Attack on Titan Wiki:Manual of Style

This is the Manual of Style for the Attack on Titan Wiki that explains the aspects that must be taken into account at the time of writing articles. Following these guidelines will result in articles of high quality, pleasant to read, correct, and organized.

We hope this guide will help you make valuable edits in the easiest way possible. If you have doubts, do not hesitate to contact one of our Administrators.

Topics
The Attack on Titan Wiki focuses on official Attack on Titan media and fictional elements appearing in this media. Articles should only be created if they belong to these categories, and only if they are considered relevant enough to warrant their own page. Articles about other stuff, like real life people, companies, or merchandise, should not be created. Instead, links to Wikpedia can be used when they are mentioned in other articles. The only exception is the article about the original series creator, Hajime Isayama.

New pages
Before creating any new page, you must consult a wiki staff member. The staff will analyze whether the page is needed, its proper title, and any other relevant aspects to ensure that it meets the wiki standards. Only after you have been given the authorization of a staff member, can the page be created.

Perspective
Articles describing fictional events, characters, and other stuff taking place into the universe of Attack on Titan should be written using an in-universe wording; i.e., as taking place in real life. This means that phrases like "in Episode 7" or "in the Female Titan arc" should be left out of sentences.

Occasionally, it may be necessary to mention the media though. This will be allowed, but only on a case-by-case basis.

Articles about stuff outside that fictional universe are excluded from this rule, as well as the sections Introduction, Trivia, and the use of the template see when needed.

Formality
Since this is an encyclopedia, we use a formal writing style. This means, for example, that we avoid the use of any contractions, such as "he's", "didn't" "could've", etc. Use the full forms "he is", "did not", "could have" instead.
 * "It's" is a contraction, and should not be used. "It's" is short for "it is" and is not the possessive of "it"; the possessive form of "it" is "its" with no apostrophe.

Neutrality
Use a neutral point of view when writing. Any opinion or bias should be expressed on the forum, the Discord server, or on the respective Talk Page, not in the article itself.

American English or British English
We use only American English on this wiki, since the official translations of the manga and anime by Kodansha Comics and Funimation respectively are provided in American English; plus Wikia is an American company which has its interface and documentation written in this localization of the language, and this wiki targets primarily an American audience.

Level of detail
Quantity does not mean quality, and not every detail is important. Articles should be written focused on the topic in question, extracting the relevant facts and avoiding unnecessary and unrelated information.


 * Articles about media (chapters, episodes, movies, etc) should cover all main events but in a summarized way, not literally descriptive. Not "he opens the door, he enters the room, he finds a person, first person says this, second person says this...," but "he finds some person and they talk about something."
 * In general for any page, transcribing literal conversations in the style of "this character says, that character responds" should be avoided, since just mentioning the topic is relevant in most cases. Only when it is really important to mention the words of a character or it can not be found a way to write the summary without using this style, this could be allowed; but this should be done as little as possible.
 * Articles about characters should focus on the actions of that character. Actions of third characters should be mentioned only when they directly involve the one of the topic and are relevant to the subject; but preferably should be told just quickly.

Presentation

 * Paragraphs should be short and to the point, preferably no more than 10 lines and ideally with at least a reference at the end and an illustrative image every few paragraphs (see Images and References below).
 * For deceased characters, do not reveal the details of their deaths in their introductions. The decease of a character can not be considered introductory information; and since character statuses are included in their infoboxes and the deceased ones can be easily identified by the past tense writing of their articles, even mentioning that the character is dead in the introduction is irrelevant.

