We here at the Ditto Town wiki like things to be uniform and everything so this Manual of Style (adapted from the Doctor Who Wiki) is here to set things straight.
For information on the most basic writing techniques and styles, which are used here, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
Below are some basic Ditto Town formatting dos and don'ts
Layout guide
In-universe
All in-universe articles should be structured as follows:
- Appropriate Infobox
- Main body of article
- Behind the Scenes
- Categories
For more details as to what each section of an article should contain, see the Article Formatting page.
Naming of articles
There are some rules regarding how articles on the Ditto Town wiki should be named.
- Article names should be in singular form, not plural.
- The titles of articles about individual characters should be the name by which the character was most commonly known in the Ditto Town universe, with later names preferred to earlier names, and full names preferred to partial names or nicknames. Titles, such as military ranks or titles of nobility, should be omitted.
- Unless the name of the article contains a proper noun, only the first word should be capitalized.
- For stories, especially those written before The Hunt For Darth Seerai, the name given in the Main Story Timeline is preferred. Alternate names should redirect to the name given in the timeline. (e.g. The X'ephure Encounter should redirect to War of Souls.)
Using the #
Do not use the # in a link unless you intend to direct to a section of that article with the title after the # as a section.
e.g. [[Main Story Timeline#Unchronicled Era: 510 - 1489 AES]]
Perspective
In-universe
If something is in-universe, or is described as such, it belongs to the Ditto Town universe exclusively and not in the real world. Characters are, for example, in-universe, but the writers who write for them are not in-universe. Exceptions are persons, places, and organizations which appear or are referred to in the Ditto Town universe which also exist(ed) in the real world, i.e., William Shakespeare, The Beatles, France. Pseudohistory is an integral part of in-universe treatment of canon material. Information given from a "real world" perspective (i.e. notes about the creation of a character, or authors, or other real-world trivia) should appear under a Behind the scenes subhead.
In case an entry might detail a subject of importance both to the real world and to the Ditto Town universe, you may create a Real World section in the article, such as The Real-World Origins of Zacce Nalum. Another example is years, months and specific days which are divided into 'Ditto Town Universe' events and 'Real World' events.
Out-of-universe
Out-of-Universe refers to the perspective in which an article is written; it is the opposite of in-universe. Something written from an out-of-universe (OOU) perspective is written from a real life point of view. It will refer, for example, to real life publications, authors, events, and so on, acknowledging that its subject is fictional. In contrast, an in-universe perspective will strive for verisimilitude; that is, it will be written as though the author existed within the Ditto Town universe. Articles about any in-universe things, such as characters, vehicles, terminology, or species, should always be written from an in universe perspective. If a section in the article is not, such as the listing of a character's published appearances or behind the scenes details, it should be tagged as such.
In contrast, articles about specific threads, fanfiction or other real life Ditto Town material should obviously be written from an out-of-universe perspective, but should still be noted as such. Basically, in-universe articles should never refer to the Ditto Town forums by name, or any other real life things such as publications, authors, or the like.
Use of material from other Wikis
Use of material from articles on other wikis, such as Teletraan I (Transformers) or TARDIS (Doctor Who), up to and including copying of articles (known as "forking"), is permissible if the following guidelines are observed:
- Such material should be properly credited in an External Links section with the following text:
- "This page uses content from the Wiki Name Here. The original article was at Name of article you used. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the Ditto Town Index File, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).
This gives proper credit to the original authors of the article and maintains compliance with Wikipedia's terms for use of material on the Wikipedia site.
- It is preferable that articles be written for this wiki without heavily relying on Wikipedia or other Wikis in order to create a unique wiki, different and individual from the main Wikipedia site.
Headings
Use the == (heading) markup for headings, not the ''' (bold) markup. Example:
===This is a heading===
which produces:
- This is a heading
If you mark headings this way, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article.
- Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all of the other letters in lower case.
- Avoid links within headings.
