The Manual of Style is a page that editors will be recommended to refer to before they make any edit on the wiki.
The purpose of the manual of style is to provide guidelines for users that want to help stylize the articles into professionally written pieces of work, serve as a guide for new editors to watch out for in articles, make articles consistent with each other and resolve edit disputes.
Since the manual of style serves as a guide for users to follow, it is a house style the wiki wants users to apply for the sake of quality and not as a rule to follow. This means two things: The users that have edits including elements disregarded in the manual of style will not be in trouble (unless it was to purposefully disrupt) and the user can "break the rules" if they feel their edits can improve something (in which case, it is still recommended to contact a moderator for their opinion).
Article do's and do not's
Do
- Write in paragraphs
- Use punctuation
- Link
- Add sources
- Add categories
- Fix grammar
- Use templates
Do not
- Forget capitalization
- Add lists of attributes
- Leave blank articles
- Vandalize articles
- Add speculative information
- Add both appearance and personality in infoboxes
Article titles
Avoid making articles with conjectural titles. Please make sure the article name for a subject is its official name. Similarly, please do not use nicknames or alternate names for an article's title. (e.g. "Rocko Rama" instead of "Main Character.")
Article names must also be written in the singular form rather than the plural. (e.g. "Dog" instead of "Dogs.") Certain exceptions may apply, such as if an article is a list. (e.g. "List of dogs.") Additionally, the definite article (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) should be avoided in article titles except when they are part of an official title.
When starting an article, make sure to always include at least a single sentence about the subject. This sentence should include a brief definition of the subject, and don't forget to bold the first instance of the article name.
Language
For the purpose of maintaining consistency, and because the subject of this wiki originates from the United States, words on this wiki should conform to the spelling used in American English. This applies only to main namespace pages, not talk or user pages. Although no user should be harassed or punished for using other regional spellings of words, editors are encouraged to conform text in articles to U.S. spelling. If you come across a word spelled the way it is in another country (for example if you see "color" spelled as "colour"), just change it to the U.S. English spelling and be done with it.
Wikitext spacing
In order to ease source editing, there are specific guidelines for the spacing of wikitext.
| Incorrect | Correct |
|---|---|
*Bullet
**Point
***List
#Numbered
##List
==Header 2==
===Header 3===
====Header 4====
Content
===Header 5===
More content
{{Template with named parameters
|a=a
|ab=b|abc=c
|abcd=d}}
{{Template with numbered parameters|
A|B|C|D}}
;Bolded
:Indent
|
* Bullet
** Point
*** List
# Numbered
## List
== Header 2 ==
=== Header 3 ===
==== Header 4 ====
Content
=== Header 5 ===
More content
{{Template with named parameters
|a = a
|ab = b
|abc = c
|abcd = d
}}
{{Template with numbered parameters|A|B|C|D}}
; Bolded
: Indent
|
Linking
Linking is usually limited to the first occurrence of the word or phrase in each article, not counting links inside infoboxes. This is because spamming too many wiki links makes articles difficult to read. Using this guideline, one thing should never be linked on a page more than twice. Adding multiple links for the same term might be acceptable in very long articles, where linked instances of the term are very far apart. Another exception to this is if multiple links lead to different sections on the same page.
When linking to an article, please use this format:
instead of
✗ [[Rocko Rama]]'s
When linking to Wikipedia, please use this format:
instead of
✗ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji_mermaid Fiji mermaid]
When linking to another wiki on Wikia, please use this format:
instead of
✗ [http://WIKIANAME.wikia.com/wiki/WIKIAPAGE TEXT]
Piped links are only necessary for examples like the ones above. Usually, for plural words, the pipe is not necessary since it is already highlighted. (e.g. [[Nudist]]s = Nudists)
Templates
Stubs
Do not add the "Article stubs" category directly to an article. Instead, append {{stub}} to the beginning of an article. Articles should only be marked as a stub if the article is incomplete and is missing some basic information.