Wikitext
That is only allowed for templates (other tags like  are allowed to avoid squeezing in articles and only if they are strictly necessary).
 * Use only simple wikitext in articles, avoid complex and unnecessary stuff like  Erwin Smith is the commander of the Survey Corps. 
 * Headers should be in the form == Header ==, not the form ==Header== . Also, lists and indentations should be in the form:


 * * Item
 * # Item
 * : item


 * And not in the form:


 * *Item
 * #Item
 * :item


 * Links like Eren are preferred over links with redirects like Eren.
 * For links that are possessive, put the "'s" outside the link. For example, use Ymir's instead of Ymir's.
 * When indicating possession of a word that ends in "s," follow the Chicago Manual of Style and put an apostrophe at the end followed by a second "s" for singular words, and only the apostrophe for plural words. For example, "Rod Reiss's" and "Titans'."
 * All templates should always be put in new lines, unless they are specifically intended to be in the same line (like ref or dot). Also, the end tags ( }} ) of multiline templates like infoboxes should always be put in new lines as well. For instance, use:




 * And not:



Canon
The canon material is the content accepted as part of the same continuity of the original series, the manga.

Basically, only content made by series creator Hajime Isayama is accepted as canon, while derivative material from other authors is intended to take place in alternate continuities and therefore is considered non-canon; unless it is specifically adopted by Isayama into the main continuity.

Canon and non-canon material
Canon


 * Original Attack on Titan manga.
 * Guidebooks INSIDE Kou, OUTSIDE Osamu, and their official English version Attack on Titan Guidebook.
 * Statements by Isayama in other media (his blog, interviews, etc)

Non-canon


 * The rest of the media (including anime, OVAs, spin-offs, parodies, movies, novels, video games, etc).

Additionally, the canon sources are arranged according to the following hierarchy:


 * 1) Original Japanese manga volumes by Kodansha Ltd.
 * 2) Original Japanese manga chapters by Kodansha Ltd.
 * 3) Official Colossal Edition manga volumes by Kodansha Comics
 * 4) Official manga volumes by Kodansha Comics
 * 5) Individual manga chapters by Kodansha Comics
 * 6) Crunchyroll translation of the manga
 * 7) Scanlations

Treatment of the types of material
Since canon and non-canon works are understood as taking place in different continuities, they are treated separately, and are not included in articles outside their own universe. The Media icons template should be put at the top of each article to indicate the continuity the subject of said article belongs to, as well as to link to other versions of it in other continuities.

For pages about video games, each game is treated as a separate continuity regardless of sequels.

Canonicity of No Regrets
There have been hints in the Attack on Titan manga that suggest that Levi's backstory No Regrets might be canon: in Chapter 76 it was shown a flashback of a No Regrets scene, while Furlan Church and Isabel Magnolia made a brief cameo in Chapter 80. However, there are 3 versions of the same story: visual novel, manga and OVA, and it has not been confirmed which of these versions is the canon one. However, the OVA adaptations are treated as canon within the anime continuity.

The aforementioned flashback from Chapter 76 presents an inconsistency, as Erwin is seen holding Levi's blade while standing upright, which is how it happens in the No Regrets OVA (despite it taking place in the non-canon anime continuity); while in the visual novel and the spin-off manga, the scene is different, with Levi standing with the blade at Erwin's neck while Erwin is on his knees.

For these reasons, until there is no confirmation of which of the 3 versions is the one that shares continuity with the main manga, they are taken as separate continuities.

Hange's gender
Hange Zoë is a character whose gender is depicted inconsistently within the universe of Attack on Titan. In the canon material, the character's gender is left up to the reader, while all other derivative works including the anime, parodies, movies, etc, have continuously depicted the character as female.

While the purpose of the Attack on Titan Wiki is to serve as a neutral source of official information, in order to fully accomplish this goal and do not interfere with the reader's interpretation of Hange's gender, it would be necessary to remove all images and videos from the derivative works where that character appears as female (except from articles specifically related to those works), and to use always neutral pronouns to refer to such character, resulting in confusing text and deprivation of useful material.

For these reasons, Hange's gender is always interpreted as female within the wiki, being an exception of the Canon Policy exclusive to this character.

Sources of names
The Attack on Titan manga and most of its related media are originally produced in Japanese, but there are three major official translators that provide English spellings:


 * Kodansha Comics: Translator of the original manga and spin-off mangas, as well as some extra material like the guidebooks and re-editions like the Colossal Editions.
 * Funimation: Translator of the animes and movies.
 * Vertical: Translator of the novels.

