Naming Conventions

## Foreword

The FFOS Database Wiki Project contains tens of thousands of articles and images. In order to keep the site organized, we use a uniform set of rules when naming articles and files. These conventions attempt to cover the vast majority of situations, though exceptions may arise. The conventions are not optional since often unseen aspects of the site's inner workings depend heavily on consistency.

Thanks!

## General Conventions

* **Begin pagenames with a capital letter.** No matter what the circumstance or word that may start the article title. This is a software requirement.
* **Do not capitalize prepositions, conjunctions and articles in a pagename unless they are the first word (see above). These include but are not limited to:**

* and
* at
* by
* de
* for
* from
* in
* of
* on
* or
* the
* to
* van
* von
* **Exception:** Names should follow the capitalization style used on sources.
	+ **Example:** Victor Van Damme

* **Capitalize every word in the title (except as above).** The convention prevents the confusion of whether certain words should be capitalized or not. (eg. Senator\_Kelly\_for\_President, not Senator\_Kelly\_for\_president)
* **Do not capitalize file extensions**. Always use lowercase for .jpg, .gif, .png, etc.
* **Do not use symbols ( `# < > [ ] | { } _` ) in page names.** The # symbol is reserved in HTML code to signify links to a specific area of a page. For more information on technical restrictions, please refer to MediaWiki manual.
* **Do not use a forward slash (/).** The forward slash symbol (/) is reserved in our software code to signify a separation between sub-pages. Using the symbol on a page name will result in a page being a subpage.
* **Avoid using a period (aka full-stop) (.) at the end of a page name.** In certain cases having a period at the end of your page name can cause some very unexpected and unwanted results. This is not a requirement as this only occurs when the page is viewed with certain web-browsers.

## Article Pages

### Character Pages

* List characters by their most well-known real names.
	+ Alternate Reality counterparts of a character are **assumed to have the same real name unless stated otherwise**.

* If the real name is known:
	+ Real name consists of: "First name" "Surname" "Jr" (if applicable). None of the names are shortened in any way.
		- **Examples:** Monet St. Croix, Bruce Banner, James MacDonald Jr, Robert Drake (instead of Bobby)
	+ Including degrees or titles in a character's name should be at a minimum.
		- **Example:** Veronica Bee instead of Dr. Veronica (Dr. Veronica Bee is fine, but keep it subtle)
	+ The precedence of the Real name over codenames, titles and honorifics still applies when only the initial of the First name is known.
	+ As proper names, Real names follow their own language's grammar rules regarding accent marks.

* If only the surname part of the real name is known:
	+ If the character doesn't have a recognizable codename, but has a specific rank, title or degree, the name of the article consists of the rank followed by the surname. The list of ranks includes, but is not limited to: "Agent, Captain, Doctor, General, Professor, Senator..."
		- **Example:** General Jim
	+ If the character is referred to by an honorific title, the name of the article consists of the honorific "Mr.", "Mrs.", or "Ms." (depending on gender and marital status) followed by the surname.
		- **Example:** Mrs. Jones

* If the real name is not known:
	+ Name consists of the most well-known (or latest) codename and the partial real name (or alias) in parenthesis. The most well-known codename is better than the most recent codename, and the real name is better than an alias, even if it seems less complete.
		- **Example:** Scarlett Spear (Jim Jimson)

* Multiple characters with the same name
	+ Articles receive additional parenthesis to specify the difference between two or more articles with the same name.
		- **Example:** This is rare
	+ For consistency purposes and to facilitate disambiguations and other automatized processes, all alternate counterparts will receive the same qualifier even if it would not apparently be needed for a particular counterpart.
	+ In some exceptional cases, additional qualifiers can be used for alternate counterparts that would not seemingly need them per the general rule above. For instance, when the adaption doesn't share the same first name as the original character. In that case, keeping the qualifier helps distinguish the main article it is a counterpart of. This again, is incredibly rare.

### Items/Vehicles/Locations/Races Pages

* Items, vehicles, races and locations utilize a single, standard page for all information.
* When sharing a name with anything else, the item lists (Item) after its name, the vehicle lists (Vehicle) after its name, and so on.

## Disambiguation Pages

* Disambiguation pages are used for resolving ambiguous page titles to help a reader finding the desired page from other possible articles.

## Files

### Subject Images

* Images of a specific subject (character, team, item, etc.) are named by the subject. The incremental number should be three digits long to ensure there will be sufficient numbers for future use.
* One Subject: primarysubject\_incrementalnumber.jpg
	+ Example: Ruby Crest 001.jpg
	+ Example: Doctor R 001.jpg

## Miscellaneous Notes

* **Avoid Abbreviations.** This helps our search feature to more easily locate these images later. It also avoids the possibility of conflicting names.
* **Use subpages.** In order to keep related pages grouped together, sub-pages are often utilized. Sub-pages exist in the same namespace as their parent page.
* Some subpage examples include:
	+ Character/Gallery
	+ Team/Gallery
	+ User/Blog
	+ User/Collection
	+ User/Favourites
	+ User/Gallery
	+ User/News
	+ User/Sandbox
	+ User/Wishlist

Please submit any questions regarding special circumstances or any other concerns to the Administrators for review and we will either establish a new, relevant convention or direct you to the existing convention that would be applicable in that case.

Thank you again!