- Avoid overuse of sub-headings.
Usage and spelling
Though the readers and editors of the Ditto Town wiki speak many varieties of English, we prefer standard American English spelling, punctuation, and word usage. This is the variety of English used in the Ditto Town forums. In the event that an article uses spelling, punctuation, or word usage typical of English English, or some other form of the language besides American English, contributors who are native users of or otherwise fluent in American English standards reserve the right to edit articles to conform to those standards.
In keeping with the aforementioned standard, dates should place the month first, e.g. November 23, not 23 November.
If the title of an article differs in different varieties of English, the American English title should be the article title, with alternate names being used as redirects.
Please use complete sentences. "'The Chake War' first post" is not a complete sentence.
Tense
With the exception of story synopses, ongoing events, and Timeline pages, the past tense should be preferred in the main article text. All in-universe articles should be in past tense.
The articles on the Ditto Town wiki are presented as historical recordings that have been pieced together from scraps of information from various eras of history. As such, all details pertaining to this history have not yet been uncovered, and more information may be added at a later date. Keeping articles written in past tense provides consistency and flavor.
- Example: Alatariel was an inhabitant of Dittotopia. Rather than Alatariel is an inhabitant of Dittotopia.
Do not include phrases like "His ultimate fate is unknown" or "what happened to the ship after that is a mystery". Do not jump back and forth between tenses; this is confusing.
Do not include theories or hypothesis in any articles.
Capital letters
Names like "the Librarian" and "the Boss" should not have "the" capitalized. Only titles and proper nouns should be capitalized in the body of an article.
Human
In the in-universe sections of articles, the word "Human" should be capitalized, just as the name of any other sentient species in the Ditto Town universe would be. The word "humanoid", however, should not be capitalized.
Bold type
The article name, when first mentioned, should be bold, bolded and italicized if it is a story title.
Italics
Story names
Names of stories should be:
- Capitalized
- Italicized
e.g.;
- A (Slightly) Less Normal Life
- Time Rift
Spacing and formatting
- Generally there should be no more than one blank space between paragraphs, sections, etc. In most cases, a single carriage return is sufficient.
- Do not indent paragraphs.
- Generally speaking, HTML coding is not necessary, as Wikia has its own coding for such things as italics, bold, links, etc. Some coding for things such as forced line breaks (i.e. the HTML code "br") may be used if the Wikia coding isn't allowing a section (like a chart or an infobox) to format correctly. Inserting HTML coding such as "ul" and "li" will more often than not completely mess up the formatting of a page or infobox or generate error messages.
- Never underline text as this will confuse users with browsers configured to signify hotlinks with underlining.
Naming conventions
Titles such as Mr, Mrs, Dr, Professor, religious ranks or military ranks should not be included in article titles.
- For example a character such as Chase Ramsey, may be listed in the Post Office as 'Professor Ramsey,' however his full name is used for his article.
- If a character is widely known by a title, such as the Boss, then a redirect can be created under that name, pointing to the proper article title. This however should only be done sparingly and only with major characters.
- For characters who only have one name given such as Xavier, the story in which they appeared is added to the article name to disambiguate between articles.
Quotations
Quotations are not encyclopedic in nature, so they should only be used in articles in cases like the following:
- The Daleks' most famous war cry is "Exterminate!"
Links
- There is no need to link a keyword every time it occurs in an article; this is redundant. The one exception is if the keyword occurs under two or more different headings, as some readers may only read one section of an article rather than the entire page.
- Using links to redirect readers to another page is only necessary if a related topic cannot be covered in the original article without digressing too far from the article's main topic. This can contribute to too many red links in an article if those pages do not yet exist, and can be annoying.
Citation
In-universe articles
Telling readers where a statement can be be verified is important. It helps to focus articles and keeps the details in an article to only that which actually appeared in the various Ditto Town narratives. Don't assume that your readers have the same level of knowledge about the Ditto Town universe as you do. Cite often, cite accurately.
