Manual of Style

The following guidelines outline the standardized approach to content that any editor, new or old, should take into account when contributing to the site so that its articles are consistent in quality, language, and tone. Please take into account that a continued violation of these guidelines is considered a blockable offense.

## **Content**

The Locked Tomb Wiki exists to be a source of concise, factual information about the characters, places, items, and events of the series as a whole. Though the series inspires a lot of opportunities for conspiracy theories, fanon interpretations of characters and relationships, religious and mythological interpretations of events, etc, those discussions should remain on either the Discussion Page, your personal blog (found on your profile), or another site such as Tumblr, Twitter, the Locked Tomb Subreddit, or the Locked Tomb Discord.

### Canon

To be considered canon, information must come from:

* One of the main novels—Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, Nona the Ninth or Alecto the Ninth.
* One of the short stories, such as The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex or As of Yet Unsent.
* Published promotional material, such as Tor.com's "Find Your Necromancer Family" article.

Information such as interviews, Tumblr/Twitter posts from Muir, her editors, and/or official artists should be treated as "bonus material" and included in the "trivia" sections of relevant pages with links to the appropriate posts, as some readers may not wish to read this content.

Fan-made interpretations, whether via fanworks or critical analysis, should never be included on the main wiki.

### Fact

To be considered "fact," and thus able to be included in the wiki without qualifier or citation, a piece of information should be clearly stated in the text by a reliable source or reasonably inferred.

Examples of proven fact might be:

* Harrowhark Nonagesimus has short, black hair.
* Palamedes Sextus is romantically interested in Dulcinea Septimus.
* Sometime before the Anniversary Dinner, Silas Octakiseron received his Facility hatch key.

There are many instances within the Locked Tomb Trilogy where information is revealed second-hand or by an unreliable/biased source. In these cases, editors should include qualifying phrases to clarify the potential bias.

Examples of information that may need a qualifying phrase might be:

* According to Augustine, Cristabel Oct is a fanatic and an idiot.
* Judith Deuteros believes that it is the right of the Second House to call in the Cohort.

Furthermore, many events are hinted at in various ways without yet being confirmed. These pieces of information may be included on the wiki, but their unconfirmed status should be made clear.

Examples of this might be:

* Harrowhark likely had Gideon's blood on her hands when she attempted to open the Locked Tomb.
* Alfred Quinque and Cristabel Oct had some sort of arrangement—potentially a suicide pact.

In the event of an irreconcilable dispute, the admins/sysops will hold the final say.

### How Thorough Should I Be?

The Locked Tomb Wiki seeks to be an encyclopedia, not a replacement for reading the novels. As such, editors should tailor the depth of their information to the page they are editing. Characters like Harrowhark Nonagesimus have an overwhelming amount of content in-text and to include every detail about her life would make her character page unwieldy. In contrast, characters like Cristabel Oct have relatively little content in-text and can be extremely thoroughly documented without becoming overwhelming.

For a better idea of the depth and type of information appropriate to a wiki, editors are encouraged to visit several established wikis in a variety of fandoms.

## **Editor Voice**

### Vocabulary and Tone

As an encyclopedic reference resource, editors of the Locked Tomb Wiki should strive to use plain, but concise and correct English. To ensure clarity and accessibility to the widest base of fans possible, editors should avoid overly complex vocabulary, ambiguity, vulgarity, literary clichés, and idioms—except in the case of direct quotations from the source material. Editors should assume a neutral and semi-formal tone, without making value judgments of any characters or their actions. Examples of this style of language can be found among other wikis, Wikipedia, informative news articles, and more.

### Grammar and Syntax

Editors should show appropriate proficiency in English while editing the wiki. It is highly recommended that editors paste their work into a grammar checking site such as Grammarly, Typely, or even a word processing program with a spelling and grammar check feature like Word or Google Docs to help catch errors.

The Locked Tomb Wiki does not favor any particular national variety of English, however, quotations should retain original spellings from the novel.

### Narrative Perspective

Save for a few exceptions to be noted, all pieces of text within the Locked Tomb Wiki need to be written using an in-universe perspective. This means that editors should assume the position of an omniscient spectator within the world and act as though all characters, events, and concepts are reality.

Editors should also avoid language that is referential to the materials themselves—such as titles of books, references to act or chapter numbers, etc—and instead give context to their content with in-universe landmarks such as chronology ("after the party," "on the way to First House," etc), ages of the characters, or years before the Emperor's murder.

The exception to this rule is real-world pages, such as Tamsyn Muir, and the "trivia" section of any given page.

