Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style

The following is style advice for those who edit Numismatic-related articles under WikiProject Numismatics. Please remember, this is simply advice, and may change depending on Wikipolicy or participant consensus. For site-wide style guidelines, please see WP:Manual of Style.

Article titles

 * An article should be titled according to the key subject of the article.
 * Lists should be named "List of...x". For example, List of currencies.
 * If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article (as opposed to putting it in the predicate). In any case, the title should appear as early as possible in the article – preferably in the first sentence.
 * The first time the title is mentioned in the article, put it in bold using three apostrophes. Here is an example:  produces article title . You should not put links in the title.
 * Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: Canadian "Loonie", but British pound sterling). This especially applies to denominations, which are unit of measurement and not proper nouns, (e.g., euro, kwacha, peso, yen). Non-currency units have been decapitalized too, even where they are derived from a proper noun. The SI unit of a force is a "newton", the SI unit of electric potential is a "volt", and the CGS unit of magnetic flux density is a "gauss".
 * In general only create page titles that are in the singular (Greek drachma not Greek drachmas).
 * Except in titles of works or in official names, avoid the definite ("the") and indefinite ("a"/"an") articles at the beginning of a page name. This applies even if the subject of the page is usually preceded by the definite article "the" in speech or writing: Thus, for example, Denarius is preferred over The Denarius.

Articles about a specific country's currency

 * Use the standard name of   (e.g., French franc, not Franc or Franc (currency)). To determine the adjectival form, please use a dictionary, like http://www.m-w.com or http://www.dictionary.com, or the CIA World Factbook. If there is no adjectival form listed, use the shortened form of the country name (e.g., Rhodesian pound, but Rhodesia and Nyasaland pound).
 * One exception to this is the United States whose official demonym is "American" (potentially ambiguous and non-NPOV) and whose currency is well-established as the "United States dollar."
 * Another exception to this is where the currency name already includes a demonym (e.g., the Ghana cedi). Do not perform OR and alter the currency's name by correcting the central bank's grammar.
 * Use the common English name for the country in the title, if possible, though in the article itself, you can use the domestic name if it is in common use in English. A redirect is appropriate in this situation.
 * Use the term for the currency that is most commonly used by standard English language sources. Such sources include encyclopedias, media of record, academic literature, government publications, and numismatic catalogues. English language descriptions of the currency by the issuing authority, as well as usage of English names on the currency itself, should also be considered.
 * If there is only one country that has used the denomination (you can check at List of currencies, please create a redirect from the denomination, (e.g., kwanza). If multiple countries have used it, please create an article from the denomination with links to all of them, and potentially information about the denomination itself (e.g., franc).
 * If disambiguation is needed (e.g., the South Korean won, which was used before and after the South Korean hwan), use a descriptive word (e.g., South Korean old won and South Korean won. These do not necessarily have to be on separate pages but can be referred to consistently with these names). If you can determine common use for these desciptive words, use that. If you are not sure, you can check Global Financial Data which seems to use relatively standard descriptors (although their naming conventions differ from ours in other ways).

Articles, categories, galleries about a country's coins and banknotes

 * Use Currencies of Somewhere for an article or category about the coins and paper money from a given country or region (e.g., Category:Currencies of the Eurozone and Category:Currencies of Scotland, not Category:Eurozone currencies or Category:Euro or Category:Scottish currencies or Category:Currency of Scotland).

Important to remember: A title should be descriptive of the page. This helps people to know what the article is about before reading it.

First paragraph
In every article there should be a leading paragraph where gives a brief description of what the subject of the article is, or what the article is about, before elaborating.


 * 1) The first mention of the subject of the article should be in bold, and italicised thereafter.
 * 2) The first sentence should include the subject of the article and describe what the article is in a bare-bones way so a user can easily understand whether they have found the right article or not.
 * 3) Articles for any Numismatic title usually include the name of the coin, bold and italicised, and a description, as well as the optional coin template.
 * 4) A typical example of this is: United States dollar coin.
 * 5) The first paragraph does not include any specific details.
 * 6) Use a hatnote when appropriate

General rule

 * 1) Try to divide the article into various subsections (e.g., History, Minting, etc.).
 * 2) A wikilink only needs to appear in the article once - at the first mention. If denarius is linked early on, it does not need to be linked anywhere else in the article.
 * 3) The only exception to this rule is when See also: is used, or Main article: where the article should be linked also.
 * 4) Articles should include any possible information about the coin or subject which could be considered useful. Remember, it may not seem useful to you, but others might find it comes in handy.
 * 5) Remember, categories are inherited: an article placed in Category:Coins of India does not also need to be placed in Category:Coins.

Coin articles

 * 1) Designers names, mint names or other names should not be italicised unless to highlight it.
 * 2) Coins sets or series should be in "double quotes".
 * 3) Articles should be categorized in the correct subcategory of Category:Coins.
 * 4) Include Infobox Coin

Images

 * 1) It is encouraged to upload images to Commons, as the images can be use on wikipedias of all languages. On commons, tag the images with subcategories of commons:Category:Money by country.
 * 2) However, commons has more restricted rules about copyright. If you resort to uploading to English wikipedia, you should place it in Category:Currency images, unless the image is tagged with money, which would automatically place the image in that category.

Fair-use picture rationale
Pictures that are using fair use tags or a fair use related tag (i.e., coins or paper money), should have an added blurb explaining why the picture is fair use. This should comply with the following wikipedia policy.

The above is merely a guideline. Should consensus change, please change the article above. Also, feel free to edit at any time to include any standard we should include when editing articles. Please also use the talk page to discuss this.

Note: There are maybe a few things wrong with this. If there are, please feel free to fix them, and leave a note of what you added, deleted or modified on the talk page.