There's little technical merit to a standardized commit log format, except for much easier grepping. What we should value here is tradition.

- Did that
- And that

Field one: value
Field two: value

• Don't forget a blank line between text and fields
• Start lines with a hyphen and a space where appropriate
• When referring to administrative bodies (e.g. core), write its name first, then alias(es) of the relevant representative(s)

portmgr (erwin, pav)
core (wilko)

• When referring to a person in a position (e.g. mentor), write his/her name or alias first, then position(s) in parentheses

phk (mentor)
John Doe <a@b.c> (maintainer)

• Give proper credit
• Obfuscate e-mail addresses at will
• If committer==submitter, the “Submitted by” field may be omitted
• Don't use pronouns in field values
• Use a spell-chekcer
• Limit characters to US-ASCII
• Use present tense
• Use RFC2822 name/e-mail format where appropriate. In particular, don't forget a space between name and opening angle bracket.
• Specify category of PR's, e.g. src/56789
• Use proper capitalization. In particular, start sentences with capital letters.
• Use FreeBSD aliases instead of names whenever possible

PR:           ports/12345
Approved by:  John Doe <john@doe.org> (maintainer)
Approved by:  phk (maintainer, implicit)
Approved by:  portmgr (erwin)
Approved by:  Dow Jones (maitainer timeout, 25 days)
Submitted by: Jane Doe <jane@doe.org>

PR:           12345
Approved by:  maintainer
Approved by:  maintainer timeout
Approved by:  erwin (portmgr)

Reported by:  pointyhat via kris
Submitted by: Ports Fury