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.

Contents 1 Basics 1.1 Linking 1.2 Avoid parenthesis 2 Article titles 2.1 Definite/indefinite articles 2.2 Capital letters 2.3 Entries from the Old Tongue 2.4 People 2.4.1 Titles and Honorifics 2.4.2 Reincarnations 3 Calendars 4 Animals, plants, and other organisms 5 Regions 6 Extradimensional spaces 7 Italics 7.1 Book titles 7.1.1 Chapters 7.2 Old Tongue 8 Quotations 9 Pronunciation 10 Sections 10.1 Notes 10.2 Other sections 11 Talk pages

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 Special:Wanted 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 should be when the noun is only found (or almost always found) in a plural form (Borderlands, Two Rivers, Dreadlords).

[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

Articles' 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.

• So we would e.g. go with Sea Folk over Atha'an Miere ?
  • That's a tougher one. Can you run your regexp function over the text? I suspect gaidin/Warder and ashandarei/black-bladed-spear (or is it black-hafted spear?) will be obvious in their preference, but the Sea Folk call *themselves* the Atha'an Miere, don't they? nae'blis _(talk) 15:42, 25 Oct 2005 (UTC)

 $ grep -ic "atha'an miere" wot1-9.txt; grep -ic "sea folk" wot1-9.txt 
132
303

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 full name (three names if earned from the Age of Legends. Create redirects from given names and partial names.

• Should the main article for a Forsaken be at e.g. Rahvin or Ared Mosinel?
  • Mmmm, good point. Maybe this is a place for something like Wikipedia's "put the article where you'd expect it to be found". Since the Forsaken have abandoned their given names, I'd say put them at their Chosen (nudge, nudge) names. I was thinking more of people like Mat, Verin, etc... good catch. nae'blis _(talk) 14:51, 25 Oct 2005 (UTC)
• Shouldn't people, places, etc also include the book/chapter that they appear in? Doing so would be very helpful in cross checking information.

[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.

Below text can be moved to talk page soon, as this seems to be resolved. nae'blis _(talk) 19:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• Mixed articles? Sounds like a recipe for waste of work, out-of-sync articles &etc. We should just go with soft redirects, like Wikipedia. (For an example see Anakin Skywalker). --Maru (talk) Contribs 02:08, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC)
  • Good call. This should probably be branched out into a full section on how to handle Spoilers. --Gherald 03:41, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC)
    • To see what I'm talking about, see the separate articles on Gaebril and Rahvin that now exist. You can read the Gaebril article without ever knowing his true identity, unless you choose to. That's one of the things I hate about EWoT... nae'blis _(talk) 23:55, 14 Nov 2005 (UTC)
      • I knew what you were talking about, and I agree with Maru about it being a waste of work that would promote out of sync articles. Gaebril is just an assumed name/alias for Rahvin, so there should just be a corresponding ==Lord Gaebril== at Rahvin. I am sorry if you don't like it, but it is the best solution. As you can see from the edit history, there were apparently Star Wars fans who wished to have a seperate article for Anakin on Wikipedia, but it was replaced by a soft redirect to Darth Vader. AFAICT, the only "Reincarnation" which merits seperate articles are Rand and Lews, because they (perhaps somewhat schizophrenically) are not really the same person. --Gherald 18:07, 15 Nov 2005 (UTC)
        • I strenuously disagree; we do not know for entire books who Corlan Dashiva really is, so redirecting him to his pre-incarnated form is a spoiler of the highest magnitude, that cannot be warned about the way the software works now. I disagree about Rahvin as well, but to a lesser degree (for example, are we just going to rewrite/merge away the entire Mazrim Taim article if it comes to pass that he really is one of the Forsaken?). I don't think your two opinions yet constitute any manner of consensus about this. nae'blis _(talk) 21:53, 16 Nov 2005 (UTC)
          • Our opinions and a clear (IMO elegant) Wikipedia precedent. A soft redirect on Corlan Dashiva will warn just fine. If Taim is a Forsaken, then the Mazrim Taim article will be moved to ==Mazrim Taim== on the Forsaken's page, and become a soft redirect to [[forsaken name#Mazrim Taim]]. --Gherald 22:30, 16 Nov 2005 (UTC)
• Things do not seem to be done this way. Is the policy now, do create soft redirects? I think it should be. Spewin 16:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  Yeah, I guess soft redirects work fine, although a small explanatory text might not be amiss. "Corlan Dashiva is an Asha'man. For more about his true identity, click the following link:" Interestingly, the famous Anakin Skywalker soft redirect Gherald mentions above has now been split into a full article, as of February 2006. *shrug* I still think the reincarnated Forsaken are a different case from simply redirecting their Age of Legends' names, but I'm not going to buck consensus. nae'blis _(talk) 19:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Calendars

Pages are being built for significant years/decades; 998 NE, 800 AB, etc. Links in-text should follow that format; month and date can be included as well, although for right now there is no easy way to jump to a particular month in the timeline.

