Club Penguin Fanon Wiki:Manual of Style

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'''This was based off the World of Warcraft Wiki's Manual of Style. Thank you.'''

This Manual of Style outlines a standard of clean, consistent formatting for articles on this wiki. The formatting described here is a guideline and can be overridden where circumstances warrant it. These guidelines will never be unerringly perfect for every situation. However, please try your best to keep to the advice outlined in this article so others may use your edits as an example when creating and editing their own articles.

These guidelines are a summary of the most important guidelines for this wiki, but a more expansive set of style guidelines can be found on Wikipedia at Wikipedia Manual of Style. A sample article based off these guidelines can be found on Project:Manual of Style/Sample.

Article layout
One of the most important parts of wiki editing is how to structure an article. The structure is a powerful thing: it dictates what information the reader reads and when he or she reads it. It can influence what people contribute, where it goes, and how it might be written. Structure has the power to inform or confuse the same way good or bad writing does. Keep a well structured article, and you're more likely to have a high quality one.

Organize sections in an article in a hierarchical structure like you would an outline. Keep it logical, but feel free to forsake strict logic for readability. Wherever possible, try to have an introduction for each section. Just like the article as a whole, the section should start with an introduction and then have its subsections below it. Try using a shallow structure rather than a deep one. Too many nested sections usually leads to a confusing or unreadable article.

Above all, keep your layout consistent. Don't throw your reader a curve ball too often. The following sections will offer some good advice on keeping your articles clean, formal, consistent, and clear.

Lead section
Unless an article is very short, it should start with an introductory lead section, before the first subheading. The lead should not be explicitly entitled == Introduction == or any equivalent header. The table of contents, if displayed, appears after the lead section and before the first subheading.

The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, and explaining the purpose of the character or article. It should be at least two sentences, and should be written in a clear and accessible style so that the reader is encouraged to read the rest of the article.

If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article. For example, write "King Frederick II was King of Terra during and after the Second War ."

The first time the article mentions the title, put it in bold using three apostrophes —  produces article title. Avoid other uses of bold in the first sentence, except for alternative titles of an article; for example:

The High Penguins, or formely most high Noob-faces, are a sub-species of Penguin...

Follow the normal rules for italics in choosing whether to put part or all of the title in italics. This will mainly apply to the titles of books and games:

Doors 2008 is an Operating System in the  Doors  series of Operating Systems.

Do not put links in the bold reiteration of the title in the article's lead sentence. For example, "The Fat Jacko  is a Jacko who..." versus "The Fat Jacko is a Jacko who."

Remember, indicate links and articles after you establish its name, no links in the actual title.

Table of contents
A table of contents will automatically appear in articles with a minimum of four headings (unless forced by the below options). By default this will be left-aligned above the first section heading.


 * To the force a TOC position (left-aligned):
 * To completely remove the TOC from a page, regardless of number of headings:

The table of contents can be right-aligned - but only if it is very long (over 15 entries) and an information box is not occupying the top-right corner of the article (rare exceptions exist).


 * Right-aligned TOC that floats next to text: tocright

Section headings
Use the  (two equal signs) style markup for main headings, equivalent to   and. Do not use a single . This is because a single   creates an   heading and should only be used when dividing an article in a major sector. All headings under an -type header will be categorized under it and not the article itself.

Avoid special characters in headings, such as an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]), unless you know wiki code.

Always keep headings short and simple. Headings are guidelines to your page's structure and should inform the reader rather than confuse. To keep it short, avoid unnecessary words or redundancy in headings, i.e. avoid a, an, and the, pronouns, repeating the article title, and so on, unless in the rare exception that it is for the sake of comedy. Avoid giving identical titles to different sections.

Images
Images make an article memorable and pretty. They can speak where words fail. A picture is worth a thousand words.

When choosing images, keep in mind placement, size, and the appropriateness of the image to the section. Let images flow with the text instead of break it up, unless needed.

Large images such as screenshots should use the "thumb" (example: ) option which displays large images as thumbnails. Images should generally be right aligned to enhance readability by allowing a smooth flow of text down the left margin - the "thumb" option does this by default. If an infobox is not being used in an article, a right aligned picture in the lead section is encouraged.

You can also firce the image to sit at the left or center side of the page with  respectively. Use one or the other, never both.

Galleries
When an article has many images, or can be improved by having more, and having inline images be detract from the readbility of an articles, the use of a  section is encouraged.

Tables
Tables should use a "class" design when possible. Tables can also be made sortable by adding a "sortable" class.

For long tables, it is recommended to create an "alt" class to alternate row colours to enhance readability. The below examples use "toccolours" as a class.

Navigation boxes
Navigation boxes can use or be based off Navigation Box. Generally they should be placed at the end of an article, above the categories. These are very nifty for quick viewing of other articles in the same kind of group as the one you are viewing

Template:MMK, fot instance, puts a big MMK navigation box at the end of an article, so that you can easily navigate to all of the crazy Mabel fans. It's much easier than placing every MMK character in the "See Also" section.

Article message boxes
You may want to look at Wikipedia:Article message boxes.