Cite web template
The Cite web template is used to create citations of web sources and thus have a better order in the references of the articles.
Sensitive template
Due to certain adult themes that Rocko's Modern Life has in its episodes, some articles may contain sensitive content for some people. Therefore, these articles should have the Sensitive template, which will notify the reader of sensitive topics in the article and categorize it in the "Article with sensitive material" category.
Specific issues
Straight vs. Curly (Smart) quotes
The only acceptable type of quote designs are the straight quotes (' ") since they are available on your keyboard to type short-handedly and majority of the articles uses the straight punctuation characters. This means that curly (smart) punctuation characters (‘ ’ “ ”) are not acceptable due to the symbols being outside of a common keyboard and being tedious to render in the articles using keyboard shortcuts.
Use of commas
As Rocko's Modern Life Wiki entails an American television series, please follow the American English usage of the comma, known as the "Oxford comma" or "serial comma", when appropriate. This comma generally separates the final two items in a series. For example, "Rocko, Heffer, Filburt, and Spunky were sent to the space" is preferred instead of "Rocko, Heffer, Filburt and Spunky were sent to the space".
Confused on when to use commas between adjectives? If the sentence contains adjectives, ask yourself:
- Does the sentence make sense if the adjectives are written in reverse order?
- Does the sentence make sense if the adjectives are written with "and" between them?
If you answer yes to both of these questions, then the adjectives are a coordinate set and should be separated by a comma. Examples of coordinate and non-coordinate adjectives:
He was a difficult, unfriendly toad. (coordinate) They have a white frame picture. (non-coordinate) She wore a wide silk dress. (non-coordinate) Your mother has a soft, friendly gaze. (coordinate) The relentless, powerful summer sun beat down on them. (1-2 are coordinate, but the third is non-coordinate.)
The relentless, powerful, oppressive sun beat down on them. (Both 1, 2, and 3 are coordinate.)
For more on the use of the comma, see this page by Connecticut Community College or this page by Purdue University.
Use of apostrophes
Like the comma, please follow the English usage of the apostrophe. This is noted for decades and years, e.g., '90s instead of 90's/90s or 1990s instead of 1990's.
On the difference between "its" vs. "it's", note that "its" is a possessive pronoun of a subject's quality or object (ex: O-Town is a town in the United States, its biggest corporate company is Conglom-O); whereas "it's" is a contraction of "it is" or "it has", indicating status or position of the subject (ex: Chokey Chicken is a restaurant in O-Town, it's a parody of KFC).
When using apostrophes to make citations, leave out punctuation marks that are not part of the citation (ex: "Episode". instead of "Episode."); however, if they are part of the citation, they can go inside the apostrophes. For quotes, final punctuation marks must be inside apostrophes (ex: When saw it, Chuck and Leon said "it looks pretty good."), but note that this excludes non-final punctuation marks such as comma or colon.
Capitalization
Capitalization of article titles and section headers should include the first letter of the first word being a capital letter, but it should otherwise follow the normal English rules of capitalization. For example, a section title should be "External links" instead of "External Links." An exception is the capitalization of article titles for characters.
POV
The situations in the articles of this wiki should be written from a neutral point of view in a disinterested tone, giving no bias or preferences and avoiding giving unimportant issues undue weight. That means it should include facts, not personal opinions. Avoid the use of imperative form and second person (you), and the statements about what "some fans think" when writing articles.
Raw format
When bolding an article's title within the article itself, only the first instance of the article's name should be bolded. In instances where alternate names or nicknames for the article's title are added, the first instances of them should also be bolded. Here is an example of this:
- A bag (also known regionally as a sack) is a common tool in the form of a non-rigid container. The use of bags predates recorded history, with the earliest bags being no more than lengths of animal skin, cotton, or woven plant fibers, folded up at the edges and secured in that shape with strings of the same material.
