Some rules and guidelines for wiki articles. Not an official manual of style (at least not yet), just something I threw together from my notes. Will hopefully clean this up later (it's rather ironic having something that's supposed to help with consistency and formality be so informal and messy), but I figured I might as well share this now to help everyone keep track of stuff.
While this is currently an unofficial/informal post, [puts on mod hat] these are official guidelines and should be followed whenever possible.
General guidelines[]
- All Plot sections (on character pages, episode pages, and any other articles that have them) should be in present tense. However, if there is a Past subsection, that subsection should be in past tense.
- Avoid using "you", as it is informal
- Avoid using "I" or "we" — stick to third person
- American spelling is preferred, as this is the wiki for an American show, though you don't need to go out of your way to "correct" British spelling.
Grammar & style details[]
Punctuation[]
- Quotation marks go around episode titles (e.g. "The Sword Part 1")
- Periods do not go at the end of captions if the captions are only sentence fragments
Italics & Boldface[]
- The show's title goes in italics (i.e. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)
- Book titles go in italics (e.g. Legend of the Fire Princess)
- Boat names in italics (i.e. The Dragon’s Daughter III)
- The title of an article should be in bold in its first use in the introductory paragraph (e.g. Catra is one of the central characters of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), and in normal type (that is, not bold or italics) for the rest of the article
Miscellaneous[]
- Season numbers should be written out, not numerical (e.g. Season One, not Season 1)
- Shapeshifter, shapeshifting, etc. should be written as one word, not hyphenated
- Failsafe should be written as one word, not hyphenated
Character articles[]
Adapted from User:KodeVillainHoax6/Manual of Style
Any character who has been named or has a line should have an article.
Titles[]
The title of an article should never include the rank of the character, should that character fit under a rank. They will be referred to in the introductory paragraph of the article as <[title]> <[name]> (e.g. Queen Angella) and simply their name for the rest of the article (ex. Angella)
Layout of a Character Article[]
Each article should begin with an introductory paragraph stating the subject's relevance to the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power franchise, their purpose, and some sense of their personality. In a character article, it should state the most important actions they took during the course of the show's plot. A description of their essence should remain general and vague, as to keeping the articles formal and factual.
Directly above this paragraph, if the article is one for a character, there should be a quote that somewhat shows the character's personality. As to what this may be, a community poll may be posted and the winning quote can go up on the article. However, these kinds of changes are exactly what need community input--they are obvious enough to be important, one of the first aspects a viewer may discern when inspecting the page, as well as heavily dependent on opinion as to whether or not the quote satisfies its purpose. The quote should have no line breaks before it.
The first letter of every heading and subheading should be capitalized according to titles in APA style.
In a character article, the sections should be as follows, respectively, and each one uses heading 1 unless otherwise stated:
- Description, an expanded form of the opening paragraph pertaining to the character's relevance within the plot and how such came to be
- (Physical) Appearance, containing a detailed description of the subject's appearance
- Personality, a description on how the character behaves. Generally, anything in this area should be supported by specific examples in the show, although those examples are not actually written down because then it turns into an argumentative writing analyzing the character's behavior rather than simply stating it, the purpose of which is to inform
- Powers and Abilities, a section for the skills that said character is known to have used in the show, especially ones that stand out because not everyone has it
- Abilities and Powers can often be subheaders for this heading
- Relationships, for the relationships to other characters that the article's character has developed through interactions
- Each of those characters should have their own subheading
- Plot, for what the character has done throughout the plot, although the only text immediately under "Plot" should be the subheading of the season in which the character first appears. If information about the character's life before the events of season one, simply label it "past" and make that a separate subheading. Under each subheading should state what the character did in that season; when they were shown or mentioned in the show
- Quotes, for the character's quotes. If possible, state the episode in which the quote was said. For example, in <"I ordered the battle your father perished in. I've never forgiven myself." - The Beacon> the episode is listed after a dash. Additionally, if a character engaged in dialogue and their conversation was to be recorded in this section, please use the Dialogue a-b template. The first and last quote of a character should be included, chronologically or biographically, and any prominent quotes that showed their character or advancement throughout the plot.
- For characters who appear in few or sparse episodes, there should be an "Appearances" heading, and under it, the templates AppearancesS1, AppearancesS3, AppearancesS2, AppearancesS4, AppearancesS5, etc., which show which episodes the character was in. The templates AppearancesCB (for characters who appeared in the She-Ra books), AppearancesSWA (for those who appeared in the Swift Wind Adventures shorts), and AppearancesPRR (for those who appeared in the Princess Rebel Recruitment shorts) can also be used if applicable.
- Gallery, with a link to the character's gallery page, written as, See: [pagename]/Gallery
- Trivia, for miscellaneous but confirmed facts about the characters
- References, for citations. A citation should simply state which episode a piece of information was confirmed in, or where on social media, or otherwise. Use the <ref> tag besides the text that you wish to cite, and a number will appear where you put the citation, automatically a link to the bottom of the page where all references appear
Directly to the right side of the article, and what should appear in the syntax as the first series of lines, is the infobox.
Episode articles[]
The layout of an episode article should be as follows:
- Two short introductory paragraphs stating its episode number, season, and release date
- A Synopsis section, with a synopsis copied from an official source (usually the blurb off of Netflix). This should be in italics.
- A Plot section, detailing the events of the episode. This should be written in present tense.
- A Characters section listing all the characters who appeared in the episode. If it is a character’s debut episode, that may be in parentheses next to their name (e.g. "Bow (debut)").
- Organizations, listing any organizations that are in the episode. Usually just The Horde, The Rebellion, and The Princess Alliance, though some pages have also included the First Ones and the Best Friend Squad.
- Artifacts and Tech, listing any artifacts and tech that appear in the episode (e.g. Bow's Tracker Pad, The Sword of Protection). Some pages currently have Artifacts and Technology as two separate sections; those should be merged into one.
- Locations, listing any locations from the episode (e.g. The Whispering Woods, The Fright Zone, Bright Moon).
- Transcript, linking the episode’s transcript page. Written as See: [episode name]/Transcript.
- Gallery, linking the episode’s gallery page. Works the same as the Transcript section.
- Trivia, for miscellaneous but confirmed facts about an episode. If these include things stated by a crew member or other source (information one couldn't know just by watching the episode itself), there should be a reference citing the source.
- References (if applicable), for any citations in the article
Some episode pages may have additional sections, such as Creatures or Vehicles.
Galleries[]
Character, Episode, and Relationship articles should have a gallery subpage ([pagename]/Gallery), while for all other artices, the gallery should be a section of the page.
Galleries are divided into subsections for Renders and Promotional Art (if applicable), Production Art (if applicable), and Screenshots. The screenshots should go in chronological order (that is, the order the shots appear in the show), and if there are enough they may be divided by season subheadings (Season One, Season Two, etc).