Destinypedia:Layout guide

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Revision as of 15:48, September 1, 2015 by Spartacus (talk | contribs) (→‎General: I think that's what we were trying to link to.)
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What Destinypedia is not

Destinypedia:Layout Guide is an official guide to laying out a typical basic article. Complicated articles may be best modeled on the layout of an existing article of appropriate structure. Feel free to discuss the Layout Guide on the talk page.

General

Sections listed below are for any type of article. They are optional sections; if they are applicable to the topic of the article, include it in the article.

  • Some subtitles can sometimes appear in only one page, depending on the subject.
  • Sometimes a quote can be added at the start of a section when justified.
  • Sections can feature subsections and are obviously not all used all the time.
  • "Behind the scenes"/"Production notes" is reserved only for development information, such as design evolution, cut content, name change, etc.
  • "Trivia" is for trivial information, such as little details that does not add much to the subject, could even be disregarded, but are fun to know. Pointless and irrelevant trivia will be removed however. Subsections can be included under "Trivia", such as "Easter eggs", "Glitches", "References", and "Miscellaneous". If there is only one trivia entry, no bullet point is needed.
  • The section "List of appearances" must only contain official Destiny titles in release date order.

Article introduction

Like on any wiki, the article must feature a short introduction, starting by the article name in in bold. A game title must be in italics. At least one relevant picture should be at the right side of the article (in the Infobox when there is one).

Article end

After the main contents, the end of an article will include, in this order:

  • Trivia
  • Gallery
  • List of appearances
  • Sources

Gallery

A typical gallery section should include at least two images. To add the gallery feature, simply use <gallery>, add in your images and close the feature with </gallery>.

Example
<gallery>
...
...
</gallery>

For more information about gallery and images, see Help:Images.

Appearance lists

Destinypedia uses dedicated appearance lists to list the appearances of fictional subjects in real-world works. There are a number of standards to follow when utilizing these lists:

The definition of "appearance" as used here varies depending on the type of media. As a general rule, in visual media (games, comics, films, etc.), everything the viewer can see constitutes as an appearance. In literature, the subject must be specifically mentioned by name, or described in enough detail to discern what it is, in order to qualify as an appearance.

Deriving appearances of individual constituents from an appearance of a larger whole should be applied with discretion. Although there are exceptions, it is generally advised that the appearance or mention of an entity alone does not constitute as an appearance of all of its constituents.

There are several templates which can be used to further detail specific types of appearances:

  • 1st - used to identify a subject's first appearance in any work; if the subject is only mentioned for the first time, but does not appear as described above, use the "First mentioned" tag instead.
  • Mo - used if the subject is mentioned in the source, but is not physically present in the narrative; in visual media, this means that the viewer cannot see the mentioned entity.
  • First mentioned - when a previously-unseen or unmentioned subject is mentioned for the first time, use this in the place of "First appearance" and "Mentioned only".
  • Indirect mention - applies to instances in which the subject is not directly mentioned by name, but is being alluded to in an unambiguous manner.
  • C - can be used to provide more specific, although brief, information on appearances that do not fit any of the aforementioned categories; this may include notes such as "Cameo appearance" or "Possible appearance" (used in very rare cases in which the possibility is highly likely or strongly implied, though uncertain).

"List of appearances" in in-universe articles

Articles written from an in-universe perspective feature a list of appearances to detail the works in which the article subject has appeared. All works the subject appears in should be listed in chronological order of release date, regardless of the type of media. Appearance lists must only contain official and canonical Destiny titles.

"Appearances" in articles for real-world media

Pages for real-world media (e.g. games) have lists for the in-universe entities that appear within that work. In these lists, the appearances are grouped into categories (characters, technology, etc.) and listed in alphabetical order within their respective categories. In order to prevent these lists from becoming too extensive, less significant appearances or mentioned-only subjects may not be included.

Official layouts

The purpose of standardizing all articles to an official format is to improve the quality and readability of all articles in Destinypedia. That said, all users must follow the official format.