When viewed in Source mode, this is what it would look like.
A '''bag''' (also known regionally as a '''sack''') is a common tool in the form of a non-rigid container. The use of bags predates recorded history, with the earliest bags being no more than lengths of animal skin, cotton, or woven plant fibers, folded up at the edges and secured in that shape with strings of the same material.
When referring to the names of media, such as the title of a television show, these should be italicized (e.g. Rocko's Modern Life) while things like episode names should be surrounded with quotation marks. (e.g. "Episode name" from Season 1.)
Verb tense
Works of fiction are generally considered to "come alive" for their audience. They exist in a kind of perpetual present tense, regardless of when the fictional action is supposed to take place relative to "now". Thus, generally you should write about fiction using the present tense, not the past tense. Here are examples of this:
- Homer presents, Achilles rages, Andromache laments, Priam pleads.
- "Darth Vader is a fictional character from Star Wars."
- "Holden Caulfield has a certain disdain for what he sees as 'phony'."
- "Heathcliff, who is taken in by the wealthy Earnshaw family as a child, falls in love with their daughter, Catherine."
- "Friends is an American sitcom that was aired on NBC."
Date and time formatting
Read this article from Wikipedia for more on date and time formatting and standards. Below are excerpts from that article.
Acceptable date formats: The following date styles are acceptable in Wikipedia articles, subject to rules included thereafter:
Format Example Scope MMMM D, YYYY
Full month name, space, numeric day, comma, space, full yearSeptember 8, 2001 Everywhere D MMM YYYY
Numeric day, space, short month name, space, full year8 Sep 2001 This format is only in references, tables, lists or areas where conciseness is needed. MMM D, YYYY
Short month name, space, numeric day, comma, space, full yearSep 8, 2001 YYYY-MM-DD
Four-digit year, hyphen, two-digit month, hyphen, two-digit day2001-09-08
Unacceptable date formats: The following date styles are not acceptable in the Rocko's Modern Life Wiki except in external titles and quotes:
- The ordinal suffixes, articles, or leading zeros (except for the YYYY-MM-DD format) are not used in the wiki. A comma is not inserted between the month and year, nor is a period inserted after the day (June 10, 1921); however, when using mdy format, a comma is required between the day and year. When a date in mdy format appears in the middle of text, include a comma after the year (The weather on September 11, 2001 was clear and warm). Type the full year string instead of using the apostrophe to abbreviate the first two digits of the year.
Incorrect Correct 9 June 2001 June 9, 2001 9th June
the 9th of June
9. JuneJune 9 June 9th June 9 June, 2001 June 2001 9 June, 2001
09 June 2001June 9, 2001 June 9 2001
June 09, 2001June 9, 2001 '01 2001
- An exception to this guideline is when a specific style of a date achieves notability within a culture, such as the Fourth of July (does not adhere to ordinal nor spelled out guideline, yet is acceptable).
- Do not use year-final numerical date formats (DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY), as they are ambiguous: "03/04/2005" could refer to 3 April or to March 4. For consistency, do not use such formats even if the day number is greater than 12.
- Do not use customized variations of the YYYY-MM-DD format. E.g., do not replace hyphen characters ("-") with any other character; do not change the order of year, month, or day. Use leading zeros for days or months when needed to make these fields two digits.
- Yearless dates (March 5) are inappropriate unless the year is obvious from the context. There is no such ambiguity with recurring dates, such as January 1 is New Year's Day.
- Do not use Roman numerals, such as "MMXII" for "2012", to denote years.
Files
Main article: Rocko's Modern Life Wiki:Manual of Style/Files
General tips
For tips on improving article writing and general quality guidelines, please read this article from Wikipedia.
| v • e — Help, Rules, and Guidelines — | |
|---|---|
| Basics | Rules and Regulations • Staff • Community Portal • Affiliations |
| Format and Guidelines | Manual of Style (Files) • Staff Guidelines |