Tesseract:Style guide
This style guide has the simple purpose of making the Tesseract Wiki easy to read by establishing a certain format. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does things the same way, the articles will be easier to read and use, along with being easier to write and edit. Reading the style guide is important to ensure that each user's edits will be consistent with those of other users.
Article titles[edit source]
Pages must have appropriate titles. Page names should always be exactly the same as the name of the subject (as written in the script), except when multiple subjects have the same name (and thus disambiguation parentheses are required). In cases where other sources are inconsistent with script names, the script names and capitalization should be used, with redirects utilized for other names.
- Names, locations, and titles should all be capitalized appropriately. Capitalization rarely applies to every word in the article title.
- A rule of thumb for article titles is that only the first letter of the first word in an item name should be capitalized. Some exceptions exist:
- The title might contain a proper noun.
- The title might contain capitals.
- Block capitals should not be used in titles: 'Article titles', not 'ARTICLE TITLES'.
- Pages about organizations should use the organization's full name where it is known, e.g. Advanced Idea Mechanics, not A.I.M.
- Words such as articles (a,an, and the) and short prepositions (e.g. in, of, from) should be left capitalized, unless the first word of the title.
- Families should be titled "<surname> family": Manfredi family.
Sometimes technical restrictions of MediaWiki prevent editors naming pages after their script names:
- The subject name does not begin with a capital letter.
- The subject name includes a character that cannot be used in page names, including, but not limited to: | and #.
- The subject begins with a string that would put the page in the wrong namespace. Such strings might include: "Project:", "Tesseract:", "File:", or "User:", etc.
In such cases, problem characters should be replaced with substitutes, or left out altogether. Generally, replace "|" with "-", and ":" in namespaces with "-"; leave out "#". The DISPLAYTITLE magic word should be used to display the correct, unmodified title.
Additionally, in cases where the subject name contains a forward slash ("/"), this character will have a special meaning and incorrectly create a "subpage". These false subpages should be at the same name.
In all cases, the {{Restricted title}} template should be used (and a brief explanation given) to mark the page as such.
Sections and headings[edit source]
Separating articles into sections makes them easy to read and navigate. Headings are used to split articles into sections.
Markup[edit source]
Use two equal signs (==) style markup for headings. Start with ==, add the heading title, then end with ==.
This section's heading was created with the markup:
==Sections and headings==
This subsection's heading was created with the markup:
===Markup===
Wording[edit source]
- In a heading, capitalize only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns, and leave all of the other letters in lowercase.
- Avoid putting links in headings.
- Make sure that the heading has an appropriate and accurate title, as this is important to help readers navigate the article.
- Keep headings short.
Lead sections[edit source]
A lead (introduction) summarises the most important points of an article, creating interest in the topic. Thus, it should be limited to a few paragraphs. Certain information, such as trivia, should be in a separate section instead of in the lead. This applies only to articles that are of sufficient length to incorporate a lead.
Articles about a subject that are referred to by multiple names should mention their script name before mentioning the full name. For example, on Moon Knight, the start of the article should say something in the format of "Marc Spector, also known by the pseudonym Steven Grant, ...". When the script name is part of the subject's full name, the full name should be included right away. See the bolding section for more information about bolding guidelines.
Pronunciation[edit source]
If the name of the article has a pronunciation that is not apparent from its spelling, include a pronunciation guide in parentheses after the first occurrence of the name.
Most such terms are proper nouns that solely exist in Marvel Cinematic Universe lore, words or phrases based on foreign languages, or very unusual English words (Mjolnir). Do not include them for common English words, even if the pronunciations are counterintuitive for learners. If the name of the article is more than one word, include pronunciation only for the words that need it. In the lead section, caution should be used to avoid creating overly long transcriptions. Less important pronunciations should be omitted altogether or relegated to a footnote or a dedicated section in the article or infobox.
Text elements[edit source]
Internal links[edit source]
- It is not necessary to link an article each time it reappears in a page. For example, Thanos may be mentioned five times on a particular page. You should only have to link to Thanos once: the first time it is mentioned. You can link to articles more than once if the page is very long.
- Piped link formats for simple plurals are generally unnecessary. For example, use
[[Captain America's shield]]sinstead of[[Captain America's shield|Captain America's shields]]. - On the other hand, use a piped link when appropriate, such as when the whole word is changed when plural. Don't be afraid to use a piped link when necessary, particularly if avoiding them contorts the language unnecessarily, or introduces spelling or grammatical errors into the article. Piped links have legitimate uses in an article.
- When including wiki-links in an article, there is no need to use underscores, since the software produces them automatically.
- Do not place the last letters of a plural outside of a link that already has alternate text.
- When possible, avoid placing links next to each other so that they look like a single link (a "sea of blue"), as in
[[Captain America|Captain America's]] [[shield]], as this makes it harder for users to identify where they are going to be directed to when clicking a link. Consider rephrasing the sentence to break up the links instead or alternatively do not link every word/phrase and only link the significant word/phrase, e.g.[[Captain America's shield]].
Interwiki links[edit source]
If the subject of an article is covered by Wikipedia, the article should be linked using the {{External}} template at the top of the article. This generates colored tabs with icons that link to the other wikis shown next to the "Discussion" tab above an article's title. An example of this can be seen on the article for Doctor Strange, where {{External|wp}} was added at the top of the page, adding links to Wikipedia.
External links[edit source]
Feel free to link to other sites, such as the Marvel home page. However, you may want to avoid linking to other wikis, unless it has exceptional content that cannot be reproduced here or because of copyrights.
