Editing Wiki 24:Manual of Style

{{Wiki 24}}

'''Wiki 24's Manual of Style''' is the collection of editing and contribution [[Wiki 24:Policy|policies]] designed to set a standard format and appearance for all of its articles.  In addition to accuracy and completeness, one of the major goals for which '''Wiki 24''' strives is consistency.

This Manual of Style is designed to ensure that articles are:

# easy to read and understand,
# organized and consistent,
# attractive to the reader, and
# easy to edit

== Keep it simple ==

Above all else, you are encouraged to keep your articles '''simple'''!  Don't try to get too fancy with your markup (like embedding tables within tables).  The easier the markup is, the easier it will be for anyone to edit the article later on.  Our first goal is to reliably and accurately display the information.  The goal of wiki markup is to keep the articles simple and to emphasize the information as much as possible.  We prefer content over form.  For this and other reasons, HTML markup should be avoided in most circumstances.

== Article names ==

There are some general rules regarding how articles on '''Wiki 24''' should be named.

* Article names should be in singular form, not plural.  The only exceptions are things which ''always'' appear in plural form in the English language, such as binoculars or boltcutters.

* The titles of articles about characters should be the name by which the character was most commonly known in the the ''24''verse, with later names preferred to earlier ones, and full names preferred to partial names or nicknames.  Titles such as "Captain," "Doctor," "Agent" or "Mister" should be omitted.

* Unless the name of the article contains a proper noun, only the first word should be capitalized.

* Abbreviations such as "CTU", "DoD", and "FBI" should not be used.  Rather, they should be written out in full ([[Counter Terrorist Unit]], [[Department of Defense]] and [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]) with the a redirect page created for the abbreviation (see "Redirects" below).

* Articles for titles of spin-off material should consist of the item's full title.  For example, "[[24: Conspiracy]]" rather than just "[[Conspiracy]]" or "[[24 Declassified: Veto Power]]" rather than just "[[Veto Power]]".  A redirect of the shorter title is usually a good idea.

* Disambiguation tags may also be necessary in the title.  See below for more information.

== Disambiguation ==

Disambiguation is the process of resolving ambiguity, the conflict that occurs when a term is closely associated with two or more different topics.  In many cases, this word or phrase is the "natural" title of more than one article; however, disambiguation may also serve to differentiate more than one similarly titled article for a reader.  Essentially, disambiguations are paths leading to different topics that share the same term or a similar term.

There are three ways to disambiguate on '''Wiki 24''':

=== Disambiguation tags ===

Disambiguation tags are usually necessary for people, places or things which share the same name.  These tags appear in the title in parentheses, eg. (Day 3), (One Shot), (writer), etc.  Deciding what to title a tag can be tricky, but it should be consistent.

In the case of characters with the same name, tags should indicate which "Day" they appeared (Day 1, Stories, The Game, Veto Power, etc.).  In the case of two characters from the same day, title, position or affiliation may be used to distinguish (Agent/Civilian, Department of Defense/Terrorist, etc.).  These same rules should be applied to non-character articles as well, if possible.

For cross-categorical articles with the same title, the category itself should be used as the disambiguation tag, eg. [[Jessica Abrams (character)]] and [[Jessica Abrams (crew)]].

Disambiguation tags usually won't be necessary for locations.  If two locations share the same name, the titles of the articles should be expanded to be more specific.  For example, "Portland, Oregon" and "Portland, Maine".  "Portland" would then be made into a disambiguation page (see below).

Situations for creating disambiguation tags may vary drastically, so there can be no set rules, but editors are asked to keep them as clear and consistent as possible.

=== Disambiguation notes ===

If there are two articles with similar titles, a disambiguation note is used, in addition to tags.  For example, if someone wanted to search for the novel [[24 Declassified: Collateral Damage]], but merely typed in "Collateral damage", they'd come across the page for the term "[[collateral damage]]."  To help the reader find what they may be looking for, a note is included at the top of the page for "collateral damage":

: ''You may have been looking for the novel [[24 Declassified: Collateral Damage]].''

A similar note is not necessary for the novel page, as it has the more specific title of the two.  However, if the novel had never been preceded with "24 Declassified", a disambiguation page would be created (see below).

=== Disambiguation pages ===

As illustrated above, the most common form of disambiguation page on '''Wiki 24''' distiguishes between character names.  ''24'' is notorious for repeating first and last names of characters and often it can be confusing.  If two characters share an identical name or more than two characters share ''similar'' names, a separate disambiguation page is created.

For example, if there exist three characters named "Bob Smith," "Bob Jones" and "Bob Miller," no disambiguation page is needed.  However, if there later appears a character named simply "Bob," a disambiguation page will need to be created (titled "Bob"), listing all four characters alphabetically with descriptions and links to their proper pages.  The page for the character known only as "Bob" page will contain a disambiguation tag such as "(Day 3)" or "(The Game)."  If any ''other'' character simply named Bob is later created, new disambiguation tags will be used, as illustrated above.

