Wiki: Style Manual

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Hujio
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Wiki: Style Manual

Postby Hujio » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:10 am

This discussion will be one of many on-going threads that will be created by Kanzenshuu administrators in the "Staff Help Requests" area. The first post in this thread will be regularly updated by an administrator based on the community feedback and discussion. We are asking for your help in developing what will be the structure -- NOT THE ACTUAL CONTENT -- of various pages throughout the wiki. If you are interested in contributing to the wiki, right now this is the best way for you to do it. For additional information about the wiki, please read this topic.

Please keep your responses even more neatly-written, clear, and concise than we already expect elsewhere on the forum.


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The following is a rough draft of the wiki's style manual. Please review and post additional comments or suggestions you feel will improve this manual.

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This is an instruction manual that addresses the conventions adopted by Kanzenshuu in writing, titles, pages, images, and linking. Please read it before you contribute to the wiki. Note, however, that this document may not be updated frequently, so it is also recommended users survey prevailing conventions in addition to reading these guidelines.

Writing Style
The staff have compiled the following writing style goals and principles to help guide users in the development of the wiki. These goals will provide the foundation for what we hope will become the most accurate and reliable database of information for the Dragon Ball franchise.

Brevity
The main goal of all writing on the wiki is to present as much accurate information as possible within the smallest space possible. Conciseness is one of our most guiding principles. This has an immediate advantage when trying to create an information database covering such a large subject. Of course, any fan-made wiki is going to be read primarily by those already fairly familiar with the series, but it stands to reason that pages should be organized to be as friendly to newcomers as possible.

Rather than creating a long-winded article detailing every last little thing Son Goku ever did over the course of the series, we're aiming to simply have a few paragraphs summarizing Goku's life as concisely as possible. For example, imagine if someone who had never heard of Dragon Ball had just 5 to 10 minutes to learn about Goku, and at the end of that time they'd be tested on the major facts of his life. Think of how we can structure our page on Goku so that this hypothetical person could learn as much about the character as possible in that brief amount of time.

Professionalism
Users are not only expected to behave and conduct themselves in a respectable manner on Kanzenshuu, but they are also expected to bring a professionalism to their writing on the wiki. Use words that are appropriate to the article and keep the language simple. Slang, profanity, obscenities, and euphemistic terms should be avoided at all costs, unless in the context of a quote. Not only are these terms unprofessional, they may also be difficult for non-native English readers to understand.

Non-Opinionated
In addition to information being concise and accurate, it should also be factually based. Just as dictionaries and encyclopedias are used to determine facts, the same will be so with the wiki. Opinionated and non-factual writing will not be tolerated. In order to avoid disagreements over factual accuracy, it is best to cite sources for controversial statements.

Cite Sources
As with any intellectually recognized publication, information sources should be cited when possible. This will allow other users to easily double-check content and increases the reader's confidence in the information provided.

Standard Writing Practices
The following is a list of standard writing practices that users are expected to follow on the Kanzenshuu wiki:

  • Numbers under and through ten written as words; 11 and above as their actual numbers (numbers written in names are the only exception).
  • Date Month Year (ex: 01 January 2222, with zeroes to take up the two numerical spaces)
  • The titles of works should be italicized; website names and publications should also be placed in italics (ex: The latest issue of V-Jump showcases new Dragon Ball screen shots); articles thereof in quotation marks.
  • Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT should be written out fully when at all possible; acronyms and abbreviations (DB, DBZ, DBGT, etc.) should be avoided (Z, GT, and Kai short hands are acceptable).

Grammar
Users are expected to adhere to recognized standards of written English usage. Non-native English speakers and those unused to formal writing are still welcome to contribute; however, they may find their contributions subsequently altered to bring them in line with the standards expected of the wiki.

We at Kanzenshuu welcome contributions from around the world, and have no preference with respect to U.S. or U.K. spellings or usage. We do ask, however, that a given article be consistent with itself, and that users try to avoid colloquialisms that might confuse speakers of other dialects.

Standard Grammatical Practices
The following is a list of standard grammatical practices that users are expected to follow on the Kanzenshuu wiki:

  • Contractions should not be used (i.e. "should not" instead of "shouldn't").
  • Keep the tenses of pages/sections consistent.
  • Use proper capitalization rules for titles where appropriate. This includes items such as, Chapter, Episode, and Movie titles, song titles, and section headings.
  • When referring to a specific episode, capitalize the word "Episode." Due to the fact that page names are "Episode #" instead of the episode's true name, this makes the word "episode" part of the title, and therefore it should be capitalized. This applies to Chapters and Movies as well.