• You mean an easy way like Template talk:ne easy way? :) --Gherald 22:48, 22 Nov 2005 (UTC)
  • There you go, being clever again.... Taisham 12, 978 NE. Can you make it link to a subheading of the month, eventually? nae'blis _(talk) 23:02, 22 Nov 2005 (UTC)
    • Not sure what kind of subheading you are talking about. Got an example? --Gherald 23:12, 22 Nov 2005 (UTC)
      • Sure (I do now); something like making {{ne|978|Danu|2}} jump to 978 NE#Danu. It should fail-over gracefully, if there's no such subheading on that page. nae'blis _(talk) 23:55, 22 Nov 2005 (UTC)
        • Currently {{ne|978|Danu|2}} links to 978 NE#Danu-2. It would not make sense to change the template so that {{ne|978|Danu|2}} links to 978 NE#Danu... --Gherald 00:12, 23 Nov 2005 (UTC)
          • Somehow I didn't see it doing that earlier (no idea why, I'll blame work computers). However it would seem more relevant to link to the month in most cases, since only in very modern times will the 'day' matter... I dunno, let's see what others think. You were actually ahead of me on this one...cheers! nae'blis _(talk) 05:08, 23 Nov 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Animals, plants, and other organisms

[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] Extradimensional spaces

[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}}

“Death is lighter than a feather, but Duty is heavier than a mountain”
   — 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.”

===Prophecies===

See Quotations

Prophecies should be clearly demarcated from normal text, and not editted in anyway (that is, when you are formatting them, leave any punctuation marks out and after the quotes; that is, it should go: "inspired by her prophecy "From this day Andor marches toward pain and division. The Shadow has yet to darken to its blackest, and I cannot see if the Light will come after.", Elaida became an enemy to Rand al'Thor", not "inspired by her prophecy, "From this day Andor marches toward pain and division. The Shadow has yet to darken to its blackest, and I cannot see if the Light will come after,", Elaida became an enemy to Rand al'Thor".

For long, full quotations, one should go to a newline, indent, and italicize, like so:

"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."

Hmm, isn't this just the sort of thing we have Template:Quote for? --Gherald 03:51, 5 Nov 2005 (UTC)

“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.”

Well, the quote section does not appear to deal with inline quotes yet. So.... /me shrugs. --Maru (talk) Contribs 00:37, 6 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I think Template:Quote is good for those sorts of things, but a style guide needs to be in place too; we can't/shouldn't use templates for everything (people won't remember them, anyway). nae'blis _(talk) 04:09, 7 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Also, Min's viewings don't fall in the usual style of prophecy, but they may need to be addressed here. nae'blis _(talk) 04:09, 7 Nov 2005 (UTC)

IMO relevant parts of the above should just be integrated into ==Quotations== --Gherald 07:03, 7 Nov 2005 (UTC)

[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 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.

• (I know some Wikipedians feel otherwise... /me stares at maru ... and you are welcome to include your opposing view here ... but this is one of my pet peeves that I feel a bit strongly about. In the absence of a consensus either way, I would ask that you treat this similarly to an American vs. British dispute and try not to "correct" others' preference. --Gherald)
  • I still feel that an invariant "References" is misleading, but it's not really important, so I guess I'll concede on this issue. Actually, speaking if American vs. British, I think we need to hash out a policy on that- a straightforward application of Wikipedia policy would say (since the books are written by an American) that everything should be in American English, but that seems a little restrictive to me. Regardless, we need a discussion on that.
    • I think American English would be a good standard, given the books' place of origin, with the usual caveat that we can fix things that aren't meshing well. I try to use the book's standard for things like traveling/travelling, for example. nae'blis _(talk) 21:04, 21 Nov 2005 (UTC)
  • Right now I don't see us having any "References" section because ==Notes== serves that purpose in main articles. Although in chapter summeries there will be a ===References=== subsection under the ==Character==, ==Items==, etc. lists. These could possibly be changed to ==Mentioned== if that is clearer.

[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] Other sections

[edit] Talk pages

See Help:Talk page