Note that these rules apply exactly the same for last-name-only characters, as well as locations and items which share the same name.

== Article sidebar ==

The first thing on most pages is the sidebar, or "info box", which places a handful of important facts and a picture in the upper-right-hand corner of the article.  To maintain consistency, there are templates that are copied and pasted into new articles for the creation of sidebars.  See [[Wiki 24:Page templates]] for a list of full templates currently used. A shortcut to some common sidebars, without other page template information, can be found at [[Wiki 24:Info boxes]].

== Article introduction ==

Every page should begin with an introduction, briefly summarizing the article for the reader.  The introduction should give a quick explanation of what the article is about and establish its context.  The length of the introduction can vary from a single sentence to multiple paragraphs.  The title or subject of that article should appear in the first line in '''bold'''.  Even though the article title is already listed, it's useful to emphasize the article's subject for the reader.

== Headlines, sections, and spacing ==

To create a new section in an article, surround the headline text with two or more <nowiki>==</nowiki> (equal signs) and include one space between each equal sign and the nearest letter.  The wiki engine will automatically create a table of contents once there are four or more headers in an article.

The first word and all proper nouns of the header should be capitalized, and ''all'' other words lowercase (unless they are proper nouns). For the purposes of keeping the wiki markup accessible to all users, include one blank line between a headline or sub-headline and the subsequent image or paragraph of text. 

Please avoid using links in headers.  Depending on the browser's default settings, some users may not be able to see the links properly.  It is much more useful to place the appropriate link in the first sentence after the header.

To prevent an image at the end of one subsection from running into the header for the next section, type the following template directly above the next header: '''<nowiki>{{-}}</nowiki>'''. This template adds just the right amount of space to keep everything above the header for all browsers. If there is enough text to separate the sections already, the tag will not add space. See also [[Help:Editing#Advanced_editing|advanced editing]].

== Perspective and tense ==

There exist two [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(writing_about_fiction)#Out-of-universe_perspective|perspectives]] of articles on '''Wiki 24''', "in-universe" and "out-of-universe." In-universe describes things which exist within the world of ''24'', while out-of-universe describes things which exist in the real world.  For example, Jack Bauer exists ''in-universe'', while Kiefer Sutherland exists ''out-of-universe''. This policy should be used in conjunction with the [[Wiki_24:Policy#Neutral_point_of_view|neutral point of view policy]].

=== In-universe ===

All in-universe (IU) articles are to be written in the '''past tense''', from the perspective of someone documenting factual events from the future.  This creates consistency across all in-universe articles and eliminates the necessity of subjectively deciding when an unresolved loose end is no longer "current" or "recent."  Additionally, although much of ''24'' takes place in our future, the future tense should ''never'' be used in in-universe articles.

The main body and the introduction of in-universe articles should never refer to the events or characters of the show as such, but rather as if they were real life occurrences and people. Actual real life factors pertaining to the creation and presentation of ''24'', such as actors, "episodes" and the like, are limited to the info box sidebar and the "background information and notes" section of IU articles. 

=== Out-of-universe ===

Out-of-universe (OOU) articles are to be written from a real life point of view, using a combination of past, present and future tense.  For example, the biography of an actor may include all three tenses:

: '''''Jane Snow''' was born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1953.  She currently plays the role of Lola McElroy on ''24''.  Snow will be appearing in the upcoming film ''Full House: The Movie''.''

Articles about episodes, books, comics, games, or other real life ''24'' story material should contain a detailed synopsis of events, written in the simple present tense.

=== Real-world info inclusion policy ===

''24'' is a show which is set in the real world.  While the characters and some other things such as [[CTU]] are fictional, much of what is referred to on the show are things which exist in the real world.  When writing in-universe articles for these things, it's important to only include information that was actually given in the story, and not assume that other "known" facts exist within the ''24''-verse as well.  For example, [[Los Angeles]] is the main location for the show, however it would be inappropriate to include its current population or the year of its incorporation unless it was specifically revealed in an episode or story.

Sometimes however, ''no'' information is given about a real life article and it is necessary to add one or two establishing facts in order for there to be enough to even ''create'' an article.  This should be kept to a minimum and only done when absolutely necessary.

Additionally, it's often useful for a reader to learn ''more'' about a real-world subject as it establishes context for the events in the show.  This can be achieved by posting facts under the "Background information and notes" section and/or linking to an external site, such as Wikipedia.

== Redirects ==

Occasionally, certain characters or items are known by more than one name or more than one spelling.  In most situations, it's wise to create redirect pages for any and all alternate titles that may be queried when looking for a specific article.

To create a redirect page, type the following in the edit field:
: '''<nowiki>#REDIRECT [[</nowiki>''RealArticle''<nowiki>]]</nowiki>'''


[[Category:Wiki 24]]