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Bulbapedia:Manual of style

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 This article is a proposed guideline for Bulbapedia.

Please discuss the proposed guideline and suggest possible changes on the article's talk page.

This is the working space for the upcoming refresh of the Manual of Style.

Keeping continuity with existing style

The Manual of Style attempts to provide general guidelines for Bulbapedia's preferred style. It cannot address every possible style dispute, and some styles or conventions may be established across Bulbapedia without being formally defined in the Manual of Style. When a style is established (e.g. used used across multiple pages), or where two styles are used interchangeably, a style should not be changed without a good reason. If you want to discuss using an alternate style, please use an article's Talk Page or discuss on the Manual of Style talk page if an edit is needed to the Manual of Style to reconcile differing styles.

General style guidance

This section deals with general style issues across Bulbapedia.

Article titles

The conventions for titles dictate that all proper nouns are capitalized, as are all locations, and names unless specifically not capitalized. Titles are not written like book titles with most words capitalized (unless the article is about a book); note the title of this page as Manual of style, not Manual of Style.

Uniformity in the titling of pages is much appreciated in that it makes for a much more professional appearance with regards to the public perception of Bulbapedia. Any page title that includes a name should not be stored in a biographical format; i.e., "Gary Oak", not "Oak, Gary" as the page title for Ash's rival. In cases where only a first name (Bill) exists, or where a character is known by a title (such as Professor Oak) more than their proper name, those should be used as the sole title of the page. In the case of Professor Oak, redirects from "Prof. Oak" and "Samuel Oak" may be used.

In most cases, titles referring to a specific group should be kept singular, such as item rather than items. However, some exceptions are allowed when the group name is plural, such as Eevee brothers rather than Eevee brother.

Also, only link to an article once within a given portion of text; if you say "Ash" more than once in a paragraph, only link it the first time. Instances further apart may be linked to more than once, it is up to you how far apart to place repeated links. For consistency, if most elements of a list are links, then link to an article as many times as needed in that list.

Japanese titles should be romanized in titles, but see the following sections for details.

Opening line

The full name of the subject of an article should appear within the first few words of the article itself. Alternate and popular names may be described later. The name should be given in its original form if it differs from its Anglicized form. Note that a name need not be romanized more than once. Song, episode and movie titles should be translated, not romanized. Also note that names in languages besides Japanese and English should not be included in the opening line, but rather further in the article, preferably in a section titled In other languages near the bottom with only Related articles and External links following after. Some examples follow:

Archaic
Liam Pomfret, better known as Archaic, is the current head of Bulbagarden.
Hirokazu Tanaka
Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka (Japanese: 田中宏和 but usually credited in hiragana only, born December 13, 1957) is a Japanese composer and musician best known for creating or co-creating various video games by Nintendo.
Hiromoto SIN-Ichi
Hiromoto SIN-Ichi (Japanese: ヒロモト森一 Hiromoto Shin'ichi) is a manga artist, born on January 4, 1966.
Professor Oak
Professor Samuel Oak (Japanese: オーキド・ユキナリ博士 Dr. Yukinari Ōkido, Ookido and Orchid are also seen) is a Pokémon Professor and has a home and research lab located in Pallet Town.
Bulbasaur
Bulbasaur (Japanese: フシギダネ Fushigidane) is a Grass/Poison-type Pokémon.
Aim to Be a Pokémon Master
めざせポケモンマスター (Mezase Pokémon Masutā exact, Mezase Pokémon Master is common; English: Aim to Be a Pokémon Master) was the first opening theme song of the Pokémon anime series, ...

Writing style and opinion

Bulbapedia is an encyclopedia, and as such should use a clear, easily-understood literary style. Writing should be informative and brief, and avoid flowery language or unusual sentence structures.

As an encyclopedia, it is suggested to not use the second-person in descriptions, which can be considered unprofessional. Bulbapedia would write "The Reaper Cloth can be obtained in Turnback Cave" instead of to the less formal "You can get the Reaper Cloth in Turnback Cave."

