Attack on Titan Wiki talk:Manual of Style

Building the Manual
Heya. This mainly goes out to admins and council members but regular users and anons should feel free to contribute too.

So as most of you know, this is one of the main things a wiki needs in order to well, keep things neat and tidy. However, this really does require everyone's input even if you can't vote or not. The manual of style should have things such as.
 * Perspective
 * English (UK) or English (US)
 * Naming guide
 * Way of writing
 * Reference to image policies which have yet to be included
 * Capitalization of words
 * Referencing in articles
 * Tense
 * Categorization

If you wish to put forward an idea for any of the above, simply follow this:

===Example===

*Policy about example* ~

For those who wish to put forward their opinion on example matter, simply do this:
 * If you oppose-  *state reason here (optional) ~
 * If you oppose-  *state reason here (optional) ~

Start below the line --  XGlass    ☣    Reflection

Perspective
In-Universe: Articles should be written with In-Universe wording. Phrases like "in Episode 7" or "in the Female Titan arc" out of sentences. These articles include all characters, locations, and abilities. Basically, any article that has information based around the contents of the site, is an in-universe article. Occasionally, it may be necessary to mention the manga or anime in an "in-universe" article. This will be allowed, but only on a case-to-case basis. Credit goes to FT Wiki. --  XGlass    ☣    Reflection

Way of writing
Formal Articles: As a "wiki" is supposed to be a serious source for information, the articles should be formal, both in regards to the choice of words, as well as the structure of the text. Less formal words should only be used, if all possible formal words are susceptible to misunderstandings and/or misinterpretations (e.g. homonyms). What is considered formal and what not is left to each editor's discretion. Should a disagreement about whether an article is formal enough, or not, arise, the case is to be discussed on the article's talk page. All editors' input are considered equal, however in the case that, for example, one of two editors shows willingness to discuss the matter, but the other one does not, the proposition of the editor that was ready to discuss the matter is favored. In the case that both editors are willing to discuss the matter, but don't seem to be able to find an agreement, but also in the case that none of the editors are willing to discuss the matter, the Shingeki no Kyojin Wiki staff reserves the right to decide over the conclusion of the dispute. The only exceptions to this rule are the evident use of vulgar words and vandalism, which should be, depending on the cirumstances, revised or removed.

Comprehensible Talk Pages: Compared to articles, the stylistic freedom is greater in talkpages, as every post on the talkpage reflects the specific user's stance alone, and not, as the articles do, the whole Shingeki no Kyojin wikia. Therefore it is left to the user's own discetion, what level of formality he/she wants to use, even though the use of informal language is discouraged. Insults and excessively vulgar sentences will be deleted by the Shingeki no Kyojin Wiki staff at their own discetion. For more information about the Talk Pages, see: Talk Page Policy

For the "Way of writing" of blogs and chats, see Blog Policy and Chat Policy repectively. NeoSuperior (talk) 04:54, December 13, 2013 (UTC)

Opinion and NPoV
It is important to not add opinion and bias to the articles. When writting, a neutral point of view is preferred. As noted above, everything should be written in an in-universe perspective.

Characters genders are to be qualified in the same way. Character infoboxes list "biological data" of characters and said character's gender identity is to be considered irrelevant and treated as opinion unless stated in-canon (original japanese manga). In said case, genders may be changed to reflect this fact.  h fc 2 X  19:45, December 22, 2013 (UTC)

Continuation
The new discussion can be followed here. EternalLocket (talk) 02:26, March 27, 2015 (UTC)

Canon Policy
I feel that it would be beneficial to make a slight adjustment to the policy of how the Shingeki no Kyojin Wikia views SNK canon. Rather than classifying all non-Isayama material in the SNK story as fully non-canon, officially published spinoff material not derived from Isayama that are still intended to take place in the main storyline could be instead classified as pseudo-canon.

Such pseudo-canon material would include officially published spinoffs such as Before the Fall, A Choice with No Regrets, The Harsh Mistress of the City, and Lost Girls, all of which were not written by Hajime Isayama but still are meant to take place in the universe of Isayama's original story. With this new addition to the canon policy, spinoff material such as Attack on Titan: Junior High and the live action Attack on Titan films would remain fully non-canon, intended to take place in their own realities separate from Isayama's original story. GodKingReiss (talk) 08:21, December 25, 2015 (UTC)


 * In general, I think the community would need to vote on this. For the record, that includes the users that only comment on discussion pages. So hopefully more people toss out their opinion.


