It illustrates standards of conduct which are widely accepted among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. In situations the policy does not cover, please contact an Administrator for guidance. Except for minor edits, please use the Suggestions forum to propose changes to this policy. Before editing or posting on this wiki, please review the Code of Conduct first. Be aware that any content posted on this wiki will likely be edited at some point by other users. Everyone is working together to make the American Gods Wiki better. Please do not take offense. |
This Style Guide is an official guide on how all of the American Gods Wiki articles should appear. In order to not restrict editors to a specific style, this guide is intended to make the wiki consistent, clear, and precise and to help editors with language, layout, and formatting.
Additional Guidelines:
- Layout Guide for the layouts used on articles.
- Category Guide for proper categorization of articles.
- Media Guide for uploading images.
- Template Guide for templates available to use.
General
- Correct spelling and grammar is to be used on the articles.
- This is an American television show so American English is used on this wiki.
- Spelling examples: color instead of colour, familiarize instead of familiarise, offense instead of offence, while instead of whilst, worshiping instead of worshipping
- Commas and periods go inside quotation marks.
- Dates are written in American format: Month DD, YYYY.
- The serial comma is used.
- Numbers under ten should be spelled out.
- Avoid making many small and consecutive edits on an article. Editing errors are understandable. Making edits to boost achievement points is not okay.
- Try to combine multiple edits into one save per page section where possible.
- Use the "Preview" button before saving the edit to ensure everything is the way it should be.
- Foreign words and phrases should always be italicized.
Perspective and tense
- All articles are written in third person.
- Articles should be written from a neutral point of view. This means the article should be informative, unbiased, and factual rather than speculative and should not include personal opinion.
- Use present tense within articles regardless of whether a character is dead or alive (especially since death is not always final). Such articles include: Character, Chapter, Episode, Location, and Novel articles.
- Example: "Shadow Moon is a character featured in American Gods. Shadow is the main protagonist and bodyguard for Mr. Wednesday and is the widower of Laura Moon."
- Example: "Laura Moon is a character featured in American Gods. Laura is the dead wife of the main protagonist, Shadow Moon."
Special formatting
- To avoid too many pages, please do not make a page for characters or subjects who appear in less than 2 chapters/episodes. There are always some exceptions, however, these should be discussed prior to the page creation.
- To help avoid confusion, the novel is canon unless or until the series directly contradicts it. The differences can then be noted on the corresponding series and/or novel pages.
- Titles of pages should be in bold (i.e. Shadow Moon).
- Episode titles are used as minor headings in the Significance in series and Quotes sections to easily identify episodes. Episode titles should be written in quotes (i.e. "The Bone Orchard").
- The show/novel name should be written in italics (i.e. American Gods).
- To reduce page volume and the need to edit multiple locations, duplicate/redundant information should be linked via {{Main|Page Name}} to the original page with a brief summary.
- Proper nouns are capitalized (Eagle Point, House on the Rock, First Illinois Bank, Earth, Old Gods, etc...)
- Per Wikipedia guidelines, proper names and titles referencing deities are capitalized (God, Allah, Freyja, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah)
- Common nouns not used as titles should not be capitalized (the Norse gods, personal god)
- When a proper noun is always referred to with its definite article (i.e. "The Bone Orchard," The Monarch of the Glen), include it in the article title. Otherwise, omit it or create a redirect to the simplified version.
- IMDB and Wikipedia already maintain comprehensive and up-to-date profiles on cast and crew members. There is no need to duplicate that information onto this wiki and it is perfectly acceptable to externally link to IMDB and/or Wikipedia. This can be done within the {{Character}} infobox as shown on the Template page.
Linking
- Avoid linking to the current page.
- Captions on pictures are excluded.
- Quotes sections on Character articles are excluded.
- To prevent over-linking, link something only once per section of the article.
Referencing
- Spoilers from confirmed sources (i.e. writers, producers, actors, network) can be used on article pages as long as they are properly referenced.
- Unsanctioned spoilers and spoilers from unofficial sources belong in the Spoiler forum or a blog post, not on article pages.
- If an event occurs in the novel or show, it does not need a reference.
- Please try to properly cite references and always include a link to the original source.
- References must be from a valid source (not a personal blog on tumblr or a spoiler speculation site).