Bold and italics[edit source]
Italics are mainly used to emphasize certain words, though they should be used sparingly. Italics may make longer phrases or sentences difficult to read. Bold is used as a stronger emphasis than italics, although it should be used sparingly as well. The first appearance of an article's title in the article should always be boldfaced.
Bold and italics combined emphasize selections well, but should be used extremely rarely. There are no common cases in which bold and italics are used together. Excessive use of any of these text elements will make the entire article difficult to read, so please use them in appropriate situations.
Italics should not be used on any quotes, which should always be delimited with quotation marks. The final punctuation mark of an italic section should sit outside of the italics.
Titles of works[edit source]
Titles of works (e.g., books, movies) have standards in styling that should be appropriately followed here as well. Common examples for each type are listed below. For an exhaustive list, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style for titles.
Italics[edit source]
Below are commonly encountered examples of types of works that should use italics.
- Books; e.g., The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Video games; e.g., Minecraft
- Films; e.g., Casablanca
- Television shows; e.g., The Simpsons
Quotation marks[edit source]
Below are commonly encountered examples of types of works that should use quotation marks.
- Short stories; e.g., "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
- Songs; e.g., "Sandstorm"
- For practicality's sake, this should only apply to real world songs, not any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's soundtracks.
- Use "straight" quotes, not “curly”. (For single quotes or apostrophes: 'straight', not ‘curly’.)
- Typographical, or curly, quotation marks and apostrophes might be read more efficiently, and many think they look better. However, for practical reasons the straight versions are used on the Tesseract Wiki.
- Consistency keeps searches predictable. Though most browsers don't distinguish between curly and straight marks, Internet Explorer still does (as of 2022).
- Straight quotation marks are easier to type reliably on most platforms.
Numbers[edit source]
For numbers, a comma should be used as a thousands separator.
Number ranges should be indicated with an endash (–; HTML entity: –) rather than a hyphen; e.g., "1–5" is correct, but "1-5" is not.
Generally, in paragraph text:
- Natural numbers less than ten should always be expressed in words (e.g. "one", "two", "three").
- Otherwise, numbers that can be expressed as one or two words may be expressed either in words or in numerals (e.g. "ten" or "10", "twenty-one" or "21", "two hundred" or "200").
- Otherwise, numbers should be expressed in numerals or other widely used symbols (e.g. "123", "1,500,000", $ \pi $).
Floor numbering[edit source]
Use the American convention for floor numbering: 1st floor is the British ground floor, 2nd floor is the British 1st floor, etc.
{{Floor number}} should be used instead of writing the floor number as plain text.
Grammar and spelling[edit source]
Case[edit source]
Item and character names almost always begin with a capital letter in the script. In prose, this can and usually should be made lowercase (including in links) if the word is not a proper noun. Common sense and examples from similar/related items should be used to provide additional cues on if the word should be considered a proper noun.
Redirects should be used to cover pages that are not already all lowercase, or have inconsistent or unusual capitalization.
Abbreviations[edit source]
Try not to use abbreviations. The reader may not know what these abbreviations mean. And, as far as looks go, it's much more pleasing to the eye to look at "Doctor Strange was a well known neurosurgeon." than "Doc Strnge wuz a wll nown nersurg." It's even worse when you type something in "Leet Speak" also known as "1337 5P34K." This wiki's preferred language is American English, not numbers.
Punctuation[edit source]
If you are listing three or more things, each of them should have a serial/Oxford comma at the end. For example, "thing one, thing two, and thing three" would be correct; "thing one, thing two and thing three" would not be.
Usage and spelling[edit source]
American spelling should be used at all times. Almost everything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe uses the American spelling, making this rule easy to follow; however, exceptions do exist, and script spelling should be used in favor of British spelling in those cases.
See also: American and British English spelling differences
Tense[edit source]
A rule of thumb is to use present tense in all cases. An exception to this rule would be events that have occurred in the past. For future and upcoming media that have been confirmed by Disney, use the future tense.
- Past tense: Past events
- Future tense: Future and upcoming media that have been confirmed; See also: Tesseract:Future content
- Present tense: All other cases
Point of view[edit source]
Articles should be written in the third person or objective point of view. Using the word "you" in articles is informal and should be avoided except if it is inside a quotation.
Images[edit source]
Some general guidelines which should be followed are listed below.
- The preferred format for images is PNG.
- Right-alignment is preferred to left- or center-alignment. However, center-alignment can be used for some images in rare cases.
- Personal images which are only used on a userpage should not be uploaded. Images should be able to be used on main space articles, else they will be deleted.
- Don't upload images we already have. We have many users doing this and it is not good to have multiple images! Before you upload an image, search the wiki if someone has already uploaded a version of it. We don't need
[[File:Thanos.PNG]]if someone has already uploaded[[File:Thanos.png]].
Captions[edit source]
Complete sentences in captions should always end in a full stop (period). If the caption is not a complete sentence, it generally should not have a full stop at the end. Captions should also not be italicized.
Dates and times[edit source]
Use the month before day format ("month day, year"—May 2, 2008) rather than a day before month format (such as "day month year"—1 May 2008). Note that commas are used in the month before day format.
Time references[edit source]
Prefer specific statements of time by date, including year, to general ones (e.g., currently, recent, recently, soon). Articles should always contain current information, so there should be no reason to specify that it is current, unless there is some expectation that it could change.
For example, avoid statements like "Marvel recently released Doctor Strange" or "Marvel released Doctor Strange last November." Statements could remain in place for years. Instead write statements like "Marvel released Doctor Strange in November 2016."
Time zones[edit source]
The time zone used to indicate anything should be UTC, as this is a constant time that does not need to be adjusted for daylight saving time.