User:Lord Grammaticus/Guidelines and Style Manual

The following is a draft for the Manual of Style and Guidelines for this wiki.

The Manual of Style covers the articles and mainspace of the wiki itself. User pages and sub-pages are exempt from these particular rules; however, sub-pages must still adhere to the Guidlines, and userfied articles must adhere to the Manual of Style before being moved to the mainspace.

Things to Remember About Wikis
These are suggestions and things you should take care to remember about EVERY wiki ever.
 * Any content added is subject to editing, re-writing, removal, dismantling, etc. In other words, when you make an edit to the mainspace's pages, you acknowledge that whatever changes you make are themselves subject to changes within the appropriate boundaries.
 * Always assume good faith, except for when there isn't any. We're all human, and I can understand being short of patience with someone; it's a sin we're all guilty of. That said, by assuming good faith whenever possible, you can avoid unnecessary edit wars, flame wars, and all that nonsense.
 * If you believe something was done (i.e. content removed, changed around) in error, however, be sure to discuss that with the user(s) in question. Do not flame/spam/harass/etc., as the inevitable result is a block, and it makes the situation somewhat harder to resolve.
 * The edit summary is just that: a summary of the changes you're making to a page. While it's not mandatory to fill out the summary, it's recommended if the changes you're making are really big. It also helps avoid that edit war thing I was talking about earlier. You should also get into the habit of checking a page's history and reading recent summaries if there are questions you want answered (e.g. why was an edit of mine undone?).
 * Speaking of, the minor edit check box is also recommended if the changes you're making are barely noticeable. It also helps if you're going to make several changes to a page at once; some people follow changes to an article via email, and it's best to avoid cluttering their inboxes. Plus, it's good to practice getting all the changes you need to make done in as few edits as possible; while it's entirely possible to miss things after the fact, this practice still helps cut down on unnecessary edits.
 * As an additional note, anonymous editors cannot mark changes as minor, so keep that in mind.
 * If the rules are hampering your ability to edit and/or enjoy the wiki experience, let someone know. As noted previously, Guidelines are usually just that: a list of things that the wiki's higher-ups would like you to try and remember while editing. There are some guidelines that will be enforced more strictly than others, of course, but administrators will usually be accommodating when it comes to people who make relatively simple and genuine mistakes.
 * Get in the habit of lurking. The best way to learn how a wiki works policy-wise is often just to sit back and watch.

Image Guidelines
Guidelines for images can be viewed on the Special:Upload page, and should be read before users begin submitting images.

Manual of Style: Article Standards
Each type of article has their own type of formatting, and has been seperated into their own sections.

General Tips

 * When writing articles, try not to lift (read "copypaste") text from other sites unless absolutely necessary. This especially applies to borrowing from Wikipedia. If you must copy anything from Wikipedia, let it be the sources they link, from which you can write your own article from scratch.
 * Try to avoid creating effortless stub articles. That is, do not begin a new article and leave it wanting in terms of information (no just typing "X is a character" for sake of example). If you create a new stub, try to include as much information as possible; if necessary, you can "userfy" it (aka move/start the article in your personal userpace), and then move it to the mainspace once it is sufficiently written.
 * Remember to keep articles as objective as possible.

Attacks
Attacks should have their facts in the following order: first appearance, input, description, tactics, gallery (sprites and/or screenshots), origin/etymology if applicable, and finally trivia. Certain attack pages (e.g. Hadoken) may be exempt from this particular order depending on the amount of information present.

Sourcing
'''Not every single piece of information has to have a source. '''Specifically, if you can verify a piece of information by playing the relevant game, then sourcing is probably unnecessary.

That said, source whatever information you can. This applies to new/upcoming releases, new characters, translation info, developer comments, game reviews and so on. References should be placed at the bottom of the page.

Images preferably should have a link source as well, with the appropriate copyright templates. Images created by the uploader should have an appropriate summary.

Linking
Linking within the article is best kept to a minimum of one link per subject per article. That is, if you link to Ryu's page within an article, only do so once because there's not much point in having several links to another page on the same article. Links in templates, specifically those such as the character info templates and character list templates, are not counted towards this.

As far as quotes go, multiple links will be allowed in order to give character-specific quotes some context.

As for formatting the links themselves:


 * When linking to a series article, please write it out like this: Street Fighter series.
 * When linking to a character's article while using a possesive, please write it out like this: Ryu's.
 * When dealing with katakana, put spaces in between words. For example: Rolling Attack (ローリング アタック, Rooringu Attaku).

Trivia
While there are plenty of trivia facts to be found about a given character, try to keep what is added within the realm of Street Fighter. The purpose of the trivia section is to house all facts that are notable about a given character, but cannot be reasonably placed anywhere else in the article. If you find a factoid in trivia that can be integrated into the article, then do so; an article's trivia section should ideally be as small as possible.

Vandalism

 * Vandalism basically includes most forms of non-constructive editing, including (but not limited to) removal of a large amount of content from pages for no given reason, and simply inserting nonsense into pages.
 * It's a waste of everyone's time, especially the vandal's.
 * It's also undoable in at least 10 seconds, and will result in a block of the vandal every time.

Spamming

 * Any posted links advertising unrelated external sites or products will be removed, and the poster will be warned, if they're lucky. Repeat offenses will definitely result in a block.

Unsourced Info/Opinions

 * There are places on the Internet where people can theorize, speculate, give opinons on their favorite/most hated characters, etc. The mainspace of this wiki is not one of those places. The articles on this wiki are intended to be as objective as possible.
 * As such, keep any personal opinions of characters, games, etc. on userpages and blogs. The same goes for unconfirmed non-speculative information; refer to the sourcing section above. However, in addition to userpages and blogs, posting it in the relevant Talk pages, Forum, and other such areas is acceptable.
 * Posting such things will not earn a block on its own. If done repeatedly enough and/or on a large enough scale, then administrative action will be taken. Particularly unwanted opinions (i.e. ones that involve breaking CAPS LOCK and SHIFT keys and being a general pest, among other things) will be likened to vandalism and also treated apropos.

Images and Videos

 * Repeated failure to adhere to the submissions guidelines (which are linked at the top of this page) is not advised, as all this does is create more work for everyone. Disregard for some specific guidelines will result in a few warnings, and then a block.
 * Submission of pornographic content or any other content of a similarly questionable nature is prohibited, and will result in a long and possibly permanent block.

Swearing

 * ...actually isn't that big a deal. Just keep it out of the articles (where it's usually unnecessary), and try not to overdo it elsewhere, Hollywood Tourette's isn't fun to read.