Help:Style guide
From A Wheel of Time Wiki
| This page is a proposed policy, guideline, or process for A Wheel of Time Wiki
The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. |
|
Lifted shamelessly from Wikipedia:Style guide as a starting point; we should only include those areas in which we differ/specialize. Also take a look at Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles and our project:chapter summaries.
[edit] Basics
[edit] Linking
The first time an important Name, Item, Event, etc. is mentioned in an article, make a link by enclosing it with [[ ]] tags; thereafter do not link it again unless this helps provide context (such as if the last mention was a couple sections back). If the article you are linking to does not yet exist, it is still useful because the article may be created later, and in the meantime it will automatically be ranked higher on the Wanted Pages listing to help judge demand.
[edit] Avoid parenthesis
Parenthesis are ugly and should be avoided in all situations. This is not to say that there is never any practical use for them, but before doing so please consider rewording/restructuring your content into something more legible and perhaps even pleasing to the eye.
[edit] Article titles
Article titles should be singular (Trolloc instead of Trollocs; you can place the plural 's' after the link if grammar requires it. Exceptions to this are when the noun is only found (or almost always found) in a plural form (Borderlands, Two Rivers).
[edit] Definite/indefinite articles
When a proper noun is always referred to with its definite article (the bleakness, The Wheel of Time series), include it in the article title. Otherwise, omit it or create a redirect to the simplified version.
[edit] Capital letters
If the title of an article is not a proper noun, do not capitalize when linking to it, e.g. grolm.
[edit] Entries from the Old Tongue
Article titles should only be in the Old Tongue if that is the most common way to refer to the subject at hand: ashandarei instead of black-bladed spear.
Otherwise, create a soft redirect at the Old Tongue definition page (such as gaidin, which should link to Warder).
[edit] People
Articles on people should be located at the expected full name (first and last name if given for modern people; three names if earned from the Age of Legends). Exceptions include the Forsaken and Ogier). Create redirects from given names and partial names.
[edit] Titles and Honorifics
Within reason, titled and honorifics should be included in redirects, to facilitate ease of writing articles. So Queen Morgase should redirect to Morgase Trakand, and Alanna Sedai should redirect to Alanna Mosvani.
[edit] Reincarnations
To avoid spoilers, do not create automatic redirects from to their original/new form; a soft redirect works better. See Gaebril for an example. for more information.
- I don't think we should worry too much about spoilers. After all, someone looking up the WoT wiki won't be able to avoid them anyway. If people are going to look up WoT online without having read the whole series it is more their fault for looking stuff up than out fault for showing them spoilers. Furthermore, Gaebril comes under the category of Darkfriends and the button says Rahvin if you hover over 'main article'. IMO, we should take out spoiler warnings for the first 11 books and New Spring. Moridin_2000 14:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC) User talk:Moridin 2000 19 Feb 2009
- Right, spoiler warnings aren't needed for most things from NS-11. But I think they're helpful in some cases, like these reincarnations. --Gherald 06:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Format for Character Entries
As an attempt to standardise the format of all character entries and to tidy up/sort some of the longer articles, the following format is being used.
Open with a one-line summary on that character. This shouldn't often exceed one sentence.
[edit] AHA!
For the main entry - Remember AHA!
Appearance - This covers everything about their physical appearance.
History - Everything that exists independent of the events of the series. i.e. their origins, personal qualities, hobbies and pre-existing relationships to other characters. Where possible, these should be ordered chronologically. Start with basic facts and move on to lesser-known details.
NOTE: The events of New Spring are included in HISTORY rather than in ACTIVITIES because the are pre-existing at the beginning of the chain of events in the series.
Activities - Everything related to events that happen during the course of the series. Each incident should be added in a new line so as to identify that they take part at different stages throughout the books. Where possible, these should be ordered chronologically.
Where there are a lot of entries on activities, subsections should be created to seperate the the activities into major areas.
! stands for anything else that either doesn't fit into the above (such as subsections detailing on the main theories in a major debate concerning that character or for additional items that may be better seperated from other sections, like Min's Viewings (see Sheriam Bayanar for an example).
Check out the page on Alviarin Freidhen to see all these elements in use.
[edit] Use of Character Templates
It is strongly encouraged to use the Template:Character for every character entry and attempt to fill in as many entries for each character as possible. Standardised colours and images should be used for all characters belonging to a specific group (such as Aes Sedai logo and the Ajah colour)
For neatness and to avoid clashing colours, the header text in the coloured band on the template should always be either black or white.
