Tips for hint writers

Form and Style

Finish playing the game before writing hints. You may find that seeing the whole story suggests a good way of organizing the hints.
Browse other games in the HintWiki, to get a feel for what the preferred style is. If you see an interesting effect, don't be shy about reusing it. You can use the "Edit" link at the top of the page to see the source of the page.
If, as you are playing, you plan on writing hints for the HintWiki, write down the questions you have about how to proceed. Chances are, other players are asking themselves many of the same questions.
Try to organize the hints in such a way that players can quickly find the hint they're looking for. At the same time, don't include too many spoilers. The main table of contents should link to sub-tables of contents, broken down by chapter, or location, or whatever is most natural for the game in question. Each of these subpages should have a list of links to specific hints.
Sometimes games go in unexpected directions: if you can get to the mob boss's office, you may think that you're supposed to search it for clues, but the game only allows you to eavesdrop a conversation. The person looking for hints doesn't know this, though, so it's quite okay to add a link to "How can I get into the mob boss's office?".
Remember that this is supposed to be a collection of hints, not a walkthrough. Try not to reveal more than you have to.

Use a concise, recognizable, and unique name for the game's main page, e.g., "Dreamfall", not "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey"; "Aura", not "Aura: the Fate of the Ages".
Make sure all of the wiki pages for your game are subpages of the game's page:
- In the main page, use [[/Subsection/]] for links to subpages.
- In subpages, use [[../OtherSubsection/]] for links to other subpages.
On new pages, use {{Incomplete}} to mark a page as incomplete. This also makes it easier to find unfinished pages, by seeing what links to the Incomplete template.
The Image: namespace does not permit subpages. So if you upload an image, use the title of the game as a prefix: Game Name-Image Name, e.g., Secret of Monkey Island-Melee Map.png
In links pointing to rooms or locations, capitalize only the first letter, and avoid articles like "the": use Downstairs room, not Downstairs Room or The downstairs room. (Yes, this is an arbitrary convention, but having a convention makes it easier to write well-formed links without having to look them up.)
If you need to write down notes, but can't or won't turn them into proper hints yet, please do so on the discussion page. That way, people looking for hints will be less likely to run across spoilers.