Check for spelling and grammatical errors before saving changes to a page; if you notice factual or spelling errors on a page other than the ones you have created, please correct the problems, as Bulbapedia is an open project. In order to avoid disagreements over factual accuracy, it is best to cite sources for controversial statements. If presenting one point of view, it is best to also present a contrasting opinion with it.

This policy does not prohibit Bulbapedia from including differeing opinions where they exist in the fandom or the games. However, Bulbapedia does not take a stand on these differences or elevate one point of view over another.

General formatting guidance

  • For backgrounds and templates, obtrusively bright colors should be avoided. Generally, Bulbapedia style favors pastels, particularly green, blue, or gray, depending on the content.
  • Smaller tables are generally considered better, assuming they still have adequate information. Even little things, such as a thin 1px border, are preferred to large borders.
  • When listing a TM or HM as an item, make use of the {{TM}} or {{HM}} templates, written as {{TM|50|Overheat}} for TM50 (Overheat) and {{HM|08|Dive}} for HM08 (Dive).
  • Navigation templates should aspire to be as useful as possible, not as large as possible. Navigation templates do not need to be exhaustive to be useful.
  • Unless there is a specific reason to order them otherwise, lists of Pokémon should be sorted according to their National Pokédex number.

Pokémon franchise terminology

When addressing franchise topics, wiki links should be as specific as possible. References to "the anime" should link to the page "Pokémon anime"; topics for the game should either link to that game's generation or the specific game page. Linking to general pages such as "anime", "games", or "manga" is incorrect.

The é and other special characters

The e-acute (é) is always used where appropriate; always use "Pokémon", not "Pokemon."

With regards to romanized Japanese titles, omit macrons and apostrophes in the title (but create redirects from the accurate romanization if you so desire).

Technical limitations include mandatory capitalization of the first letter of titles and the identical treatment of space, + and _ as spaces. Use {{Wrongtitle}} to make a note of any wrong titles due to technical limitations. Also note that formerly & was not an acceptable character, but now it is acceptable to use up to two ampersands in a title - more than two ampersands in a row will cause problems. Special care must be taken with ?, though usually things will work as expected.

Naming conventions

  • Evolutionary levels should be designated as "unevolved," "first evolution," and "second evolution" for Pokémon that have undergone zero, one, and two evolutions respectively during their development. The TCG terminology of "basic Pokémon," "stage 1 Pokémon" and "stage 2 Pokémon" are not used outside of the TCG pages.
    • For example, in the TCG Pikachu and several other Pokémon are considered Basic Pokémon, but have a pre-evolved form, making them first-evolution Pokémon. This discrepancy typically applies to evolutionary families that include a baby Pokémon.
  • When writing episode names, write them as ''[[Episode code|Episode name]]''; for example, the fifth episode of the original series is Showdown in Pewter City.
  • When multiple numbered routes are to be listed, they should be listed in numerical order, and only the first should have any prefix to it; for example, "Jigglypuff appears on Routes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 34, 35, and 115, depending on the version played" is preferred to "Jigglypuff appears on Route 3, Route 4, Route 5, Route 6, Route 7, Route 8, Route 34, Route 35, and Route 115 depending on the version played". The link template {{rtn}} can be used for handily linking route numbers.

Types

Types are always capitalized.

  • As adjectives, types are "<typename>-type."
  • As nouns referring to a Pokémon of that type, they are "<typename> type"
  • As nouns referring to the types themselves, they are "<typename>" or "the <typename> type."
    • Example: Fire is super effective against Grass-type Pokémon.
    • Example: The Steel type was introduced in Generation II.

Types rendered with a hyphen are adjectives, so should never be pluralized. For example, "Water-types" is never correct. (Anime episode titles may go against the standard, such as The Grass-Type Is Always Greener!.)

Hyphenation

  • "Super effective" is never hyphenated. It formatted with a space when used as the object of a conjugation of the verb "to be" ("The attack was super effective"), but is formatted as one word when used adjectivally in front of a noun ("A supereffective attack").
  • "Day-Care Couple," "Day-Care Man," "Day-Care Lady," and "Day-Care Checker" are all hyphenated as "Day-Care" is used as an adjective in these phrases. "Pokémon Day Care" and "Day Care," when used as nouns, are not hyphenated.