 * Would an entire spinoff be considered pseudo-canon? Isayama has just made, at least a specific part of, No Regrets canon. But obviously the anime, or some parts of it, is non canon when compared to the manga. I've never read the novel it's based off of, so I can't tell how different it and the manga are. If the pseudo-canon tag doesn't span across the entire spinoff, then we'll need to decide which one to consider canon; most likely to be the manga versions. EternalLocket (talk) 08:49, December 25, 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd imagine anime spinoff material would be considered fully canon to the anime only, with manga and light novel content applying to the main manga story. The issue definitely becomes complicated for Before the Fall, Lost Girls, and A Choice with No Regrets, which all have some variations between their novel and manga forms. I can't say whether it would be better for the manga adaptions to be considered more canon than the novels for all such spinoffs or if it would be different for each story. Before the Fall, for example, has a much more in-depth plot in the manga adaption, but the novel adaption is slightly more consistent in its writing despite having a shorter story and fewer characters. GodKingReiss (talk) 04:17, December 27, 2015 (UTC)

Some suggestions
I want to propose some minor changes to these guidelines:


 * I think it would be better to use only American English throughout the wiki. Most of the site is already written in American English; Wikia is an American company, meaning that the interface of the site, its documentation and everything else is written in the American version of the language; and both Kodansha USA and Funimation (more importantly Kodansha) use American English for their translations which are the primary source of information for this wiki; so I really find no reason to mix British English here.
 * I'd like to change the rule about using the possesive "'s" within the links for using it outside the links. Like in the previous case, most of the links already use it outside; using it within requires more steps; and it doesn't seem syntactically correct. Wikipedia, for example, puts the "s" outside the links. Besides, I don't like how the links look with the "s" within.
 * I don't think we should reveal details of the deaths of deceased characters in their introductions. It feels like a spoiler blatantly out of place. The introduction is just supposed to provide an introduction to the character, so the details of the deaths or even saying that the character is dead are irrelevant; especially because the infobox and the fact that the introduction is written in past tense already indicate that the character passed away. For example, Nifa's introduction reads as follows:


 * "Nifa (ニファ) was a member of the Survey Corps fourth squad, under the command of Hange Zoë. She died instantly when she was shot in the face by Kenny Ackerman."


 * And I think it would be better to leave it this way:


 * "Nifa (ニファ) was a member of the Survey Corps fourth squad, under the command of Hange Zoë."


 * It is enough for an introduction and we don't spoil the end of her story since the very first paragraph of the article.


 * I suggest adding a rule about avoiding contractions in articles. This means, we write "he is", "they are", instead of "he's", "they're". This is an encyclopedia and as such it should use formal writing.


 * And these are all my suggestions for the moment.--Manuel de la Fuente (talk) 22:16, June 10, 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of these suggestions, but I'll address each one individually.


 * I never really noticed that British and American English were being mixed on this wiki, but I agree with all of your points. Plus, I'd prefer the wiki have a uniform writing style, rather than individual users using different spellings of words. We get enough of that with character names from our official sources, lol.
 * Agree 100%, if for no other reason than because including the possessive "'s" in links takes longer than simply writing it outside the link.
 * I'm not too concerned about including spoilers in the introductions to articles, but I don't really see a reason not to change them, so I'd support changing them to avoid spoilers.
 * I agree with your reasoning behind avoiding contractions in articles, so I support the inclusion of a rule avoiding contractions.--Neetaku (talk) 17:19, June 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * These all sound like good ideas to me as well. But on the subject of contractions, would this also apply to indirect quotes? For example, when I added a flashback to the Kidnappers page, I wrote Eren's thought as an indirect quote: He thinks to himself that people who reject the freedom of others, no matter how strong they are, don't matter. - based off of Eren's thought "People who reject that, no matter how strong they are, don't matter." --GodKingReiss (talk) 19:11, June 11, 2016 (UTC)
 * It indeed would apply to indirect quotes as they are more of allusions rather than quotations properly speaking. Only direct quotes would be written exactly as they are found in the source, otherwise they would lose their purpose of quotations. Even misspellings are written as they are, in which case we use "". This is a universal rule concerning quotes in written sources, not only limited to wikis.--Manuel de la Fuente (talk) 19:40, June 11, 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds good! --GodKingReiss (talk) 19:46, June 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * Nice ideas. Sound good to me. --Insieme (talk) 22:38, June 11, 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry I'm a little late to the party, but I also propose we use American English. It's a good idea to stay consistent throughout the wiki, in my opinion. As for the introduction, I think it's best if we spare the deaths until stated in the "Story" section. --BlouseGirl (talk) 01:55, June 12, 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay I have a couple of thoughts:


