Forum:Tense about tenses

I never really have time to create a manual of style for this wiki, since I used to mostly edit it by myself back in the day, before the release of Fallout 3. And the style of the articles has not been very consistent either. But now, with so many people, it's probably time to set some rules for a few of the issues.

There are lots of inconsistencies in what tense is used in the articles - e.g. some articles on Fallout 1 characters are in present tense, some in the past tense. Especially for articles like Harold or the Brotherhood of Steel, the past tense makes sense, since they appear in all of the games, and the articles include lots of information about the events that happened before and between the games. However, for articles about characters that appear in e.g. only Fallout or only Fallout 2, the past tense can sound awkward, especially if the biographical/historical information is mixed with gameplay info (which is another thing that's hard to solve - e.g. "He was a merchant living in NCR around 2241" next to "You can meet him by talking to the guard"). Still, they describe things that are in the past from the perspective of the current game. Another solution is to simply use present tense in all instances, although it also can sound awkward at times.

Any ideas on how to solve it or good examples of how it is solved in other wikis? Ausir 23:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC) Personally I'd favor the "use present at all times" approach, basically for 2 reasons: 1) For any other consistent tense scheme you have to set a reference point as to what is the present. Now let's say you pick the time of FO3, then (theoretically) FO4 comes out and takes place 5 years later. Now you'd have to rewrite all the FO3 articles from present to past or put all FO4 articles in future tense (which is awkward). Basically it results in a bit of a mess. 2) You could putting everything in future as all FO games play in our future or everything in past. Future tense would not read well in my opinion and past tense seems somewhat unnatural to me for a future-based game. 3) Putting everything in present is the easiest way to keep background info and ingame info consistent.

A variation of using present always would be to use present for all events during the time span covered by all the Fallout games and use past for everything prior to that (say, articles about Abraham Lincoln or the time when the bombs fell). Don't know whether that'd be worth it though.

Most gaming wikis I've visited use the "always present" approach, however most of them only deal with one specific game (unlike this one ;)). // Porter21 U 01:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC) "Always present" sounds good to me. (Although grammar isn't my speciality. ;) ) Although I'm a bit fond of future when it comes to describing what will happen to the player character. ("X is standing at Y. The LW will meet her...") --Mirar (Talk) 09:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC) On the C&C Wiki, we have this approach: when writing about something from an in-universe perspective, we treat the newest game in the series (Kane's Wrath) as reference point - everything before it is in past tense (unless it's still in use) while things that are happening in 2052 are written in present.

When writing in the context of the game (weapons etc.) we always use present tense. Shaur M. S. Grizlin 16:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The "always present" can be a bit problematic, for example, it's natural to make stuff like this present tense:
 * Tenpenny is originally from what used to be known as the United Kingdom, who somehow managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean and came to the Capital Wasteland to seek his fortune. Eventually he became quite rich, took over a pre-War hotel and named it after himself.

And if we keep it as past tense, we'll have other events from the same time period (e.g. on the West Coast) in present. Personally, I'd generally be in favor of the "current game present, previous games past" approach, if not for the fact that changing all the articles about the previous game each time a new one comes out would be quite a massive task. Ausir 16:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Present for the current state of the character/item/etc in the game he/she/it appears in, past for everything prior to that? If a character/place/etc appears in more than one game, present for current state in last one, past for everything prior to that?

That way you'll only have to revise/rewrite the articles of recurring characters and not for everything. // Porter21 U 12:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Storyline - according wikipedic approach when fiction is described past should be used (it is quite elegant also).
 * Game hints - rather present, under condition, that guide parts of articles should be separated.--dotz 14:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)