Naming Conventions
Names of characters, locations, and techniques, as well as titles of manga chapters, TV episodes, and theatrical films, should use Kanzenshuu's house style. In many instances, names used by Kanzenshuu deviate from official adaptations, so please check against it for reference. In an article where said item is the main focus, the naming in Japanese must always be given, both in Japanese script and romanization (see below). Names used in official adaptations may be mentioned when relevant to the subject of the article, but are not the focus of Kanzenshuu and should not be relied upon out of convenience.

Japanese Names & Titles
When applicable, all Japanese names and titles should be provided in native Japanese text, including kanji, katakana, or hiragana. Japanese text should not be provided in the form of an image, but written with actual Japanese unicode characters. Japanese names will be written in their Western order (given-name family-name) and all retained honorifics (sama, san, kun, etc.) will be italicized.

Romanization
Romanization of Japanese words is expected to follow Modified Hepburn romanization and be italicized. As Hepburn is the most widely used romanization of Japanese, users are likely to be already familiar with its basic form. However, note the following:

  • し (shi), ち (chi), or じ (ji) followed by small ゃ (ya), ゅ (yu), or ょ (yo) contains no "y": Shū, Chaozu, Janken, etc.
  • The -u syllable in the d-row should be written zu (not du or dzu): Tsuzuku
  • Long vowels should be written with a macron (ā, ī, ū, ē, ō), except in the following circumstances:
    • for long "i" in a native Japanese word, two i's should be used: Shōzō Iizuka, Niigata
    • when two vowels in a proper name belong to separate syllables, they should be written separately and also separated by an apostrophe, to aid in syllabification: Chiho Kiyo'oka, Ja'akuryū, Kinto'un
    • in native Japanese common nouns derived from phrases, apostrophes are not necessary: mizūmi ("lake"; not mizu'umi or mizu-umi, "freshwater sea"), honō ("flame"; not hono'o or ho-no-o, "tail of fire").
  • Other vowel combinations may be written normally, but apostrophes should be applied, as above, where there would otherwise be ambiguity in syllabification: Tenka'ichi Budōkai (Ten-ka-ichi, not ten-kai-chi)
  • Obvious phrases of distinct native-Japanese words that nevertheless form a semantic unit may be separated by hyphens.
  • Nasal n before b or p should remain as n in direct romanization (although the Kanzenshuu spelling, distinct from pure romanization, may use m as the curators see fit)
  • Hiragana を should be customarily written as o; hiragana は and へ should be written as ha and he as part of words, but as wa and e when functioning as grammatical particles.
  • Compound particles should be given a space in between their elements. では de wa (not dewa), にも ni mo (not nimo), でも de mo (not demo)

Page Layouts
The following are a list of layouts used for pages:

**Each point will link to its respective page layout**
  • Cast & Staff Page Layout
  • Chapter Page Layout
  • Character Page Layout
  • Episode Page Layout
  • Game Page Layout
  • Item Page Layout
  • Location Page Layout
  • Movie Page Layout
  • Music Page Layout
  • Technique Page Layout

These page layouts are a brief guide covering the expectations of how a page should be properly set up. Every effort should be made to maintain consistency between related pages, but common sense should be used when variations are implemented. It is standard policy, for both pages and information boxes, to not include headers for subjects where no content is available.

Image Preferences

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JacobYBM
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Re: Wiki: Style Manual

Postby JacobYBM » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:50 am

My suggestion is perhaps futile, but I would like to add it to the record nonetheless. I will follow the guidelines regardless.

I believe the use of macrons and western order will hinder Kanzenshuu's goal of being informative. These might be standard practices in 'professional works' or what have you, but Kanzenshuu and its predecessors hardly ever cared to strive for doing whatever pleased the masses. 'Kaiou' instead of 'Kaiō' will tip readers in on learning something about the word they are using.

My second comment is perhaps reflective more of the website as a whole: I think the use of 'Beerus' is misleading. While the original intention was a pun on virus what the actual pun wound up being is entirely different. It is like saying Gokuu appears as a Super Saiyan in episode Dragon Ball Z #195, despite appearing as one only in the next episode preview included with episode #194.

Regarding the episode pages: will the '#' symbol be included in the URL? While I believe '#' ought to be used in all possible contexts I believe simply using '/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z_Episode_291' would make for less of a headache.

