User blog:Hushpiper/Hushpiper's Unofficial Style Guide

Hello! I'm Hushpiper, and this style guide goes over the standards and formats that I use when writing for the Metaworld Chronicles wiki. This post is for my reference as much as it is for yours.

Canonicity
Information in the wiki should be citable and canonical. Information from non-canonical but reliable or authoritative sources is also acceptable, but should be noted as such. For information to be citable, it must be in some publicly-accessable or formally published place, e.g. in ebooks, on websites, in physical books, etc. I would, at least for the moment, like to avoid information published in places that are not easily citable, e.g. Discord or Patreon.

For information to be canonical, it must come from a canonical source. Canon itself encompasses the official ebooks and the story as published on Royal Road. Where the two are in conflict, the official ebooks take precedence. Out-of-universe information, such as Word of God, may also be worthy of inclusion, and would encompass things like the author's notes on Royal Road or statements elsewhere on the internet. Such extra-canonical information should be noted as such, for example with language such as "the author has stated...", and it should generally be separated from the main body of the section to which it pertains. Certain kinds of non-canonical information might also be of interest to the reader; for example, comparison of the Metaworld to real world places, people and events; or to the D&D mechanics on which much of the Metaworld is based. Those may be considered worthy of inclusion, and if so they should usually be placed in Trivia sections.

In general, theories and conjecture shouldn't go on the wiki. This includes things like interpretations of character relationships; ideally, a character relationship section should confine itself to what is stated or portrayed in canon, without adding interpretation. So, one should not say "Helena is a narcissist", since while she is there is evidence for this statement, it is nevertheless an interpretation of what is shown in canon. However, one could say "Helena uses her childrens' success to boost her own status", or "Helena subjected Gwen to crash diets, toxic criticism, and sabotage", as those are facts. The same logic applies to all topics on the wiki.

A certain amount of theory is allowable when it is of interest to the reader and relevant to the topic of the article; a rough timeline of events in the story is of great interest to a reader, but there is no official timeline, and as such it must be inferred from time cues within the story. Similarly, there may be conjecture on the topic of a character's vital statistics. However, in general, theories are outside the scope of a wiki, and in situations where they are warranted, they should be clearly marked as such.

(Note: theories are in the scope of meta, and I suggest AO3 for this, as their policies allow for meta works as well as fanfic, and we need some stuff there to get a Metaworld Chronicles tag started. Dreamwidth is also a good platform for such things.)

Chapter Page Format
Article names for chapters should be "Chapter Title" (with the number stripped out), followed by "(chapter)". TODO: what to do if the chapter title differs between the web and published versions?

INFOBOX: If the chapter is not yet published, the Volume #, Published #, and Published Chronology fields should all be set to N/A. The Web Release Date should be copy pasted as-is from the bottom of the chapter on Royal Road, including timestamp. The chapter link should be formatted like  RoyalRoad . The previous and next chapter sections should include the full name of the chapter as written in the source: for the web version, this tends to be "Chapter # - Title", while for the published version it tends to have the number written out (e.g. Chapter One). Be aware that some chapters were moved around in the published version, so don't assume that the numbering is the same in both; double-check the titles and content.

OPENING LINE: ''NAME is the Xth chapter of the web serial, and the Xth chapter of Volume X of the published series, written by David J. Wuto, a.k.a. Wutosama. [TITLE ORIGIN OR REFERENCE] .'' If the chapter is not yet published, those parts should be omitted in the opening sentence. It may also include a sentence stating the general date in which this chapter is set, e.g. "between March and May of 2004".

SUMMARY: This should be brief, but cover all major events in the chapter. It should not be a detailed play-by-play, especially where fight scenes, conversations, or extended character interactions are concerned. Instead, give a one- to two-sentence overview of the primary characters' dispositions in the fight or interaction, with especial concern to plot points. It should not be longer than 2-3 paragraphs.

QUOTES: Use the Quote template, with the "speaker" field as a description of the speaker and context (e.g. "Gwen's alarm clock radio" or "Caliban's reaction to Richard"). The "source" field should generally be blank. (Note that the template will not work if the speaker field is blank but the source field is not.) There should not be more than 2-3 quotes. The quotes should be chosen for their flavor, entertainment value, character relevance, and the like.

