# Sam's Rules for EIPs

## Text

- Avoid mentioning specific commercial products.
- Don't use RFC 2119 keywords (all-caps SHOULD/MUST/etc.) outside of the specification section.
- Prefer "on-chain" and "off-chain" when appearing before the noun they describe, and "on chain" or "off chain" when appearing after. See [Hyphen Rules](https://www.stcloudstate.edu/writeplace/_files/documents/grammar-punctuation/hyphen-rules.pdf).
- Do not include punctuation at the end of headings (so no `# Example A:`).
- Headings should be in title case.
- Titles should be in title case.
- Descriptions should be in sentence case.
- Prefer SVG diagrams, then PNG, finally everything else.
- Do not use articles (the/a/an/etc.) in front of EIP identifiers (so no `an ERC-20`), unless the EIP identifier is used as an adjective/compound noun (so `an ERC-20 token` is fine.)
- Initialisms should be written in uppercase (eg. NFT instead of nft.)
- Only use backticks (\`) for code snippets.
- Avoid single paragraph sentences and sections containing only bulleted lists.
- Put abbreviations after the expanded form (so `liquidity provider (LP)` and not `LP (liquidity provider)`.)
- Use [example domains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com) in examples, not real services.
- It's "Ethereum", not "the Ethereum".
- Unless you're writing a fork meta EIP, don't include a fork block number constant.

## Diagrams

- Prefer SVG, but PNG is acceptable.
- If possible, use [media queries] (specifically [`prefers-color-scheme`]) to support dark mode. If not, provide light mode compatible images.

[media queries]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_media_queries/Using_media_queries
[`prefers-color-scheme`]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme