BIONICLE Video Game Wiki:Policy/Manual of style

This is a guideline as to how all articles on the mainspace of this wiki ("regular" articles) should be written. Note that pages on other namespaces, such as user pages, can be written differently and are not included in this page.

Layout Guide
This is a guide as to how articles should be organized, which has its own separate page. All material on the Layout Guide should be treated as if they were part of the Manual of Style.

Grammar
Articles on this wiki should be written in American English in order to prevent mistranslations, although the community should be left to make that decision. With that exception, all of the rules in Manual of Style also apply here.

Capitalization
Capitalization should follow the standard conventions of American English. Do not use capital letters for emphasis (with the exception of when a character is expressing something in a story article); where wording alone cannot provide the emphasis, use italics.

Offices, positions, and job titles are common nouns and therefore start with a capital letter only when followed by a person's name, in other words, when they have become part of the name. When used generically, they should be in lower case. However, if the word refers to a person, it should be in capitals.

There are some ranks the name of which should always be capitalized, no matter the semantics (i.e., “Dark Lord”). All character, faction, and species names should have the first letter of each important word capitalized. (For example, Human, not human.)

The one major exception to capitalization rules is the word "BIONICLE," which should be spelled in capitals at all times.

Acronyms and abbreviations
When abbreviating, remember to write both the full version and abbreviation; for example, instead of writing "Botar was a member of the OoMN," one would write "Botar was a member of the Order of Mata Nui (OoMN). Exceptions can be made for abbreviations that are as well- or better-known than their full name, such as "DNA."

However, it is usually not required to write the full name out, as names such as "Order of Mata Nui" should instead be reduced to "Order" if necessary. In some cases, though, it can be tedious to write out the whole word, such as "Ko-Matoran Enforcement Squad/Agency." If this occurs, the user should instead abbreviate the name to "KMES/A."

Remember that capitalization rules still apply; do not use initial capitals in a full term that is a common noun because capitals are used in the abbreviation. (You would not say, "Antidermis Destroyer (AD)," but rather "Antidermis destroyer (AD)"

Like all nouns, acronyms become plural by adding -s or -es at the end. Apostrophes should not be used.

Article titles
Most generally, article titles are based on the subject of the article. There will often be several possible alternative titles for any given article; the choice between them is made by consensus. Remember that article titles must conform to proper word usage guidelines such as capitalization.

When naming an article, please abide the following procedure:


 * Use the "official" name whenever possible. (In a fanfic article, that means that it is the given name for the character that his creator has chosen.) If more than one "official" name of the subject is known, use the most full and accurate version of the name.
 * Whenever alternate names are used (i.e., Akatark and Krataka) it is best to use the name under which the subject was known during the later time period, or, for characters, at the moment of the character's death. If multiple names were used by the character simultaneously, use the most commonly known of those names (i.e., Nightwatcher instead of Charon)
 * If no "official" name exists, a nickname may be used, but please use the Nickname template. It is common for pages to be named something like "Unidentified Great Being" (NOT "Unknown Great Being"), but it is usually better for them to have more specific (albeit still conjectural) names (i.e., Keeper of the Elder Prophecies).

There is a specific problem for canon (as well as some fanon) articles, which is that often, people may wish to create their own versions of the pages. Normally, that problem can be solved by adding subsections to existing sections to give information about their parallel versions, but sometimes, the subsection is long enough to merit its own article.

In those instances, you have permission to create a page of your own. Often, it should have the same title as the main article with your username in parentheses afterward, but if your character has, say, had his name changed in the alternate continuity, then it is allowed to make a new article with that name.

Note that the new article should still have a subsection on the main article's "History" section, though it would preferably be summarized to avoid the length problems that a new article is meant to prevent.

Remember, proper capitalization in page titles is important. Although the first letter in an article title is required to be a capital letter by the MediaWiki software, do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise always capitalized.

In general, only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English (such as binoculars). (Note that category names follow different pluralization conventions.)

Except in titles of works (The Beginning of the END: Redemption) or in "official" names (The Cavern, The Claw), avoid the definite ("the") and indefinite ("a"/"an") articles at the beginning of a page name. This applies even if the subject of the page is usually preceded by the definite article "the" in speech or writing: Thus, for example, "Chronicler" is preferred over "the Chronicler;" however, the news show "The Chronicler" is fine.

Use the full name of the subject instead of its abbreviation (for example: KO-Matoran enforcement Agency instead of KMEA).

"BIONICLE" should not usually be placed before article titles (i.e., BIONICLE: The Darkness Returns) unless the article is a fictitious BIONICLE game or film, the title requires the word to "work" (i.e., BIONICLE: Heroes).

Some special characters either cannot be used or can but cause problems. For example, you should not use a piping character (|), an asterisk (*), an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]) in a name.

Headings
Most of the above page naming rules apply to headings as well. Remember to avoid links within headings.

If a section is too small to cover all information about a topic, you may place the template Main, which can guide readers to articles on that topic. The See also template may also be used, but remember only to use it sparingly.

Dates
For fan fiction articles, Custom BIONICLE generally uses a calendar with the zero point of the Great Cataclysm. A timeline for reference when constructing an article can be seen at the Timeline page. (Note that it is currently inaccurate and requires heavy revision.)

Quotes
Quotations may be included in the content if they are less than a paragraph long; if they are a paragraph or more or is a dialogue, then the Quote and Dialogue templates may be used. Please be sure to provide as much information as possible (for instance: source, page if applicable, and characters speaking if applicable).

Redundant internal links should not be added to quotes because they serve little purpose beyond making the quotes appear cluttered and messy. Links should only be added to quotes if they contain a specific article's only mention of a particular concept. Piped links should be avoided as much as possible.

Per standards of American English, double quotation marks (" ") are default on both of the already-mentioned templates and the period (full stop), comma, question and exclamation marks should be within the quotation. Single quotation marks (' ') should only be used when there is a quotation inside a quotation.

Spoilers
The spoiler template may be used if information in an article is from as-yet-unreleased storyline information; for example, future material from a fan fiction story serial. It is not applicable if the information is merely new.