Plurals

  • The plural of "Pokémon" is "Pokémon" and the plural of every Pokémon species is the same as the singular, much like moose or sheep. For example, Those Pikachu are Electric-type Pokémon.
  • Note the following special plurals for item names:

Capitalization

  • The word Pokémon is always capitalized, as are all nouns starting with "Poké" (such as Pokégear, PokéNav and Poké Flute).
  • The names of Pokémon, moves, Abilities, items, and locations are always written in title case (every first letter of a new word capitalized).

Uncapitalized

The following are not capitalized:

The names of all people, Pokémon, moves, Abilities, items, Trainer classes, stats (except accuracy and evasion), and villainous teams are also always capitalized, as are officially named locations (places like "Kurt's house" do not count).

All unofficial terms are lowercase by default, with the exception of the names of generations. While the term "generation" is uncapitalized, specific generation names (e.g. Generation II) are.

Definite article

It is not always immediately obvious whether a particular location or concept should use the definite article "the." The below is a list of such cases according to whether the indefinite article should be used.

In the Generation VIII core series games, the summary location makes clear which locations should use "the" and which should not, so they are not listed here.

Sectional style guidance

For detailed style guidance applicable to various projects on Bulbapedia, please review the subpages below.

Anime

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Anime

Core Games

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Core Games

Manga

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Manga

Side Games

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Side Games

TCG

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/TCG

Language

American English should be used rather than Commonwealth English in Bulbapedia articles. This consistent with most English language Pokémon games, as well as much of Pokémon media as a whole. In general, Bulbapedia follows standard American English style conventions, not all of which are listed within the Manual of Style.

  • Exceptions to the preference for American English are made if the spelling is officially the Commonwealth one, such as "Catalogue."
  • 's should be included at the end of singular possessives ending in s. While it is correct to either omit or include the s after the apostrophe in these cases, Bulbapedia follows the games' convention (for a multitude of reasons, including the games' usage) and appends the s. For example, Iris's should be used, not Iris'.
  • The serial comma should be used where applicable (matching the syntax of the Pokémon games).
  • In an article, the title of an album should be italicized. When writing the titles of individual songs, including anime opening and ending themes, italics should not be used.


Japanese

Kanji

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Kanji

Romanization

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Romanization

Multimedia and external content

Addressing images, videos, and content from other websites and sources.

Images

For further details, please see the Archives manual of style

Images are often a helpful visual addition to the content of articles. However, in some cases, it is questionable what images are best used for articles.

  • If there is official artwork, such as the Sugimori stock artwork or video game sprites, this is always the preferred image.
  • If there is no official artwork, such as screenshots from episodes or manga, ones created by the contributing user are preferred over images taken from other sources. There will inevitably be disputes about which user-created image is best, as there is no exact policy on such; however, the image should generally be the highest quality and most informative image.
  • Animated images should be avoided proportionately with how large and distracting the animation is. Small uses, such as a blinking dot on a world map to indicate location, are non-obtrusive and acceptable.
  • Overwriting existing images is acceptable, since Bulbapedia favors the image with the higher quality, not the greater seniority. However, please avoid disputes by discussing the change with the user who uploaded the former image before uploading the new image.

Videos (including YouTube)

Integration of content from other websites

It is against Bulbapedia's policy, and may be a violation of copyright, to directly copy text from other websites without permission. If other sources consent to allowing their text to appear on Bulbapedia and be subsequently edited and expanded upon to better fit Bulbapedia's style and standards, then and only then editors can directly copy their text into Bulbapedia. In this case, the source must be credited and the text on Bulbapedia will be covered by Bulbapedia's licensing terms.

If Bulbapedia already has information addressing a topic, users should seek to edit and expand that text rather than replace it with another source's words, even if the other source has allowed their text to be used and has more information. Bulbapedia's preferred style prefers original content directly provided from its contributors over content taken from another website.

An important note about Wikipedia content

No matter how similar the two may be, Bulbapedia and Wikipedia do not have compatible licenses. Therefore, for legal reasons as well as those of style, Bulbapedia does not allow articles to be copied directly from Wikipedia. Note that while in the past articles were started with Wikipedia content, this approach is not allowed under current policy.

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