- On this wiki, it is difficult to avoid using "weasel words" like "many", "often" and "sometimes". The nature of an internally semi-inconsistent universe like Ditto Town usually makes concise, absolute statements untrue. Weasel words can be made more accurate by remembering to balance them with an appropriate number of citations. In general, if a sentence implies that something occurred multiple times, then there should multiple citations given. For instance, if you write, "The Fountain Fellowship often thwarted the plans of X'ephure", then you should give several story names to give a sense that "often" is an accurate term. Some other words which trigger the need for multiple citations are "frequently", "various", and "regularly" — as well as the simple use of numerals ("the Fellowship was known to have gone there three times").
Out of universe articles
Telling readers a statement that can be verified is important. For out of universe articles (those about the Real World) we use the same system as Wikipedia: Footnotes. The sources must have reference tags around the <ref> source</ref> (see also Wikipedia:Citing sources for more info). A section at the base of the article entitled 'Footnotes' must also be placed with {{reflist}} (this will collect the cited sources at the base of the article).
- Please use 'Footnotes' rather than 'References' as this term is associated with the in-universe References section.
Articles on living people
Although all articles should be as accurate as possible, special care must be taken with regards to articles on people that are currently alive, as issues such as libel may arise if claims are made without sources being given, or unnecessary rumors sparked. A prime example occurred in a late-1980s encyclopedia of dolls that was published in North America, and which, in a section discussing Tom Baker, make the unsourced claim that Baker died of a drug overdose in 1982. As it happened, this was an unrelated actor of the same name. If you choose to include information of a potentially controversial nature, a source must be given, and preferably a "reliable source" such as an interview, newspaper or magazine article, etc. Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database, not being peer reviewed, are not considered reliable sources.
Although this Wikia site is not considered part of Wikipedia, it is nonetheless helpful to review the Wikipedia Biographies of Living Persons policy. If you see an unsourced claim or comment regarding a living person, if a source cannot be located, it is best to play it safe and remove that material from the article.
Styles for specific types of articles
Articles on specific stories, years, or characters should have the appropriate infobox:
- Articles on specific stories in the Ancient Era should use the Ancient Era Story infobox (for stories that take place up to 495 AES).
- Articles on specific stories in the Ditto Sith Empire Era should use the Ditto Sith Empire Era Story infobox (for stories that take place 495 AES - 510 AES).
- Articles on specific stories in the Pre-Chhake Adventures Era should use the Pre-Chake Adventures Era Story infobox (for stories that take place 1490 AES - 1491 AES).
- Articles on specific stories in the Fountain Fellowship Era should use the Fountain Fellowship Era Story infobox (for stories that take place 1491 AES - 1492 AES).
- Articles on specific stories in the New Fellowship Era should use the New Fellowship Era Story infobox (for stories that take place 1493 AES - 1510 AES).
- Articles on specific stories in the Future Era should use the Future Era Story infobox (for stories that take place 1511 AES onward).
- Articles on Sentient Species should use the Sentient Species Infobox.
- Articles on Non Sentient Species should use the Non Sentien Species Infobox.
- Articles on individuals (Fountain Fellowship members, Villains, Jedi, Delantrim, etc.) should use the appropriate Character infobox]. For characters that do not fall under any classification (either neutral or unaffiliated good guys) use the "Infobox character" infobox.
- Articles on items should use the Item infobox.
- Articles on events (not necessarily included in a story, but with enough background information to warrant a full article), should use the Event infobox.
- Articles on planets should use the Planet Infobox. For cities, the City infobox is to be used.
- Infobox titles and names should not have links, as they would simply point to the article the infobox, and thus the reader, are already on. In other words, for the infobox on the page for "The Hunt For Darth Seerai," "The Hunt For Darth Seerai" should not be a link since it would only point to the page for "The Hunt For Darth Seerai."