

Edited August 5, 2013 by masteff

[gogoblender 3,070]

lol, TPF is so hard sometimes!

lol, Masteff ...

I'm thinking of putting together some often used phrases in the Wiki, before and afters?

Sometimes I find myself having to move entire sentences just to get the tense right, but once a few tricks are learned, it can get faster.

kind of

nah, it's still a pain

 

gogo

[Sneak0r 33]

Find this topic at my search for another topic. Glad that I made the same decision for myself at translating the pages ^^

[gogoblender 3,070]

Sweet!

thanks sneakor

 

 

gogo