See also, external links, and navigational tables
The last sections, if they exist, should always be "See also", followed by "External links". In the case of "See also", use bullets to list the internal links.

Finally, in the external links should be, as stated, external links. In many cases here, this would provide a link to the parody of the article you are viewing. External links in-article are perfectly fine, just make sure they flow with the text.

Categories
Categories should be added to the end of an article - a full list can be found on Special:Categories. They take the form.

All articles should be accessible starting from Category:Browse, via subcategories.

Disambiguation
A disambiguation line is sometimes put at the beginning of an article to link to another article with the same or similar title. The line should be italicized and indented once. Most usually contain the phrase, "Were you looking for X?" For example:


 * Were you looking for " Turtletown", an official city in the Real World? 

The template for can also be used for this purpose.

You could also link to a Disambiguation Page, which serves the purpose of a hue list of links. Always add to the top of a dedicated disambiguation page, so that the Wiki software knows.

Quotations
Format a long quote (over four lines) as an italicized block quotation, which will be indented from both margins. Do not enclose the block quote in quotation marks. To format a block quotation, do not use the wiki indentation mark " " — instead, use the HTML  element.

Grammar
Grammar is a writer's toolbox. You can't build good sentences without knowing how to use your tools. Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep close to correct grammar standards to ensure clear communication.

Capitalization
Titles such as lord or king start with a capital letter when used as a title (followed by a name): "Chief Mark Triskelle", not "chief mark Triskelle". When used generically, they should be in lower case: "Whoot Smackler Whoot was a powerful dictator." The correct formal name of an office is treated as a proper noun. Hence: "Whoot Smackler Whoot was the first and last Dictator of Khanzem."

Classes should only be capitalized when used as a proper noun, i.e. as someone's name. ("Hero, go serve justice" versus "That hero is serving justice.")

Writing
We now come to the meat of an article: the words themselves. When you're editing wikis, you're both academic and artistic. You have to be accurate, but you also have to be interesting and creative. Neither one can dominate; you have to skillfully balance both.

Keep your writing concise. Don't use two words where one will do. Keeping your writing simple will make it easy to understand and easy to expand on. Use complete sentences whenever possible. When you write, use grammar as a toolbox: know the rules, but only break them on purpose. 1337 is for Str00dels.

Check your spelling and grammar. Do not use 'u' in place of 'you' or '2' in place of 'to', unless you intentionally to do so (like in a Str00del's dialougue or a code for a tunnel). Write the way you would for a class paper or a newspaper article.

Keep all of the topics you cover within the scope of the article. What that means is, you don't need to give a detailed history of humans on the page about Bill Gate$.

Consider the article's title as your point of origin and write from that perspective. Make use of the wiki's ability to link to more detailed articles or external sources for more information.

Write from an impersonal perspective.' Do not use "I." For example, do not write, "Malt Vieoh was a strange member of his hometown. He later joined Redlink Abbey, as far as I know ." Avoid drawing attention to the author (yourself) as much as possible, again, unless that was the intention.

Be bold. If you know something is wrong, correct it. If you think you could word something better, write it. If an article has a glaring deficiency, fill it. If its grammar stinks where it should not, edit it. If you feel it needs science, add it. Even if your first attempt isn't golden, you can fix it later or someone else will come along and fix it for you.

Don't be afraid to screw up.

See here for more Writing Tips, where we will discuss stories in depth.

Perspectives
There are several perspectives, meaning how the story is written. First person is within the "eyes" of a character, second person is putting the reader in the story as a character, third person is a narrator (which can be clueless and knows as much as the characters, biased, etc.), and script is styled like a play or dialogue. Certain perspectives work only for certain purposes. Here are some examples:

First person
"Hey Steve," I said.

"Hey Bob" Steve replied.

I saw him eat some cheese.

"Good!" He said.

"So?" I replied

"It filled my belly."

I took a slice of cheese as well. The table it was on as bigger than anything I've ever seen.

First person works great for diaries or journals, but NEVER use it to write an informative article.

Second person
"Hey Steve," you say.

"Hey Bob," replies Steve.

You see him eat some cheese.

"Good!" he says.

"So?" you reply.

"It filled my belly."

You take a slice of cheese, too. The table it's on is bigger than anything you've ever seen.

Second person is generally written in the present tense and doesn't work for anything except mission walkthroughs and multiple-ending stories, where the reader chooses which way the story goes. Other than that, don't use it.

Third person
"Hey Steve." Bob said.

"Hey Bob." Steve said.

Steve took a slice of cheese.

"Good." Steve said.

"So? Bob replied.

"It filled my belly."

Bob took a slice of cheese from the big table.

Third person is a versatile perspective. You can use it for both informative articles and stories.

Script
Bob: Hey Steve.

Steve: Hey Bob.

(Steve takes a slice of cheese)

Steve: Good.

Bob: So?

Steve: It filled my belly.

(Bob takes a slice of cheese)

Scripts work great for plays like this one, dialogue, quotes, and some stories.

Conclusion
Every article can be improved (even this one). Following these guidelines will not ensure a perfect article the first time, but it will give the article a stronger skeleton. It's ultimately your job as an editor to put meat on it.