[edit] Standard colors
Standard colors used in the wiki so far, along with the group it is applied to are as follows:
[edit] Aes Sedai & the White Tower
- RED AJAH: bgcolor=#880000 fgcolor= white
- GREEN AJAH: bgcolor= green fgcolor= white
- GREY AJAH: bgcolor=gray fgcolor= black
- BROWN AJAH: bgcolor= #996600 fgcolor= white
- YELLOW AJAH: bgcolor= yellow fgcolor= black
- BLUE AJAH: bgcolor= blue fgcolor=white
- WHITE AJAH: bgcolor= #ffffcc fgcolor= black
- BLACK AJAH: bgcolor= black fgcolor= white
- UNKNOWN AJAH: bgcolor=white fgcolor=black
- TOWER AFFILIATES/NOVICES/ACCEPTED/KIN: bgcolor=#663399 fgcolor=white
- WARDERS: bgcolor=#556633 fgcolor=white
[edit] Other Groups
- AIEL: bgcolor=#553300 fgcolor=white
- ANDORANS: bgcolor=#990000 fgcolor=white
- ASHAMAN: bgcolor=black fgcolor=white
- BAND OF THE RED HAND= bgcolor=red fgcolor=white
- CAIRHIENIN: bgcolor=#ffff00 fgcolor=black
- KANDORI: bgcolor=#7fff00 fgcolor=black
- SAILORS/SHIP CAPTAINS: bgcolor=turquoise fgcolor=white
- TWO RIVERS RESIDENTS: bgcolor=#33cc33 fgcolor=white
- WHITECLOAKS: bgcolor= #ffdd11 fgcolor= black
[edit] Standard icons
The following image files are being used in the image section of the character template throughout the given group.
- ALL NON-BLACK AES SEDAI: image=Flame-icon.png
- TOWER AFFILIATES/NOVICES/ACCEPTED/KIN: image=Flame-icon.png
- WARDERS: image=Flame-icon.png
- BLACK AJAH: image=Faces-icon.png
- WHITECLOAKS: image=BOTRH icon.jpg
- ANDOR/TWO RIVERS: image=Andoran-icon.png
[edit] Calendar and dates
When writing a date, link to its calendar page with the era's template. For instance Template:ne can be used as follows:
| Code | Result |
|---|---|
{{ne|998}} | 998 NE |
{{ne|998|Choren}} | Choren 998 NE |
{{ne|998|Choren|17}} | Choren 17, 998 NE |
[edit] Regions
The area in which most of the books take place is the Westlands; the fan-name for the entire world is Randland; don't confuse them!
As with entries in the Old Tongue, create redirects from less common names to more common ones (i.e. Three-Fold Land and Djevik K'Shar should redirect to Aiel Waste.
- unless we want to be culturally relevant, and let the Aiel name their own homeland... I'm okay with that, too, but we went the other way with Sea Folk/Atha'an Miere. nae'blis (talk) 22:47, 22 Nov 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Italics
[edit] Book titles
Book titles should always be italicized. If you are referring to a book by its number in the sequence (Book 12, or "the prequel novel"), do not use italics.
[edit] Chapters
To make reference to a chapter summary, see help:book templates.
To write out a chapter's title, use quotations and italics: "Summoned in Haste"
[edit] Old Tongue
When creating an article for a word in the Old Tongue (or defining it inline, such as the ashandarei article), utilize the {{OT|definition}} template to provide a consistent definition style.
Old Tongue words should always be italicized.
[edit] Quotations
Comprehensive lists of quotations belong on Wikiquote:The Wheel of Time. But you are encouraged to freely insert relevant ones into articles using the {{quote}} tag, for example:
{{quote|Death is lighter than a feather, but Duty is heavier than a mountain.|Rand al'Thor}}
—Rand al'Thor
Relevancy can range from simple comic relief to somber pronouncements on issues of grave importance to the series. For example, a prophecy:
- “In the last, lorn fight
'gainst the fall of long night,
the mountains stand guard,
and the dead shall be ward,
for the grave is no bar to my call.”
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Sections
H1 style (=Section name=) headers should not be used within articles unless the sections are basically mini-articles grouped onto a single article page. Examples of this include most of the links at the bottom of wikipedia's wotnav.
Sections headers are not titles, and should be capitalized like normal sentences. Avoid using the article title in section names as this is usually redundant.
| Right | Wrong |
|---|---|
| History | History of Style guide |
| See also | See Also |
| External links1 | External Links |
1 Note: The standard name External links is preferred even when there is only one external link. It is not meant to quantify whether there is more than one link in the section, but rather to serve as a separator indicating that loose external links should be collected below that line, regardless of however many there happen to be.
[edit] Notes
Entries in the Notes section should be Footnotes, created using <ref>note text</ref> tags within the body of the article. To produce the list of footnotes, substitute template Notes (or References) at the bottom of the article.
- Eg: {{subst:Notes}}
[edit] Talk pages
See Help:Talk page
