Dinotopia Wiki:Manual of Style

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DW:MOS

Welcome to Dinotopia Wiki! This page is here to inform you about this site's preferred styles when it comes to editing. These are not rules, but these are guidelines, so you are encouraged to follow them, and your work is less likely to need improvement if you do follow them.

Some of this applies to editing in the {{#NewWindowLink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup%7CSource Mode}} of the editor. For more information on editing please refer to Help:Editing.

Note: This page is currently being built, so it could be changed at anytime without notice.

Article titles

Shortest is king! Please do not name your articles with very long names. If the name of the place, person or book is long, then obviously you cannot help that.

In the interest of Wikification (linking) please name all non-proper article titles like sentences. Like so:

Breathe Deep, Seek Peace (incorrect)
Breathe deep, seek peace (correct)

For proper names please capitalize all words:

Waterfall city (incorrect)
Waterfall City (correct)

Since the {{#NewWindowLink: mw:|MediaWiki}} software capitalizes the first letter of an article name, it is important to make it easy to link. In other words: a Wikian is editing a page on this wiki and sees an opportunity to link to another page. The text is "breathe deep, seek peace". If the user was to link that by adding brackets like so: [[breathe deep, seek peace]], it would still work: breathe deep, seek peace. But if the title of that article had the first letter capitalized in each word, the link would look like this: [[Breath Deep, Seek Peace|breathe deep, seek peace]]. Annoying if you are linking a bunch of pre-existing articles to a recently created article. See {{#NewWindowLink:http://dinotopia.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Wikitext%7CHelp:Wikitext}} for more information.

Article layout

This is the recommended layout for all articles:

Blurbs

When creating a large page, leave a "blurb" at the top of the page. This is called a "leading section" and has no section heading. It is basically a summary of what is coming in text further down. Though it can include but not limited to, for example: where the island is; if it is a town, where the town is in relation to another town or land-mark is. These types of information do not necessarily have to be in the rest of the article.

Sections

Section headings are there to make it easier to find information in articles. Headings should be like a sentence, in other words do not capitalize all the words; only the start:

Section Heading (incorrect)
Section heading (correct)

Sections can get confusing by themselves. So please try not to use too many stages in an article. You are able to put up-to six equal signs "=" on either side of text to make a Level Six heading. However, it is generally thought that one does not go beyond a "Level Four" heading (====Heading==== if you are editing in Source mode). This creates:

This is the bare minimum, since it is only slightly larger than ordinary text. If you are adding a high level section heading (a small heading), think about just changing paragraphs rather than headings.

Do not use Level 1 headings. This is only accessible via wiki-text and is made by adding one equal sign "=" on either side of some text. (=Heading=) This renders a heading the same size as the page name heading.

There is no real set of heading names that are required yet. Just add what is necessary e.g. History, Appearances, Behind the scenes etc.

Referencing

It is particularly helpful that you show where you got your information from. Otherwise other users, and viewers, have no idea whether the info you added is correct, and they may remove it. There are two ways to add refs:

Easy

This easy way of adding references makes sure all articles have the same design, minimizing viewer confusion. Add the {{Ref}} template to the page like so:

{{Ref|<type = book>|<title = Add the exact book title here>|<author = Add the author's name here>|<publisher = Add the publisher's name here>}}

This creates:

• Add the exact book title here, written by Add the author's name here, published by Add the publisher's name here.

Add this under a "References" or "Sources" heading:

code:

==References==
{{Ref|type = book|title = Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time|author = James Gurney|publisher = Crawford House Press}}

Product:

You can find more information about Template:Ref's parameters on its page.

Technical

A better way of adding references, is to add inline citations. These use HTML tags, in the text. Inline citations are helpful because you can cite where you got the info for each sentence if you wish (if the reference differs, that is). To use follow these instructions:

This is the text you wish to add a reference to.

This is the text you wish to add a reference to.<ref></ref>

This is the text you wish to add a reference to.<ref>Your reference goes here</ref>

This is the text you wish to add a reference to.<ref>{{Ref|inline = yes|type = book|title = Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time|author = James Gurney|publisher = Crawford House Press}}</ref>

This is the text you wish to add a reference to.<ref>{{Ref|inline = yes|type = book|title = Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time|author = James Gurney|publisher = Crawford House Press}}</ref>

==References==

<references />

Note: you can also use {{References}} instead of <references />

Full code:

This is the text you wish to add a reference to.<ref>{{Ref|inline = yes|type = book|title = Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time|author = James Gurney|publisher = Crawford House Press}}</ref>

==References==
<references /> or {{References}}

This renders:

This is the text you wish to add a reference to.

You can find more information about Template:Ref's parameters on its page.

Contractions

Although this wiki is designed to be a relaxed editing environment, it is better to not contract words. Or at least do not over-do contractions. So if you are making a comment in an article like "she was not happy", you may change to "she wasn't happy" if you do not think it flows well in the former. Please try to limit the number of contractions to a few per paragraph.

Quotes are quotes, so do not alter them.

Spelling

Since the books are of North American origin, then please use {{#NewWindowLink: wikipedia:American English|American English}}. Again quotes are quotes, so do not alter them. Also any place or character names or similar should not be altered.