Manual of Style

The purpose of the Manual of Style is to create a set of guidelines to help make sure that content on all articles are uniform and to remove the need for editors to fix mistakes created by other editors. Reading this is highly recommended before editing.

**Disclaimer:** This manual is still in progress and content here is subject to change. If you are an active member who edits often, please check this daily and see if any changes have been made until this disclaimer is removed.

## Good Faith

All edits made and articles created on this wiki should be made in "good faith," with the intention of expanding and/or improving the wiki. Editors are given the benefit of the doubt, but if an edit is made that is clearly *not* in good faith, the edit will be reverted and if the case is extreme enough the user will be blocked for a period of time. If this happens repeatedly the user will be blocked indefinitely.

## General

### Language

* Since this wiki is intended for children under the age of thirteen, do not use swear words or refer to people's "private parts."
* Do not use insulting terms, such as ethnic slurs or terms that insult a specific group of people. However, "normal" insults that are not targeted at a specific group of people, such as "idiot" or "stupid," are still allowed, but NOT if they are used to insult another member of this community. These insults should only be used to describe fictional characters. Read the wiki rules for more information.
* Using contractions is accepted.
* Using abbreviations such as Inc. is actually preferred. Please do not use the full term, unless it makes more sense to do so.
	+ For example, use "Li'l Bear Inc." instead of "Li'l Bear Incorporated."
* Do not refer to yourself when editing an article.
	+ For example, "I" or "me" should not be used because they refer to yourself.

### Article Content

* All content on this wiki should relate to the Space creatures or the wider fictional universe. Don't get off topic when editing an article or delve into tangents.

### Specific Terminology

* This wiki uses the term "Space creatures," with the S in "space" capitalized but the C in "creatures" being lowercase. There is a space in between the two words.
* This wiki uses the term "Semi Space creatures," with the S in both "semi" and "space" capitalized but a lowercase C in "creatures." There is a space between each word.
* This wiki uses the term "humans" instead of "people" when referring to the species *homo sapiens sapiens*. When using the term "people," it is assumed the term is referring to all sentient and intelligent species, including: humans, woodpeople, dragons, Space creatures, carpeople, etc.
	+ The only exception to this are the woodpeople and carpeople, because "people" is part of the species name and is not considered a separate term.
* This wiki uses the term "woodpeople," with no spaces in between "wood" and "people" and no capital letters.
* This wiki uses the term "carpeople" with no spaces in between "car" and "people" and no capital letters.

## Articles

### Titles

* Titles should be written in title case, with all words (excluding preposition such as "and," "of," etc.) capitalized.
	+ For example, "Council of Intellect" would be a proper article title since all words except the preposition "of" are capitalized, but "Council of intellect" or "Council Of Intellect" would be improper.
* Titles for character articles should not include honorary titles unless that is the stated name of the character or there is nothing distinguishing about that character.
	+ For example, "King Liony" would be an improper title because it includes his title of king, while "The Mayor" would be a proper title because that is the only name ever given for that character.

### Headings

* Headings should also be written in title case, with all words (excluding prepositions such as "and," "of," etc.) capitalized.
* Sub-headings should be in sentence case, meaning that only pronouns and the sub-heading's first word should be capitalized.
* Headings and sub-headings divide an article into smaller, more manageable pieces, like paragraphs in an essay. However, headings and sub-headings should be reserved for separating two pieces with different content, not just to show where a paragraph starts or ends. In most cases, having a space in between two paragraphs would be okay, and headings and sub-headings should only be used to divide distinctly different sections of an article.
	+ When describing the past of a person, use the heading "Biography." When discussing the past of an inanimate object or location, use the heading "History." Use sub-headings to mark different time periods or events.

### Links

* To avoid "overlinkage," an article should not contain more than one link to a specific article.
	+ For example, if "Liony" was already linked once in the article you are editing, do not link it again.
	+ However, the person of interest in a quote is always linked to, and do not count towards the "one link rule."
	+ The first mention of a character, location, etc. in an infobox is linked but does not count towards the "one link rule."
	+ Headings and sub-headings cannot have links in them.

### Categories

* All articles must have the "A to Z" category attached.
* The proper categories must be added to every article.
	+ For example, an article about a dead male Space creature character who lived in the Lion Kingdom would have the categories Deceased, Male, Space creature, and Lion Kingdom.

## Article Structure (for character articles)

A character article should be structure like this:

* Top Quotes
* Infobox
* Introduction
* Appearance
* Abilities
* Personality
* Biography/History
* Relationships (if applicable)

Below are more detailed explanations of each section.

### Top Quotes

* Each character quote needs two quotes at the top.
	+ The first top quote should, if possible, be a scientific analysis from Professor Brachio instead of a quote the character made. If you are editing an article about an inanimate object/location, then the quote must be a scientific or historical analysis from Professor Brachio, because inanimate objects can't speak.
	+ The second quote should be a quote from the character, preferably a trademark phrase that character makes often (also known as a catchphrase).

### Infobox

* If editing a Space creature character article, use the template Infobox\_SpaceCreature and fill out the information. If you do not have enough information to fill out a section of the infobox, leave it blank. If it stated elsewhere that that information is unknown, write "?" instead.
* If editing a character article who is not a Space creature, use the template Infobox\_Character and fill out the information. If you do not have enough information to fill out a section of the infobox, leave it blank. If it stated elsewhere that that information is unknown, write "?" instead.
* If editing a character article, no matter the species, the status must be either:
	+ "Alive and Well," if the character is alive and relatively okay with their life;
	+ "Alive and Unwell," if the character is alive but not okay with their life;
	+ "Unknown," if it is unclear whether or not the character is alive;
	+ "Presumed Deceased," if the character is alive but most people think they are dead;
	+ "Deceased," if the character is dead.
	+ These are the only five statuses allowed in the "Status" section of a character infobox.

### Introduction

* The introduction should be a short paragraph containing important and essential information, nothing else.
	+ Important and essential information includes their job, species, a *very brief* description of their appearance (for example, "large, tough-looking human" or "abnormally cute Space creature"), romantic interests (if applicable) and family (if applicable). Lastly, it should contain a very brief description of where they stand in the universe, for example, Liony's says: "is usually at the center of things."

### Appearance

* This section contains a description of the character's physical appearance.
	+ Describe their eye color, skin/fur/scale color, relative size and height, and other distinguishing physical traits (for example, Liony's cuteness).

### Abilities

* This section contains not just special abilities, which mainly apply to Space creatures, but also defining traits such as superhuman strength in the case of Big Boy Ben or superhuman intelligence in the case of Smartest Brother.

### Personality

* If writing about a character, this would describe their personality (thus the name).
	+ For example, are they cheery or optimistic? Are they sad and lonely? Are they most likely insane? Are they incredibly evil or kind or something else?

### Biography

* This section contains a description of the character's past.
* If writing about a character, the heading should be called "Biography" and describe what happened to them and what they did in the past, leading up to the present.
	+ Please separate this section with sub-headings to mark important time periods or events.

### Relationships

* If writing about a character, separate this section with sub-headings to differentiate between different characters.
	+ For example, a Relationships section for a character would have sub-headings for other characters, and a description of how they feel about each character.

## Article Creation

### Checking

* Before creating a new article, check that there aren't any closely related articles. For example, there is no need to create an article called Space creatures because there is already an article entitled "Space Creatures." Similarly, there is no need to create an article titled "Perma Death" because the Space Creatures article already contains that information.

### Follow Guidelines

* When creating an article, it is especially important that you follow these guidelines, especially the article structure.