Manual of Style

The Wiki for Middle-earth seeks to maintain a neat and orderly site, useful to all English-speakers interested in the games. In order to accomplish this, certain guidelines must be followed to ensure the quality and ease of this wiki. Pages that are created contrary to these guidelines will be subject to heavy scrutiny and most likely edited to fit this manual. Do not let this hinder you from creating new pages (or editing existing ones), but do keep it in mind.

Spelling and Grammar
User talk pages are exceptions to Spelling and Grammar rules, as they are not considered "articles".

Spelling
Spelling should be correct, unless there is ample reason for the misspelling. The use of "leet speak" or any other shorthand in articles is not allowed and will be edited to the correct form.

Punctuation
Punctuation in articles should be correct, with the same guidelines as above.

Miscellaneous Grammar
All other grammar should follow the same rules as above for "spelling". Verbs should be in the correct tense, nouns in the correct form, and all other typical grammatical rules apply.

Vulgarity
Any form of vulgarity will not be tolerated, will immediately be deleted, and will be grounds for possible temporary suspension of the contributors editing priviledges. Vulgarity may be in the form of writing (both in articles and user talk pages), pictures, etc. As to what exactly is vulgar, it is safe to say that you will know it when you see it.

Article Formatting
Articles should all be formatted in a way similar to the articles in the same category. If no such page exists, try to create an article that will be formatted so that it will be easy to read and aesthetically pleasing. Formatting is a major area for editing. Also, titles of Articles should be the exact wording and spelling as in the game ("Yeoman Archers" instead of "Archers"). This helps avoid confusion.

Images
Images comprise a large part of the appeal of an article. Images should:
 * not be too large or too small for the context
 * be cropped to emphasize the subject of the article
 * (preferably) have a background with little or nothing in it
 * have a proper resolution to the size of the picture
 * not be vulgar (see above)

Proper Use of Wikia Text
Wikia use certain combinations of characters to accomplish certain effects. For example:
 * Main Page yields Main Page
 * portal yields a link to the article "Main Page" that looks like "portal"
 * The Lord of the Rings (two apostraphes on either side of the term) yields The Lord of the Rings
 * not (three apostraphes on either side of the term) yields not
 * Gandalf yields a link to the Wikipedia article on Gandalf
 * One Wiki to Rule Them All yields an external link to One Wiki to Rule Them All

These are just a few examples (there are many more possibilities of things to be done with text). Simply contact another user, probably an admin if you need any help with text formatting. Also, you may want to try clicking "edit" on a page that has formatting like that which you wish to use, to look at the source code and try to mimic it. Don't overuse links- there are many pages that do not need to be created. Basically, the text should match the context, as listed above. Extraneous links will be deleted.