 * I thought we already agreed that we would only use American English on the wiki? If not, then I think we should use it for all writing. I know sometimes I accidentally slip in some British English but this is only a mistake. It's just that I live in Canada, so I use British English for literally everything but this wiki. I do try not to use it here though.
 * I don't think it should really matter where we put the letter 's' in links so long as it appears correct and doesn't cause any trouble. Writing speed differs from person to person and size of edits but I don't think it takes very long to write it your preferred way (e.g., Hange Zoës and Hange Zoë's. Plus it doesn't show up is you put 's at the end (e.g., Hange Zoë's) and I think that looks really bad. But the second way is just the way I've always written.
 * I think revealing details of deaths is good for characters who have tiny roles, instead of just
 * "Gelgar (ゲルガー) was a member of the Survey Corps."
 * you have something a bit more provoking which is
 * "Gelgar (ゲルガー) was a member of the Survey Corps until he was eaten by a Titan at Utgard Castle."
 * Plus, I believe we talked about how this wiki isn't responsible for spoiling people who aren't up to date on the manga. It's an encyclopedia, and even with that we have a spoiler warning on pages for people when they first get on the site. If someone clicks the spoiler warning away and then gets upset that they were spoiled in the intro right after... I mean?????????????? (•⌂•)╝?


 * Finally, the use of formal writing and not using contractions sounds fine to me. I think we try to be as formal as we can in the first place anyways, but I'm sure there will be instances where it might sound choppy.... Maybe that's just a thought. I also feel that a lot of people will slip up and write contractions at first, so lets be prepared to deal with and be lenient on the subject.--JinxTheFunhouse (talk) 02:20, June 12, 2016 (UTC)
 * About the deceased characters, we are accepting that this wiki has spoilers but the problem is when we are spoiling the end since the introduction. It's like when someone is telling you a story; even if you are ready to listen the whole tale, they will not start by revealing how it ended since the introduction. It just doesn't feel right. When you are reading the introduction of a character and notice that it's written in past tense, it's enough hint that the character passed away. If you want to know the exact circumstances in which that happened, you better read the biography.


 * I should note that many new fans come to the wiki looking for essential information about the story like names, roles; and overall, wanting to know who is who. They do know that this wiki reveals everything but they just skip the information they don't want to know yet and focus only on the basics to understand the story; which is the purpose of the introduction. I also do the same when I visit other wikis, so that's a reason to make a better treatment of the information and avoid jumping to unnecessary details from the beginning (without mentioning the fact that the spoiler warning has a delay of some seconds and doesn't work in mobile devices).--Manuel de la Fuente (talk) 03:00, June 12, 2016 (UTC)


 * Well I don't think it matters too much if we do or do not have the deaths in the intro. I only worry about small role characters but I'm sure we could just make note of what role they played or their duties :)
 * Looping back to the 's' thing, can we agree on putting it either way? So long as it looks proper I don't think it should matter, and I would say that Erwin Smith's looks much more proper than Erwin Smith's when it comes to the 's part --JinxTheFunhouse (talk) 05:46, June 14, 2016 (UTC)
 * We need to pick a single style to keep a consistency within the wiki and prevent users from continuously changing them according to their own liking, which is precisely the purpose of the Manual of Style. Besides the fact that using the "'s" within the link is not semantically correct (and that's why Wikipedia and the rest of the Wikimedia projects, as well as the vast majority of wikis and websites and general don't use it), I don't want to use it either because it requires more steps when you're not using the Visual Editor. As I use to work with code, I have the Source Editor enabled by default; that means that I have to manually type the wikitext; i.e., I need to write " [Erwin Smith|Erwin Smith's]] " instead of " [Erwin Smith]]'s ", which is double work for me and for any person in the same case. Plus, third reason, I don't like how they look with the "'s" within. The last two aspects can be considered subjective since different users use different editors and like different styles, but the first is what the Manual of Style is supposed to focus on. --Manuel de la Fuente (talk) 12:15, June 14, 2016 (UTC)