That is all I can think of for now. I know I sure would not want to have gone through all the headaches you guys have just setting up a format and then typing it up. :lol:

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hleV
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Re: Wiki: Style Manual

Postby hleV » Tue Dec 10, 2013 8:58 am

Regarding the summarization of Goku's life example, perhaps it could work as paragraphs about each arc (or longer timeskip) accompanied with pictures (one per arc/timeskip) to reflect how a character changed throughout the years. It could be something like:

  • Beginning: Searches for DBs, participates in the 21st TB.
  • RRA: Defeats RRA, participates in the 22nd TB.
  • Piccolo Daimao: Defeats Piccolo Daimao, participates in the 23rd TB, marries.
  • Saiyans: Dies in a fight with Raditz, is trained by Kaio, wins the battle against Nappa & Vegeta.
  • Namek: Etc...
  • Androids
  • Boo
  • Oob

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DBZGTKOSDH
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Re: Wiki: Style Manual

Postby DBZGTKOSDH » Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:17 am

hleV wrote:RRA: Defeats RRA, participates in the 22nd TB.
Piccolo Daimao: Defeats Piccolo Daimao, participates in the 23rd TB, marries.

I think the 22nd TB should go to the same section with the Piccolo Daimao stuff, since they happen in the same time period, and they are placed together officially in the Colored Edition of the manga (22nd TB, Daimao, and 23rd TB arcs are Part 3 of the manga).

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hleV
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Re: Wiki: Style Manual

Postby hleV » Tue Dec 10, 2013 11:05 am

If going by timeskips, it could be:

  • Searches for DBs
  • Participates in the 21th TB; defeats RRA
  • Participates in the 22nd TB; defeats Piccolo Daimao
  • Participates in the 23rd TB

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Hujio
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Re: Wiki: Style Manual

Postby Hujio » Tue Dec 10, 2013 11:16 am

Let's get back on topic about the style manual. If you wish to talk about character profiles, you can continue that discussion in this thread.

JacobYBM wrote:I believe the use of macrons and western order will hinder Kanzenshuu's goal of being informative. These might be standard practices in 'professional works' or what have you, but Kanzenshuu and its predecessors hardly ever cared to strive for doing whatever pleased the masses. 'Kaiou' instead of 'Kaiō' will tip readers in on learning something about the word they are using.

Julian or Jake may be better at responding to this, but I'd venture that these days fans are more apt to be familiar with the use of macrons than none at all. In fact, I'd say it has nothing to do with pleasing the masses; it's a decision we made when we merged sites and it's one that we all agreed upon. The website as a whole operates under the standards set forth by the Modified Hepburn romanization system, which utilizes macrons. If we were using the Traditional Hepburn system, then yes, we would not use macrons.

JacobYBM wrote:My second comment is perhaps reflective more of the website as a whole: I think the use of 'Beerus' is misleading. While the original intention was a pun on virus what the actual pun wound up being is entirely different. It is like saying Gokuu appears as a Super Saiyan in episode Dragon Ball Z #195, despite appearing as one only in the next episode preview included with episode #194.

I'll let Mike or Julian answer this one.

JacobYBM wrote:Regarding the episode pages: will the '#' symbol be included in the URL? While I believe '#' ought to be used in all possible contexts I believe simply using '/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z_Episode_291' would make for less of a headache.

No, since the URL is derived directly from the page name the '#' symbol will never be used in either. Page titles will follow suite as you've described: Dragon Ball Episode 1, Dragon Ball Chapter 1, etc.
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SaiyaJedi
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Re: Wiki: Style Manual

Postby SaiyaJedi » Tue Dec 10, 2013 8:25 pm

JacobYBM wrote:My second comment is perhaps reflective more of the website as a whole: I think the use of 'Beerus' is misleading. While the original intention was a pun on virus what the actual pun wound up being is entirely different. It is like saying Gokuu appears as a Super Saiyan in episode Dragon Ball Z #195, despite appearing as one only in the next episode preview included with episode #194.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with this one. While it's true that Shueisha and Toei have settled on "Beers" as their romanization in official publications, the scriptwriter (who first named the character) still maintains that the pun is not alcohol-based, and Toriyama himself admits that he misunderstood what it was supposed to be. "Beerus" is an attempt to respect both intents by keeping both puns intact, and making the pronunciation easy-to-grasp, all in one neat package.

Obviously, it's not an ideal solution, but it seemed (and still does, to me) better than any other option out there. And it'll be a cold day on the Sun before you see me spouting "Bills". Heath is Kanzenshuu's resident American-football fan, not me.
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