Bulbapedia talk:Manual of style

As PM97 said in his recent MftE, we're updating our policies, and this is the perhaps biggest and most impactful of them all. If any users have input on this MoS, suggestions for changes/additions which are needed, or want to provide other input, please comment here on the Talk Page. -- evkl _{(need to talk?)} 14:29, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Avoid unintuive links

Readers should have a clue where the link will go. In particular, if words are articles, they should generally link to that article and not elsewhere.

Examples:

• "Ash catches Zapdos, the Electric-type Legendary bird" over "Ash catches the Electric-type Legendary bird."
• "Stone evolutions can still be triggered by a specific glitch in Generation I." rather than "Stone evolutions can still be triggered by a specific glitch in Generation I."

Nescientist (talk) 07:38, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Avoid consecutive links

Also see the above, but they're particularly bad for mobile users who have no mouseover.

Examples:

• "Charmander is the only Fire-type Pokémon in the regional Pokédex, apart from its evolutionary relatives Charmeleon and Charizard." over "Charmander is the only Fire-type Pokémon in the regional Pokédex, apart from its evolutionary relatives."
• "Ash battles Archer, the Executive of Team Rocket." over "Ash battles Team Rocket Executive Archer."

Nescientist (talk) 07:38, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Avoid unnecessary links

There shouldn't be links just because there's an article, but only when it's sensible.

Examples:

• "Ash takes a break in the forest." over "Ash takes a break in the forest."
• "In order to do that, players need to press the A button." over "In order to do that, players need to press the A button."

Nescientist (talk) 07:38, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Reverting

I think when edits are reverted/undone, there should always be a reason given why in the edit summary (or a reference to such, a talk page section, for example), no matter how obvious that reason is or may seem. (Not sure if the rollback feature allows for that; if it doesn't, there should obviously be an exception for specifically that.) Nescientist (talk) 08:43, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I think this is a good policy, but not really appropriate for the manual of style, which is more focused on how pages should be laid out. --SnorlaxMonster 09:50, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Proofreading

I probably shouldn't just edit the page? Anyway, Ability should be capitalized, while the S in Manual of Style probably consistently shouldn't. I also stumbled across "instead of to" and "The below is a list". (There also appear to be consecutive line breaks in the "Language" section at the moment.) Nescientist (talk) 08:43, 16 August 2020 (UTC)