These sources are the providers of spellings for the Attack on Titan Wiki. Crunchyroll also provides translations for the main manga and anime, although it is considered a secondary source for both of them, and its spellings are only used if the ones from the primary sources have not been released or are unknown.

If no English spelling has been released by any official source, unofficial translations of the original Japanese names are used, but they must be as accurate as possible and the Unofficial translation template must be added to the page in question.

If the subject lacks a Japanese name, fan given names are allowed, but they should also be as accurate as possible. They should not be used for writing in-universe sections and the Unofficial name template must be added to the page of the subject.

Use of names

 * Articles should use the spellings given by the translator of the media they talk about. For example, for manga articles, Kodansha Comics spellings are used; for anime articles, Funimation spellings are used (consult the table of spellings).
 * Spellings found in tankōbon volumes and Blu-Ray/DVD releases are preferred over the ones found in individually released chapters and episodes, respectively.
 * If the same source provides different spellings, the latest given is the one preferred. For example, early Kodansha Comics translations spelled Eren's mother's name as "Kalura Yeager", but it was later changed to "Carla Yeager", so the latter is the spelling used.
 * If a spelling found in a certain volume/Blu-Ray/DVD is later changed in an individually released chapter/episode, the volume/Blu-Ray/DVD spelling is still preferred, until the chapter/episode in question is re-released in volume/Blu-Ray/DVD format.
 * Characters are referred by a single primary name, aliases are not used unless relevant to the context of the paragraph (ie: use "Eren", not "Suicidal Bastard").
 * All the versions of a name (English, kanji, romaji and alternate translations) and aliases should be listed in the infobox; and all of those, as well as some misspellings or shortened names, should be redirected to the page.
 * Titles of works like Attack on Titan, Before the Fall, Chibi Theater, etc, should always be written in italics.

Usage in articles

 * Articles must only contain images from official sources; i.e. the manga, anime or any other official material coming from the author himself or the related companies.
 * Images should be of highest quality possible, without any heavy alteration of the size, colors and overall quality from the original source material. Every image that is of low quality should be reuploaded with a higher quality version or deleted in case of multiple image policy violations.
 * For images that are to be used in infoboxes, it is allowed to edit extra elements out, like speech bubbles or characters unrelated to the subject, if it is considered that doing so will improve the presentation of the image, and as long as this does not damage the scene.
 * Images should be generally put to 200px size, unless they look too small or the space in the article or other circumstances do not allow it.
 * The side of placement should alternate from left to right (or right to left, depends on the article organization).
 * The description of the image (in the thumbnail) should not be ended with a full stop.
 * For infoboxes of character pages, the primary image should be named following this pattern: " character image.png "; for example, "Sasha Blouse character image.png" or "Armin Arlelt (Anime) character image.png".
 * Images used in secondary tabs follow the same pattern but the name of the tab is added at the end and within parentheses; for example, "Eren Yeager character image (850).png".
 * These images cannot be used to illustrate articles besides infoboxes and lists of characters, since they are not meant to be attached to a particular scene but to be continuously updated.
 * Every time one of these images is replaced with a different frame, the corresponding file information should be updated accordingly. For purposes of easiness and consistency, the description used will only be the name of the character.

Other aspects

 * Images from manga should be generally single frames and they should get rid of the borders unless doing this interferes with the content. Multiple frames or entire pages should be avoided unless a single frame is not enough to illustrate the intended action.
 * Screenshots from video sources (anime, movies, etc) must not include subtitles, while manga panels should have any text removed from speech bubbles and from the image itself (only if this does not damage the drawing).
 * Chapter covers should only have text removed within speech bubbles and leave the rest of the text intact.
 * Images should be added to every character's image category that appears in it. Example, if Eren and Sasha appear in an image, said image must be added to Images of Eren Yeager and Images of Sasha Blouse.
 * The image should also be added to the corresponding characters' image galleries.
 * Manga images should be of Japanese RAW manga chapters unless the RAW version is of lower quality. Any other manga images should be tagged with the Needs replacement by raw category and reuploaded as such when possible.