Our style guide

These guidelines are for the sake of consistency across the site, and to aid users in selecting search terms. Please read them and keep them in mind when you are writing.

1) No pornography
That means no adult images and no links to adult sites.

2) Stay on topic
Don't ramble around. Your article should be easy to read, not full of long asides.

3) Titles
Titles are important. They tell your reader the topic of your article. They are also often viewed in a list, and so it is particularly important that your title obey the following guidelines:-

Capitalise the first word of your title. Do not capitalise other words in your title, unless they would normally be capitalised, or form part of a compound title:-

"This is a title" is correct.
"This Is A Title" is incorrect.
"This is a Title" is incorrect.
"This is a title which I wrote" is correct.
"This is a title - It is correct" is correct.

Note that outside of the list view, the site will alter the capitalisation of your title appropriately.

Do not use a full stop at the end of your title. You may use an exclamation mark, question mark, or an ellipsis if you feel it is appropriate:-

"This is a title" is correct.
"This is a title." is incorrect.

Use an ampersand in place of "and" in your titles, except where "and" is the first word:-

"Titles & correctness" is correct.
"Titles and correctness" is incorrect.
"And I wrote a title" is correct.

Keep your title short. Ideally it should fit into a single line of text when rendered on the front page.

4) Forms of words

Several words common to gaming have multiple spellings. Use the following:-

Roleplay (roleplaying, roleplaying game) - not "role play"
Board game (board gaming) - not "boardgame"
Wargame (wargaming) - not "war game"
Collectable - not "collectible"

None of the above should be capitalised unless at the start of a sentence.

5) Acronyms
Acronyms for games should be used in a consistent fashion across a column. If you refer to Magic as M:tG in one article, don't refer to it as MTG in another.

For guidance, use the following:-

M:tG - Magic: the Gathering
WoD - World of Darkness
V:tM - Vampire: the Masquerade
V:tR - Vampire: the Requiem
W:tF - Werewolf: the Forsaken
M:tA (Old WoD) - Mage: the Ascension
M:tA (New WoD) - Mage: the Awakening
D&D - Dungeons and Dragons

6) Use a spellchecker and proof-read
Otherwise you can look a bit silly. The occasional mistake gets through, we know, but still...

7) Menu items
Menu items should be accompanied by a description. The description should be short, but provide a fuller description of the page in question than the title. End decsriptions for menu items with an ellipsis:-

"Some guidelines to follow while writing for black-lion.co.uk..."

Finally and most importantly, if you're not sure about anything here or anything you're submitting, then please feel free to ask us. We're not monsters and are here to help after all. We all want to make this a success and have lots of interesting stuff up on the site. Just MSN, email or even call us and ask and we'll do our best to help you out.

Many thanks,

- the black-lion.co.uk team