“I memorize one page every night!”
This page is an official BLoSCWiki policy.
The Manual of Style is a style guide for all BLoSCWiki articles. It establishes the style and formatting of BLoSCWiki articles, helping editors produce articles with consistent, clear, and precise language, layout, and formatting. The goal is to create an encyclopedia that is easier and more intuitive to use. Consistency in style, wording and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion; this is especially important within an article and across related media. For all this, edits that ignore this manual can be undone without further reason.
Feel free to discuss improvements to this guide in this page's talk page or discussion board.
Perspective[]
Articles on BLoSCWiki are one of two types:
- In-universe: Articles about the world of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, such as characters, locations, and items.
- Out-of-universe: Articles about production elements, such as actors, crew members, and episodes.
Each type requires a particular approach.
In-universe[]
- Articles are written as if the world of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is the real world, not our own. Meaning that characters, species, locations, items, and more should be written without referencing, comparing and/or contrasting them to our real world perspective.
- Sections in articles, such as Appearances and Trivia, are written from an out-of-character perspective.
- Infobox fields are also considered in-universe.
- The Production details section in infoboxes is written from an out-of-character perspective.
- Avoid references to lack of knowledge.
- For example, avoid hypothetical phrases such as "possibly," "perhaps," "maybe" and similar.
- While characters without proper names or titles have articles that start with Unnamed, avoid the term in prose.
- Instead of "An unnamed injured villager told Buzz..." write "An injured villager told Buzz..."
Out-of-universe[]
Article titles, sections, and headings[]
Titles and headings[]
- Use sentence case for article titles and section headings.
- For example: Crater viper slag monster mutant, not Crater Viper Slag Monster Mutant.
- Use title case for species, planets, organizations, episodes -- essentially, anything with an official term or title.
- For example: Little Green Men, not Little green men.
- For example: Star Command, not Star command.
- For example: Little Secrets, not Little secrets.
- Use a mix of both sentence case and title case when necessary.
- For example: Unnamed whale-like Bathyosian, not Unnamed Whale-Like Bathyosian or Unnamed whale-like bathyosian.
- Page titles must be singular by default. Page introductions may be plural if desired.
- For example: Bathyosian, not Bathyosians.
- Avoid titles of address, familial titles, aristocratic titles, etc. in article titles.
- For example: Zurg, not Evil Emperor Zurg.
- Exceptions include when the character's real name is unknown, or to avoid confusion with other characters.
- For example: Madame President, not President.
- Do not use "A," "An," or "The," as the first word of an article title or section heading, unless it is inseparable or part of an official term or title.
- For example: Fixer, not The Fixer, but The galaxy.
- Use numbers for planet names, not spelled out numbers or Roman numerals.
- For example: Mahambas 6, not Mahambas Six or Mahambas VI.
- Do not use links or references in section headings.
- Do not add whitespaces before or after section headings.
- For example: ==Section==, not == Section ==.
Usage and Language[]
Spelling and Grammar[]
- Formal language and proper grammar should be used at all times. There are no exceptions to this rule as BLoSCWiki aims to be as concise and encyclopedic as possible. Keeping your writing simple will make it easy to understand and easy to expand on. Use complete sentences whenever possible and refrain from using slang or profanities. Aim instead to offer an objective view to maintain an impersonal perspective.
- Stick to American English spelling. Although the series has viewers from all over the world, keeping to one form of spelling will avoid confusion and maintain consistency throughout the wiki.
- Tenses should always be consistent throughout an article. When speaking of a character whose status remained unchanged or unresolved by the end of the series, use present tense. When speaking of events that have already occurred and brought about significant changes, use past tense. For example, "Buzz Lightyear is a space ranger..." and "NOS-4-A2 was an energy vampire..." illustrate how NOS-4-A2 is dead and Buzz Lightyear is still working at Star Command.
Formatting[]
- Titles of movies, series, games and books should be italicized (e.g., Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Toy Story, Attack of the Energy Vampire). Titles of episodes, comics and songs should be enclosed in double quotes (e.g, "The Torque Armada", "Project G!", "XR Saves the Day").
- Corresponding articles should always be linked when first mentioned in an article.
Article Layout[]
Each article has its own layout format that should be followed at all times unless the given information is too little to merit using it. Despite that, the majority of articles follow these standard rules:
- Titles should always have the first letter of every word capitalized, except for prepositions such as "of", "in" or "and". For example, Planet of the Little Green Men is preferred to Planet Of The Little Green Men.
- Titles should not start with "the", "a" or "an" unless they are meant for the title of an episode. For example, The Torque Armada is acceptable, but forms such as The Galactic Alliance are best to be kept Galactic Alliance instead.
- For multiple articles with the same title, standard disambiguation procedure applies. The most common case is that of a character and episode. It is best to always allow a character article to keep the simple title and to elaborate otherwise. For example, NOS-4-A2 (episode) is the title for the episode article and NOS-4-A2 is the title for the character article.
Images[]
When uploading images, always make sure to add the proper licensing. Copyright is crucial in anything you do.