LITERARY / POP CULTURE REFERENCES: This should be a bulleted list of all known references within the chapter, preferably with a link to another site with more information (e.g. link to the wikipedia article on the Macbeth character Banquo for Gwen's references to "the Ghost of Banquo"), followed by the reference quote itself in italics. If it is one of Gwen's references to a work, make sure that the work is listed on Gwen's Reading List.

TRIVIA: This should include any miscellaneous information which the reader might find interesting, but which does not fit into the References section above. This may include commentary comparing the Metaworld to its real world counterparts, when the two diverge. If there is a comparison that continues through more than one chapter, it should only be included in the first chapter to which it applies; e.g. information about Fudan University in general should be included in the first chapter in which we see Fudan, not every single chapter in which it features. However, specific information about Fudan University should be included in the chapter in which it is seen, e.g. information about specific locations. If there are notable differences between the web and published versions of the chapters, those should be included here.

CATEGORY: The infobox template will add the Chapters category to the page. TODO: edit the template so that it adds the "Published Chapters" and "Volume # Chapters" categories if relevant.

Spell Page Format
A spell page should primarily consist of the Spells template, which should be filled out with any information that is known. Unknown fields should be left blank. If the "description" field is more than one line long, the template will not automatically italicize those lines, so they should be surrounded in two single quotes on either end. The description field should consist only of official descriptions as featured in formal spell blocks within the story.

The spell name should include a citation to the first chapter in which the spell is seen, plus any subsequent chapters in which it plays an especially notable part. (TODO: decide if there should be a separate section for spells that are seen very frequently, listing the chapters in which they are seen. An example would be Morden's Faithful Hound, which is used in practically every chapter after a certain point.) If specific information is found in a separate chapter from the one cited in the name field (e.g. a spell is shown, with some information, in chapter 5, but we only find out its school in chapter 12), then that citation should be next to the information which is found in that chapter. For example, a spell is shown, with some information, in chapter 5, but we only find out its school in chapter 12. In that instance, the citation in the spell name field would be to chapter 5, and there would be a separate citation to chapter 12 in the school1 field.

The NOTES section should include any relevant information given to us about the spell in-story. This includes descriptions of the spell as given by characters, as opposed to formal descriptions within spell blocks, and descriptions of its use (e.g. how it varies with different elements or components). It may also include especially notable uses of the spell, for example, the testing of Sympathetic Life-Link on Gracie Hillbrook. If there are any aspects of the spell which do not fit into the Spells template, that should be included here as well; for example, Sympathetic Life-Link is a evocation-enchantment-transmutation spell, but the template can only handle two schools for a spell. Therefore, the schools were left out of the template, and the relevant categories ("Evocation Spells" etc) were added by hand.

Finally there should be a REFERENCES section (see Citations above).

The CATEGORIES should mostly be handled by the Spells template, and should include Spells and SCHOOL Spells. If any other schools apply, they should be added: for example, many of the spells found among Henry Kilroy's hidden research are based upon necromancy spells, and therefore may merit the "Necromancy Spells" category in addition to the IMS schools given in the spell blocks.

TODO: decide on other categories. Should there be a category for spell stubs? What about spells which we have very little info about? Should those just go on a list page? At what point should a spell graduate to its own page--when it has a lot of information to go in a "notes" section? When it would take up more than two lines? Two sentences? Should there be a separate template for spell boxes?

Character Pages
Information on character pages should be citable. The exception would be information that is very consistent or oft-stated; for example, the statement that Gwen has long, white legs does not require a citation, as the list of citations would be so long as to be unwieldy. On the other hand, the description of Richard's nose happens in only one chapter, so it should be cited.

The article should begin with the character infobox (Metaworld Character Template 2). See the Gwen Song article for an example of how an extensive relatives field should be formatted; contrast the Richard Huang article. If a stat is theorized but unconfirmed, e.g. Richard's birthday, it should reference a footnote with extra information.

Following the infobox, character articles should have quote by or about the character. Each section following may also have a quote.

(More specific info on character pages to follow, when I make decisions about them.)