### Verb Tense

Per standard literary convention, all content referring to the characters and events of the novels should be written in the literary/historic present tense. More information on the history and usage of literary present tense can be found on style.mla.org.

The exception to this rule is real-world pages, such as Tamsyn Muir, and the "trivia" section of any given page, which should follow standard convention.

## **Style Guide**

### Sample Page Layouts

The following sample page layouts are intended to give a representation of the appropriate style for each page type. Editors should feel free to copy/paste the sample page layout source code as a starting point for new pages.

* Sample Formatting Page

### Page Naming Conventions

#### **General Conventions**

* Begin page names with a capital letter.
* Capitalize every word in the title.
	+ Exceptions: and, at, by, for, from, in, of, on, or, the, to, etc.
* Do not use symbols in page titles.
	+ Exceptions: apostrophes, such as "Camilla's Shuttle"

#### **Character Pages**

* Characters should be named with the character's full name.
	+ "Harrowhark Nonagesimus" not "Harrow" or "Harrow Nonagesimus"
* Characters should NOT be named with their title.
	+ "Aiglamene" not "Captain Aiglamene"
	+ Exception: John/God is named "The Emperor" to avoid confusion and/or spoilers.
* Due to the naming conventions of series, characters without a surname should not be given the surname of a relative.
	+ "Mortus" not "Mortus Nigenad"
	+ Isaac Tettares's siblings cannot be assumed to hold the surname "Tettares"

#### **Location Pages**

* Typically, locations should simply be named with their full title.
	+ Examples: "The Ninth House," "Canaan House," "The Erebos," etc.
* Some locations do not have proper names and should be named as descriptively and succinctly as possible.
	+ Examples: "Mercymorn's Transport Shuttle," "Camilla's Shuttle," etc.
	+ It is HIGHLY recommended to seek guidance from the admins and/or a discussion thread before deciding on a name.

* Alternate reality/non-real locations should be named with a descriptor in parenthesis.
	+ Example: "Canaan House (River Bubble)"

#### **Battle Pages**

* Battles are defined as a sustained fight between large, organized forces. Most fights with inter-House cooperation should be regarded as "large."
* Lacking in-universe battle names, battles should be named according to real-life conventions: "The Battle of (Location) (#)"
	+ Examples: "The Battle of Canaan House," "The Battle of The Mithraeum"
* Once created, battle pages should be added to the Battles page with a short, non-spoiler description to ease any confusion.

#### **Duels and Plots**

* Similar to locations without a proper name, duels and plots should be named as descriptively and succinctly as possible.
	+ Examples: "The Ninth House Genocide," "The Duel for Camilla's Keys," or "Cytherea's Plan"
	+ It is HIGHLY recommended to seek guidance from the admins and/or a discussion thread before deciding on a name.

* Once created, duel and plot pages should be added to the Duels page or Plots page with a short, non-spoiler description to ease any confusion.

### Links

* Any internal article should be linked to another page in its first mention within each section.
* Once linked, any internal article should not be linked again until a new section is created.
	+ Exceptions: the "Letters & Notes" page may be linked anytime a summary mentions a piece of in-universe writing that has been transcribed in full on that page.
* Keep piped links as transparent as possible, and avoid forcing the reader to hover over a link to see its content.
	+ Example: "Dulcinea's cavalier, Protesilaus Ebdoma," not "Dulcinea's cavalier"
		- Exceptions: in the case of spoiler content (e.g: "Gideon's mother," "the Body"), it would be appropriate to avoid naming the character.

### Citations/References

* ALL direct quotations require a reference.
* ALL trivia requires a reference.
* ALL artwork requires a caption with a link to the creator.
* Canonical, factual information in general pages does not necessarily require a reference, but lesser-known information/information about characters with smaller roles may benefit from additional references.

#### **The Locked Tomb Trilogy References**

References to one of the novels or short stories in the Locked Tomb Series should be cited using the reference tool as follows:

* **"Novel Title," Act #, Ch. #** or **"Novel Title," Non-Numbered Chapter Heading**
* Examples:
	+ "Harrow the Ninth," Act IV, Ch. 34
	+ "Gideon the Ninth," Glossary
	+ "Harrow the Ninth," Parodos
	+ "The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex"

#### **Outside Sources**

References to articles should be cited using the reference tool as follows:

* **"Article Title," Website**
* Examples:
	+ "Best Science Fiction 2020," Goodreads

Any other sources should follow MLA citation practices to the best of the editor's ability.

### Images

Guidelines for the use and uploading of images and media to the wiki can be found in the Image Policy.