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Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Cue sports

This is a style guide for articles about cue sports. It describes spelling, terminological and other conventions for the article (and category) names and content of Wikipedia topics related to cue sports (billiards-family games). Snooker has further specialized style needs, as explained in WP:Manual of Style/Snooker.

The purposes of this guideline are to:

  • Describe conventions for referring to cue sports games and equipment, differentiating them from each other and from other usages, especially numerical, to avoid ambiguity and confusion.
  • Elucidate details of Wikipedia-wide policies and guidelines, such as WP:Manual of Style and WP:Article titles, as they apply to the naming and terminology of cue sports topics, including the handling of US vs. UK English, treatment of numbers, and neutral point of view.
  • Explain how other Wikipedia-wide policies and guidelines (e.g. MOS:ICONS) may apply to cue sports articles in particular, as needed.

The overall intent is to ensure that cue sports article prose is comprehensible, by avoiding awkward and ambiguous constructions. Consider the sentence "While 9-ball is a 9-ball game, the 9-ball is the real target; it can be pocketed in a 9-ball run, but earlier is better." It is better to rephrase to avoid endless repetition and potential confusion between the names of games and descriptions. "While nine-ball is a game played with nine balls, the 9 ball is the real target; it can be pocketed at the end of a run, but earlier is better."